DCI: Day 1

The serious part of day one of the Digital Citizens Blogging Indaba is now over. A lot of information has thrown at us. Ethan, of Global Voices fame, kicked things off with a quick introduction to blogging and a quick look at the African blogosphere. KBW members Black Looks and Jikomboe were name checked complete with screen shots namely, he also highlighted KenyaUnlimited and mentioned briefly what KenyaUnlimited does which is good for me because when i had over my KenyaUnlimited business card now people saw, “ahhhhh” as opposed to “huh” which is what I have been getting all week.

In the Q&A session after Ethan’s address we discussed all forms of citizen media not just blogs. Ghanaian journalists mentioned that with the explosion of the talk radio in their country which in a very interactive medium, radios are blogs. A interesting challenge there, how do we combine these two powerful tools of citizen media, radio and blogs? It is not enough to have websites for radio stations. We need a truly interactive where listeners are contributors as well as content generators. That is one to think about.

We has a lively debate in the Q&A session following the Web 2.0 presentations. Our very own Kenyan Pundit and Emeka, the man behind Timbuktu Chronicles, pointed out that to start a conventional TV station such as Al Jazeera you would need approximately USD 20 million. But using various Web 2.0 applications you can post video, audio, text, interviews, exclusives etc. right on your website and blog. We have extremely powerful tools available to us today, largely for free, these tools can be harnessed by Africans to bridge the digital divide.

The best thing for me today however is the social interaction. It is good to me so many bloggers from across Africa, exchange details and discuss our various experiences. For example apart from Timbuktu Chronicles I also met Alaa who’s imprisonment earlier this year led to a google-bomb campaign which the Kenyan blogosphere responded to with enthusiasm. We talked blogs and politics for about 10 seconds and before you could say “integrated web solutions” we were discussing various Open Sources CMS and the pros and cons of each one. It is also good to meet Ethan as well as the DCI organisers. People who existed only on blogs and email up to today. There are a reasonable number of Kenyans here, mostly journalists who have all expressed interest in blogging and joining KBW like their colleague John Kamau who has been a member for a while. I’ve bonded with, Rebecca who has been blogging for a while.

For the official coverage, podcasts etc, check out the DCI blog.