We have not written much about Côte d’Ivoire, but we now have a reason thanks to the Barcamp Abidjan 2010 which occurred from the 5th till the 7th of March.

A few notable speakers took part in the Barcamp, they include

• Google
• Paul Sika,
• Jean Patrick Ehouman
• Ameyah Debrah
• E-tranzact
• VIPnet
• Web4Africa,

Uche Eze, the founder of Bellanaija a blog which is can be described as a  TMZ for Nigeria, was recently featured on Oprah.

She was interviewed via Skype for a show called “Beauty Around the World”

Ms. Eche said the following about the incidence

At the beginning of the year, I was having a conversation with my best friend – we were discussing our aspirations for the year and beyond. I can’t remember the specifics of the earlier part of the conversation but I remember the end. I said something along the lines of “…I really want to be on Oprah!…that’s the ultimate” I remember him saying “Well, you better hurry up because she is retiring her show next year”. So the conversation ended and life went on.

Naijalingo is an online dictionary of Nigerian pidgin founded by two Nigerians.  The main idea behind Naijalingo is to provide definitions of Nigerian pidgin or slang terms.

Signing up to NaijaLingo provides you with the ability to actually add and modify content on the platform. Your level of authority is proportional to your contribution/participation.

Members of Naijalingo have rankings like

Noel Hwande is a tech entreprenuer who founded one of my favourite Southern African start-ups, Qiqima.

Qiqima call to fame is the heavy emphasis they place on SMS and text. This concept is especially attractive since mobile penetration is higher than internet penetration in some areas in the continent.

TechMasai: What is Qiqima and what inspired the project?

Mr. Hwande: Qiqima is a micro blogging platform that is built around mobile communication and promotes interactions in both public and private virtual communities.

The Kenyan media has taken a liking to iHub the Kenyan incubation hub. iHub was  featured in a local television channel KTN.

The fact they were profiled is surprising since the Kenyan (African in general) media previously had a policy to not show any local content concerning tech.

Application developers, web designers and other techies in Nairobi now have a place to meet, network and get connected to the right people to further their causes.

African Scholar is a website we found out about from Africa Unchained.  The aim of African Scholar is to

provide information on scholarships available to African Students, colleges and universities, test preparation, entry level job and internship opportunities, as well as opportunities to interact with admissions specialists, scholarships administrators and other Africanstudents around the world.

The goal is to help parents and students navigate through the sometimes complicated admissions process and give Africans an opportunity to capitalize on opportunities available to them around the world.

Starcomm is an innovative Nigerian telecommunications company. According to Nigerian blogger Loy Okezie they have launched a location tracking service called Star Tracker. He stated

If you ever need to track your friends location within Nigeria via your mobile phone, Starcomms has just made it easier. Thanks to the availability of GPS-enabled phones among other factors, the LBS (location-based services) market is set to boom in Nigeria.

TEDxAmsterdam: Mark Kamau from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.

Naijapulse is a microblogging site from Nigeria, which launched a few months ago. As with all microblogging services, you are encouraged to update your profile using small pulses, which at maximum are 140 characters.

Naijapulse was founded by a group called Naijand which specializes in Nigerian web 2.0 technology. They did an average job.

Personally I found the idea of behind naijapulse very brilliant and innovative.

Some basic features include

• Post your blog feeds to your profile
• Set up an account using Open-ID
• Send updates to your twitter or facebook accounts

We haven’t confirmed this, but respected SEO blog and social media blog Social Media Today has written a post stating that Google Adsense is now available in Kenyan shillings. I quote

Kenyan bloggers and website owners are now pleased to note that they can receive their Google Adsense earnings in Kenyan Shillings.

This was not the case previously and many website owners had difficulty banking the foreign currency(Dollar or Euros) cheques with their local banks, Further ,payment would be delayed for up to 21 working days from the date of receipt with Banks charging commissions on the cheques.

Map kibera

Map Kibera is probably one of the best grassroots technology initiatives to happen in Kenya this year. The idea is to map Kibera slum, one of the biggest slums in Kenya.

If you do not know what a slum is, a slum is like a ghetto but probably worse.

Slums suck worst of all not really due to the crime and poverty prevalent in them, but the unregulated, and unstructured nature of the environment. The lack of information about Kibera slums has very serious repercussions to anyone who wants to foster any change within the community.

The way Map Kibera works is that

The Grid

The Grid, the mobile social network from South Africa is the first company  I personally know of, to attempt to enter the Nigerian web market.

The Grid version launched in Nigeria, has a few features missing from it.  Like the location based information

. However The Grid made up for this lapse by rolling out a few more features for fans of the service. The changes include stuff like twitter integration, change to their interface.

I was am a big fan of Twyka; the Kenyan microblogging platform until I could not take it any longer. I am done with Twyka until they fix the severe problems they have with their community, and interface.

The relationship started of wonderful enough, we were one of the first people who profiled Twyka just a few hours after their launch. We felt that Twyka was the one we were waiting for; the Kenyan microblogging platform which will allow us to forge a new connection with microbloggers in the region.

Ugandan Flag

A sad incident is taking place in Kampala, Uganda. Riots occurred when the president of Uganda had a misunderstanding with the Baganda King, one of the majority tribes in central Uganda. The situation got out of hand and now we have riots in Kampala. To read an article about the whole incident click here, or on Aljazeera here.

At this point details coming in are still sketchy at best, but you can read articles from Ugandan content sites like The Observer and The Monitor. You could also follow the following twitter accounts