Emergent Futures Tumblelog

This is the Tumblelog of Paul Higgins and Sandy Teagle - Futurists from Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia. Go to Emergent Futures to see more or follow on Twitter at FuturistPaul . If you right click on the pictures, titles or links in these posts you will be able to go to the original story on the web. If you click on comments for each post you can either read what others have said or add your own comment via Disqus. If you click on the date of a post it will take you to a single post view where you can copy the web link if you want to send it to someone else. If you click on the tags it will take you to other stories from Emergent Futures with the same tag.

April 10th 2012

20 notes |# Comments

Should Africa Adopt a Shared Currency? And Should It Be Bitcoin?

Paul Higgins: We posted up this article from the Atlantic on the 30th March. There have been some strong responses to it that are worth reading, mostly around this being a sort of an attitude from colonialism. It is worth looking at the notes and the the re-blogs to get a feel for the views

You can see the original post and its notes at 

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1f0k6ceQz1qz5ttno1_500.png

or click on the photo


Posted at 9:03am and tagged with: economic, Africa,.

Should Africa Adopt a Shared Currency? And Should It Be Bitcoin? Paul Higgins: We posted up this article from the Atlantic on the 30th March. There have been some strong responses to it that are worth reading, mostly around this being a sort of an attitude from colonialism. It is worth looking at the notes and the the re-blogs to get a feel for the views You can see the original post and its notes at  http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1f0k6ceQz1qz5ttno1_500.png or click on the photo

January 26th 2012

Reblogged from stoweboyd|10 notes |# Comments

January 23, 2012 at 01:00AM via http://bit.ly/x5vkeb (via stoweboyd)

Posted at 8:28am and tagged with: economic, Africa, mobile, payment systems,.

“
@TomRaftery: RT @tim_weber: A quarter of Kenya’s GDP is running through mobile payment system MPesa … #dld12 /Wow!
”

January 1st 2012

12 Predictions for Africa’s Tech Scene in 2012

Reblogged from globalvoices|93 notes |# Comments

Posted at 1:16pm and tagged with: tech, technology, africa,.

December 19th 2011

Reblogged from futuramb|43 notes |# Comments

futuramb:

Kenya Has Mobile Health App Fever - Technology Review


Mobile health platforms are fast emerging in Kenya, where one startup’s newly launched mobile health platform is attracting nearly 1,000 downloads daily, and the dominant telecom, Safaricom, has forged a partnership that will give its 18 million subscribers access to doctors.

Will Africa be the leading continent when it comes to use new and mobile technology in health care? Will that let them to leapfrog the whole problem of gigantic health care systems which we in the west now see suffocating from demographic pressure, and increasing and toxicating complexification, both internally and externally.

Posted at 3:40pm and tagged with: mobile, Africa, tech, technology,.

futuramb: Kenya Has Mobile Health App Fever - Technology Review Mobile health platforms are fast emerging in Kenya, where one startup’s newly launched mobile health platform is attracting nearly 1,000 downloads daily, and the dominant telecom, Safaricom, has forged a partnership that will give its 18 million subscribers access to doctors. Will Africa be the leading continent when it comes to use new and mobile technology in health care? Will that let them to leapfrog the whole problem of gigantic health care systems which we in the west now see suffocating from demographic pressure, and increasing and toxicating complexification, both internally and externally.

December 6th 2011

Reblogged from futuristgerd|25 notes |# Comments

The hopeful continent: Africa rising | The Economist (via mediafuturist)

Posted at 6:07pm and tagged with: Africa, trends, economic, blind spots,.

“
Over the past decade six of the world’s ten fastest-growing countries were African. In eight of the past ten years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. Even allowing for the knock-on effect of the northern hemisphere’s slowdown, the IMF expects Africa to grow by 6% this year and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia.
”

December 2nd 2011

Reblogged from climateadaptation|28 notes |# Comments

onearth:

Some 15 million Africans abandon the countryside every year in pursuit of better lives in the city. Climate change and further desertification will only exacerbate the trend. How will these ballooning urban populations survive? OnEarth articles editor Jocelyn C. Zuckerman and photographer Antonio Bolfo traveled to Kenya and Ghana, where they found that the best strategy is sowing seeds right in the heart of cities, where the people live. See Bolfo’s photos and hear Zuckerman tell journalist Jaime Bedrin about their trip in this audio slideshow, then read “The Constant Gardeners“ in OnEarth’s Winter 2012 issue.

Posted at 1:41pm and tagged with: cities, Africa, urbanisation,.

November 11th 2011

Reblogged from smarterplanet|63 notes |# Comments

Africa set to reach one billion mobile connections by 2016 says report

(via thenextweb)

Posted at 6:11pm and tagged with: Africa, mobile, tech, technology, forecasts,.

“
Africa is being tipped to pass one billion mobile subscriptions to become the world’s second largest mobile market by 2016 according to new research from analyst firm Informa. Mobile activations in the continent, which currently stand at 616 million, are estimated to grow by more than 60 percent over the next five years making the region the world’s second largest telecom market behind only Asia. Informa explains that the development of the region’s “relatively immature telecoms market” — thanks to increased competition and lower costs — combined with the continued growth of Africa’s population are the primary reasons for its growth predictions. The use of 3G is also tipped to rise at a strong rate from 6.6 percent of Africa’s total mobile subscribers today to 46 percent by the end-2016 .
”

October 28th 2011

Reblogged from climateadaptation|196 notes |# Comments

climateadaptation:

Projected population growth - Africa 1990 - 2090. On the low end of projections, four countries, Malawi, Niger, Tanzania, and Zambia, are expected to grow 1,000%. High growth impedes a country’s ability to build capacity to adapt to climate change impacts.

Source: Climate and Population Growth Maps

Posted at 4:53am and tagged with: population, forecasts, Africa, visualisation,.

October 11th 2011

textually.org: ChildCount+ used cell phones to reduce child mortality in Africa

Reblogged from futuramb|11 notes |# Comments

futuramb:

This is yet another project based on mobile phones that is focusing on health care in Africa.

Since 2009, a mobile health program called ChildCount+  has coordinated a network of community-based health workers who examine local children, treat them, and then a send a text message about their health status back to a central web dashboard.

Posted at 7:56pm and tagged with: africa, health care, tech, technology, mobile,.

October 7th 2011

Reblogged from futuramb|24 notes |# Comments

futuramb:

Africa is in the midst of a technological revolution, and nothing illustrates that fact than the proliferation of mobile phones. Consider this: more Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water.

(via textually.org: More Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water)

The statement about drinking water vs mobile phones is to me a bit weird and misleading because it is really hard to understand what it really means (if it is true), but it says something about how the technology diffusion continues regardless of many other problems. In the best of worlds it might help solving those problems as well…

Posted at 3:38am and tagged with: africa, mobile phones, tech, technology,.

futuramb: Africa is in the midst of a technological revolution, and nothing illustrates that fact than the proliferation of mobile phones. Consider this: more Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water. (via textually.org: More Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water) The statement about drinking water vs mobile phones is to me a bit weird and misleading because it is really hard to understand what it really means (if it is true), but it says something about how the technology diffusion continues regardless of many other problems. In the best of worlds it might help solving those problems as well…