African voices reach all corners of the world

dominique le roux — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:07:53 +0000

With 108 journalists from some 34 African countries, the ‘Allstar’ journalists of the Twenty Ten project certainly do hail from all parts of Africa. That was certainly made clear when we all sat together in the training workshops, comparing notes from our respective regions of the world. But I don’t think that many comprehend quite how far around the globe these African voices are being amplified.

Africa Media Online, the organization responsible for the distribution of the content provided by the project’s journalists – including text, photography, audio and multimedia – works with dozens of international agencies who act as ‘resellers’, distributing content in their own territories and languages.

The main players involved in distributing Twenty Ten content include:

China Foto Press in China

dpa Picture Alliance in Germany

East News in Poland

Fotolink in Russia and Ukraine

Hollandse Hoogte in The Netherlands

Image Works in the USA

Imagine China in China

Keystone in Switzerland

La Presse in Italy

laif in Germany

Majority World in Bangladesh and the UK

Newscom in the USA

Other Images in South America

Panos in the UK

Pixpalace in the USA

Sipa in France

ullstein in Germany

Other resellers of Africa Media Online content who have access to the material but operate in more specialist niches, include

akg images in Germany

Alamy in the UK

Alinari in Italy

Belga in Belgium

Construction in the UK

Dukas in Switzerland

fotofinder in Germany

imago in Germany

IML in Greece

Lebrecht in the UK

mauritius images in Germany

Medium in Poland

Photo12 in France

Tongro in Korea

UPPA in the UK

REA in France

Voetbal International in The Netherlands

Great technology from Africa for Africa and the world

dominique le roux — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:55:54 +0000

I’m sitting at the launch of Highway Africa, the world’s largest gathering of African journalists. This year the theme is 2010, Development and Democracy and of course the focus is next year’s FIFA World Cup.

Last night MTN hosted us to a sneak preview of the Port Elizabeth stadium, which has not only already been completed, but makes an impressive aesthetic impression. It set the tone for a range of speeches that had the broad theme of: we’re going to show the world that we have talent; we’re going to dispel the lingering pessimism.

I must confess that during the past two days at The Digital Citizen Indaba, a precursor event to Highway Africa, I have certainly been impressed and (yes, I admit) surprised by the new technologies coming out of Africa. While the focus of the conference was the ‘citizen journalist’, I was impressed by the tools and skills outlined and the ways in which they can help African journalists tell Africa’s stories more powerfully and more effectively.

Here are my three favourites, all introduced in presentations by Brett Davidson, a media consultant who specializes in helping NGOs to develop communications and advocacy strategies.

1. http://www.ushahidi.com/

2. http://www.frontlinesms.com/

3. www. worldmapper.org

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.

the african media entrepreneur » Tools for African journalists

African voices reach all corners of the world

Great technology from Africa for Africa and the world