Google Wave use cases in Africa With al...

Google Wave use cases in Africa

With all the Google Wave hype sprouting up all over the web I've been left slightly underwhelmed. The reasons are relatively simple; I don't know enough people using Wave to interact with and I'm not doing business or working on projects with the people I do know on Wave.With that said though, I can see some potential use cases for Wave in Africa.Generally there are some fundamental problems with the Internet through Africa. The biggest of the lot involve the digital divide.

Wave in the classroom

Let's, for a second, imagine that a School A in South Africa partnered with School B in an area that was struggling to find quality educators.School A provides a computer room with 20 PCs and broadband Internet (potentially sponsored by Telkom/Mweb/etc) and goes to lengths to educate the pupils on web usage and Google Wave. This would be a laborious process, I agree, but let's just imagine.What could happen next is almost magical. Students receiving lectures from the teacher at School A could start a Wave, "Mathematics, Grade 12, class 14". School A's students and teacher could make notes, upload documents and collaborate on these documents and lecture notes with School B. Thus educators in School A could partially attribute to School B's education. This is not a foolproof, 100% solid solution to a massive education problem Africa faces, but it is possible.

University collaboration

Along similar lines as the school example above. University lecture and project collaboration could become seamless across African borders. Students and lecturers could share, comment and interact with one another in real-time. No delays, no restrictions (other than the broadband issue) and no bureaucratic processes to concern themselves with while debating with multiple scholars from multiple disciplines across multiple borders. Just simple debate.Access to previously restricted or hard to reach areas and school of knowledge could be opened up to an immense audience in Africa that his hungry for the chance to interact with other pools of knowledge.Of course the major challenge with this example is that it hinges on many people committing to a Wave and contributing to it on a consistent basis.

Business Mentoring

Small businesses are the way of the future for South Africa and Africa on a large scale. What many of these small businesses and young entrepreneurs are missing is guidance.A mentorship Wave that provides valuable readings, insights, guidance and tips could be invaluable to businesses people trying to stake their claim and start up a successful business.You may argue that many of these business people wont have access to the web, well there are Internet cafes across the country that hundreds of thousands of people use on a daily basis.

More...

Are there any more use cases? Without a doubt. Have we realised the potential of real-time collaboration yet? Probably not. But the future is there for the taking.Let me know how you might see Google Wave being implemented in Africa.

20 albums to educate your children with

I attended a 1st birthday yesterday. I gave the child in question a strange birthday present for a first birthday. I gave him his very first two music albums. That got me thinking about the music that I would try to educate my child with one day.So here is a list of the 20 greatest albums that will help to educate your child, one day:#20Elvis, 30 #1 hits

#19The Beach Boys, Today!

#18Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman

#17Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge over troubles water

#16Cat Stevens, Early tapes

#15Elton John, Goodbye yellow brick road

#14The Foo Fighters, In your honour (Disc 1)

#13Nirvana, MTV unplugged in New York

#12Marvin Gaye, Let's get it on

#11Aretha Franklin, Lady soul

#10U2, The Joshua Tree

#9Greenday, American idiot

#8Fatboy Slim, You've come a long way baby

#7Jamiroquai, Emergency on planet Earth

#6Dave Matthews Band, Under the table and dreaming

#5Fleetwood Mac, Rumours

#4George Michael, Older

#3Bob Marley, Legend

#2The Beatles, 1962 - 1966

#1Queen, Greatest Hits I & II

OK, so I cheated on #1 and gave you a double hit. But Queen, it gets no better.I've thrown in some way back classics, some soul, some funk, some punk, some rock, some now and then and some never to be repeated again.These are my 20, not necessarily the best 20 ever in the world, just my 20. This is very subjective. But if I ever have a child, I want him/her to know these bands, groups or individuals. In my life, they defined me and my taste in music.So thanks to Jayx for this little idea. I am not fond of tagging on blogs, I hate writing ten things, 5 secrets, 50 ideas blah, blah, blah. BUT I do love music and I am extremely interested to know what bloggers listen to and what they regard as classic, eternal music.So I am ammending this post to ask ten other bloggers to post their TOP TEN albums that they would educate their kids with.Here goes:JayxMatthewJustinVincentPaulRafiqSheenaCodaGrantMikeGregor(OK it's more than ten, so shoot me).I hope you all respond and post your top ten albums!

Striking, Violence and Idiots

12% is one helluva increase don't you think? I do. I understand that there needs to be an increase, I really do and the teachers, nurses and other public servants definitely need the recognition and the increase.Is it not possible however, to note that an increase of this size cannot be afforded by our government?At the end of the day the only people who are suffering are those who need care and those who need to be educated. Wake up and smell the injustice.