DR Congo is in the news a lot lately. Rebel General Laurent Nkunda has been firing up the warfare again in the eastern part of the country, a bit to the north of where I visited a few months ago. This history behind all of this is complex. I thinks it's about as complex as the Yugoslavian wars, except with a helluva lot more acronyms and long names to remember. So, it's probably worth clearing up a few things. First, if you hear 'Congo' in the news, it is always DRC. The other Congo is much smaller, to the north of the big one, was a French colonial, and has Brazzaville as a capital, not Kinshasa. It has problems as well, but nothing to the scale of big Congo, which was also the Belgian one by the way.
With that out of the way, it's probably best to kick out a few links that do a much better job of explaining things than I could ever hope to. I think that my Yugoslavia explanation is pretty tight at the moment, but Congo is just too twisted up for me to break down succinctly and I feel like I'd be doing a massive disservice to the millions of people who have died in this devolving twistedness. If you do want something that's a quicker read though, take a look at this BBC article. It doesn't cover as much history as needed, but it gives a decent rundown for someone who wants to be a little more knowledgeable, but not annoyingly so.
For everyone who wants to really bug the crap out of people with details at your next soiree, yet offer a solid alternative to US political discussions, I turn to Wronging Rights. Their shit is in depth and I'm told they hold their liquor like coal miners. They also happen to be that rare example of the "good lawyer" working in human rights. So if you really want to dig in to Congolisciousness read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. They infuse a good deal of sarcasm in there that makes the reading not just an endless rant of dates and biznak. Party, party!
First off, any photographer, writer, musician, artist, or pizza delivery guy that goes by one name like Rankin does, is bound to be an ass and a bit out of touch with the "real" world. By "real" world, I mean the one in which people like you and I watch things called, "Real World" because our lives are so inordinately mundane. Now, these one named people love to do things to show that they do in fact "get it" and obviously Rankin has done such an event or I wouldn't be bothering to write about him.
Twiddling his thumbs in what I'm sure is a sunny, West End breakfast nook one day, Rankin apparently got the idea to go to DR Congo and photograph people living in Mugunga refugee camp. You can take a look at the photos. They're good photos as would be expected from a high end fashion photographer. The thought behind them was to shoot the subjects in a high fashion manner so that people could better relate to them. This is of course where the controversy started because this is asinine. They're human beings. We can relate to them no matter what. But such is the generally inept approach toward Africa. If you feel like reading more commentary, then take a look at: Uganda Scarlett Lion, Wronging Rights, and to a lesser extent Chis Blattman. These are all excellent blogs by the way, which are worth reading on a regular basis unless of course you don't like sarcasm, in which case, what the hell are you doing reading my blog?
In my mind, a better approach would have been for Rankin to "arm" locals in the area with cameras and help them to shoot what they see from their vantage. While the photos wouldn't be artistic at first, they would be honest. Rankin's work is not honest. It's a fabrication and when something is fabricated through a camera, I can't stand it. It's one of the few mediums we have that allows us a window on to another time or place that we don't immediately have access to. This is the point of it; all else is secondary. If we're to "understand the plight" of the people living in the Kivus, then we really need to actually see people living in region and know who they are. As it is, this seems like an anthropological documentation of a foreign species. It fails on all levels except getting Rankin press and making him feel like he did some good by being there for two weeks.
One impressive human powered device that I saw at BarCampAfrica was this foot-powered water pump made by KickStart who are a group developing incredibly cheap and reliable devices for Africans. The fellow who was presenting what they do was Martin Fisher. This guy knows his business. I don't know if it's because he's given this talk countless times or he is just solid in knowing what works and what doesn't in providing these technologies.
While the name, Super MoneyMaker is rather cheesy, I think it's all part of the fact that there are two sides to what KickStart does. One is creating these devices and selling them. The other is to educate people in the region about their devices and why they should spend $100 (this is about half to all what a family lives on in most regions) of their money on buying one of these pumps. Thus the rather obvious name. They understand the market. They know what's needed. They're making equipment to fill that market. This is a basic premise in the economies of Developed Nations, but it is something which is impossible for most external aid entities to understand when it comes to Africa. Kickstart gets it though.
As you can see, I'm a fan. I told Martin that and this is the difference from the previous article and Potenco. I will happily go on about KickStart and I could see by the smirks I got from others at the conference that they don't think it's all that significant. But, it is. Aiding a community with simple technology upon which they have ownership improves their lives immediately. Coming in, dumping mobile phones on them along with some portable chargers does nothing but give them another expense. People keep touting, "Oh, then they call in to the market and find out the prices and can sell optimally when they have a mobile phone." I've heard this argument several times now to the point where I don't buy it and chalk it up to Western views being tossed upon Africa to show that Western technology works when in actuality, it doesn't. But, mobile phones are sexy. A simple, foot-operated water pump isn't sexy. Yet, it is so necessary. I suppose this type of thing is hard to understand when you didn't grow up on a farm like I did and understand that water is the most precious thing in the world.
