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By Rosemary Okello-Orlale (Strathmore Business School) and Steve Kenei (Kenya Red Cross Society), 2 June 2021. A Kiswahili version of this article is available here. Disasters and conflict situations are often linked with mass movements of people across Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa hosts four of the world’s largest refugee camps. Most of the refugees within the …

Blockchain and Community Inclusion Currencies for humanitarian aid in Kenya Read More »

22 March 2021 Maanta halkan waxaynu kusoo soo post gareeyneynaa podcast-ka kowaad ee barnaamijkeena cilmi baarista ‘Datafication and digital rights in East Africa’, ama Af Soomaaliga lagu turjumo Xuquuqda Digital ah ee Bariga Afrika. Podcast-kan waa wadahadal dhexmaray aasaaseyaasha ururka Digital Shelter (Abdifatah Hassan Ali iyo Ayaan Khalif) iyo Peter Chonka (Jaamacadda King’s College London). …

Digital Shelter Podcast: helitaanka internetka ee bulshada Soomaalida [Af Soomaali] Read More »

By Ayaan Khalif (19 January 2021) Listen to a Somali (Af Soomaali) podcast with the author discussing this article here. When talking about ‘digital space’, the first thing that comes to mind for many Somalis is social media. Facebook is the single most popular digital platform in Somalia, and Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are also …

Somali Women in Digital Spaces Read More »

By Abdifatah Hassan Ali (19 January 2021)Listen to a Somali (Af Soomaali) podcast with the author discussing this article here. In today’s world, many aspects of our lives are entwined with digital technology. From simple mobile phone calls and texts to internet-based systems and software applications, people’s dependence on digital communications is becoming inexorable around the …

Understanding digital inclusion and exclusion in Somalia Read More »

By Keren Weitzberg (11 January 2021) ‘I do not have any documentation that shows that I am a Kenyan,’ Adan lamented. ‘My children have a birth certificate that says: “single parent”. It’s like I had died. And yet I am alive.’ Adan is among tens of thousands of northern Kenyans who cannot obtain a national …

Gateway or barrier? The contested politics of humanitarian biometrics Read More »

Expanding our (research) toolkit By Peter Chonka, Stephanie Diepeveen, and Yidnekachew Haile (17 December 2020) Part 1 of this pair of blogposts highlighted problematic Autocomplete ‘predictions’ of Google search engine for sample keywords in Somali and Amharic languages. We explained Autocomplete as a tool and highlighted some of the many unknowns of its interaction with …

Algorithmic power and East African languages: questioning search engine Autocomplete (PART 2) Read More »

Problematic ‘predictions’? By Peter Chonka, Stephanie Diepeveen, and Yidnekachew Haile (8 December 2020) Search engines are an integral part of our digital lives that we use to retrieve useful information out of a seemingly limitless sea of online data. However, research has shown that search engines like Google’s are not ‘neutral’ windows onto what’s simply …

Algorithmic power and East African languages: questioning search engine Autocomplete (PART 1) Read More »

By Daivi Rodima-Taylor and Michael Kimani (November 2020) A Kiswahili version of this article is available here. Self-help associations and savings groups have long played an integral role in many African communities.  With mobile phones and mobile money now becoming a   central feature in many people’s daily lives in East Africa, vigorous efforts are being …

Informal Economic Associations and Datafication in East Africa Read More »