The first Web4Dev Conference in Africa

I recently returned from the Web4Dev conference where Christian Kreutz from GTZ, and I held a workshop titled “Potentials of Web 2.0 for Development”. The conference was hosted by UN-Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya.

I didn’t see “the big five” as I traveled only for the duration of the conference, but here are my personal “big three” encounters of the conference:

Hellene Karamagi: At the web2fordev conference in Rome, the Brosdi project became renown as one of the most exemplary examples of how Web 2.0 can help rural development. When I invited myself to Hellene’s table for lunch, I had no idea that she was Edna’s sister! What a wonderful surprise! And we went on to discuss how you could use web 2.0 tools to increase knowledge of and insight into rural development issues.  Imagine this: A portal on supply chain market information tools, with only a tag cloud on the homepage… inspirational Hellene!

Unicef: Only a couple of sentences exchanged with Christopher Fabian and it becomes clear that here is a champion, in any version of the Web or communication for that matter. The recently launched Innovation Unit at Unicef is doing some exciting things like the global voices, see http://x.mepemepe.com . A space to watch!

WaterWiki: Although I missed Juerg Staudenmann’s presentation, I was excited to hear during the summary in the final plenary that the influence of an enthusiastic intern can go so far as to trigger an institution such as the UNDP to create a thematic wiki.

Modeled on the similar lines to Wikipedia, WaterWiki was conceived as a means of collecting information and systematically documenting the situation on Water Governance in Europe and the CIS. It is a knowledge platform and on-line collaboration tool for water practitioners and experts in Europe and the CIS revolving around a community of Practice (CoP).

Of course each conference has it’s own dynamic, but I couldn’t help being reminded of the enormously high level of energy and enthusiasm that was present at the Web2ForDev conference.

I was asked why the web2fordev conference had been held separate from the web4dev conference… the nature of the topic I think merits a separate event, at least initially. But maybe next year, the two can benefit more closely from each other. In any case, Christian Kreutz and I tried to represent the web2fordev spirit and movement, and bridge the two events. Our presentation (with comments) will be available soon.