I mean, sure, maybe down the road I'll find out something awful about KickStart and truth be told, I found Martin's statements about the UN to be less than amazing. But from where I was sitting, this group is one of the few that really knows what they're doing in their initiatives in Africa.
At BarCampAfrica, I met this fellow named Karl from Potenco who was excitedly showing everyone this human-powered generator that he had with him. It looked like an overblown yo yo and you can see me holding one below. It has all kinds of capabilities which they go in to on their website in more detail. Suffice to say, it's a good answer to the mobile power generator issue. This may not seem like a big deal to those of us in the US or Europe as we have constant power, but for folks in Africa and other developing regions, getting at a constant source of power is an issue. You can see this in DR Congo anywhere this is a live power outlet because there will almost always be a mobile phone (or 10) plugged in to it for a charge.
I think what Potenco is creating is cool, although somewhere down the line, we may finally moved beyond the need for such primitive power generation and we'll finally understand solar or some other form of energy. I think that the only real flaw with this group is that they're doing what Americans do best, in that they see a need and they're attempting to fill it for a profit. Their main goal is to find someone like Nokia to sell this device to in order to get it out there. The mobile phone companies are heavily vested in trying to spread phones across developing nations and so a device like this for powering them is going to be needed. Most folks are going to find little use for this device outside of powering a mobile phone unless they want to have an LED light on at night instead of kerosene.
Honestly, there's nothing wrong with this approach, but you're not going to make an evangelist out of anyone with it. Those of us who really care and want to heavily invest our time in to promoting something that we think could make peoples' lives better are going to skip a for-profit product like this because in the end, it's no better than say making a new toaster for people to buy and promoting that. All I can say is, "Hey, good luck with that."
I didn't have a very positive outlook about it going in to the day of BarCampAfrica. My main thought was to talk to people who I think are doing very interesting things and who I really wanted to get to know better. It was a simple goal. The topics seemed great, but the format seemed off. Such is the good and the bad with these events of which I feel there was a lot more good for what I was personally trying to work on.
But before looking at all that was great about this BarCamp, it really needs to be noted that there were problems and that they stemmed from the fact that a conference format was trying to be mixed with an unconference format. Basically, this is like trying to mix wet and dry in that you end up with some kind of soupy thing. Such was the case with what ultimately ended up being a couple of sets of moderated panels mixed up with breakout sessions. They ended up trampling on one another and it seems that most people gave up on one or the other and just mingled in the common spaces. And even though it may have hurt Guy Kawasaki's feelings that we weren't all rushing in to hear his moderating of a panel, it was for the better that people were chatting and coming up with ideas in the true BarCamp intent.
Let's move on to the goodness though and number one on this list is that I absolutely have to say that Google were fantastic hosts. They went above and beyond the call of duty by providing a location, a venue, and flying a number of people to the event all free of charge. Tara of Google.org was the tough head of the organizing, but she was extremely cool and great at keeping order in a way that didn't make you dislike her. Even though things were running way, way off schedule, she did everything she could to make sure it stayed enjoyable. I had a lengthy chat with her at the end of the day and have to say that I respect what she does a great deal.
Then of course there was the food that Google provided. Holy crap the employees there are treated well. The breakfast had brilliant scones and the lunch was a simply perfect salad, pasta, and other items. They even had Mighty Leaf Tea which I took full advantage of as I was extremely tired after putting in some long days on Maneno leading up to the event.
When it came to those setting up the event, Kaushal Jhalla stood out as doing a great job linking people up. He was responsible for putting me in contact with a great many people I would have missed otherwise because I simply didn't know who they were. His knowledge of everyone who was attending was something that he used that day to connect people together who were working on similar projects that could help one another. That worked very well and it wasn't just me that he linked up. He was doing it for everyone.
I mentioned previously how the schedule fell apart pretty fast. Or, maybe it just did for me. I got lost as to what was happening where after the first breakout session and so I just started talking to people in the hall. I found it great that so many Google people took an interest in the event, since it meant coming in to work on their day off. I have no idea if I'll have ongoing contact with these folks, but the chats that I had were very informative to find out that the way I'm building a lot of things on Maneno are similar to how they've approached the problems at Google. But beyond the Google folks, I met tons of other great people like Paa from the Kamusi Project and David Kobia from Ushahidi. Both are people I hope to have more contact with.
And that was the ultimately great thing about the day. I got out just what I was hoping to get out of it. I met tons of interesting people who all seemed very excited about my project and it was a tremendous boost for people to be so interested in it as my family has no clue what I'm doing. There were some more permanent connections made as well, since the Maneno Twitter nearly doubled in followers after the event. Follow along if you'd like to see what's happening with the project.
It will be interesting to see what happens next year with BarCampAfrica as there were those in Africa who were very unhappy as to why it was in California. Obviously, there are a great many more questions to be asked and answered over the coming year. It will be interesting to see the solutions and how the next event comes about.
