Africa Gathering, a conference for social entrepreneurs and innovators who are passionate about technology and development in Africa, was a perfect venue for introducing my concepts for what makes a great start-up business.  I traveled to Kenya along with the National Peace Corps Association’s Africa Rural Connect (ARC) Project Manager, Molly Mattessich, to meet people like us who were interested in and impacted by the ARC website and wanted to make a difference in rural communities in Africa.

Giving a workshop at Africa Gathering

Similar to the collaboration platform that I helped to develop for the National Peace Corps Association’s Africa Rural Connect community, I wanted to get the Africa Gathering workshop participants thinking about networking with other people and offering any advice that they could to assist someone else with their project or business idea.  We did what I like to call “low-tech social networking,” and shared ideas on notes that we posted on the wall in the conference room so that everyone could see them.

Also at the Africa Gathering conference, Molly presented the story of the Africa Rural Connect community and told how we were able to build the site with a tight budget and even tighter deadline and still achieve our goals for getting lots of people from around the world to participate and helping them to collaborate, meet each other, and generate creative and practical project plans.

It was great to meet so many people interested in ideas for Africa, and see the presentations that others gave, like Kenyans for Change, Access Kenya, Essential Africa, Movirtu and Kenya Imagine.  Of course, I enjoyed meeting those folks with whom I’d only interacted with on Twitter prior to the conference.  I’m glad that I was able to make connections with people in Nairobi because I am passionate about helping out great startups that can make a difference in people’s lives.

Africa Gathering is coming to my hometown, Washington, DC, in April 2010, and I’m looking forward to getting people together again to discuss innovative tech ideas for Africa.

Additional pictures of Africa Gathering in Nairobi, Kenya

Our Africa Rural Connect project with the National Peace Corps Association has gone into its fourth round of the competition. We have been really pleased for our client as they continue to receive national and international media attention for this project; recently the Washington Post and The Seattle Times mentioned the ARC project, and it was featured on the radio across the African continent on Voice of America.

So, what’s Africa Rural Connect?

Africa Rural Connect introduces and encourages a new form of global collaboration. It uses technology to enable anyone in the world to build upon the ideas of others. When you read someone’s idea for Africa, not only can you comment on it and endorse it, you can rewrite it by adding information from your own personal experience and insight.

We also have been working to roll out new updates for wegora. A version of wegora is actually what is powering Africa Rural Connect, and it’s the secret sauce that made this challenging project even possible.

Sssh! You didn’t hear this from me, but the ARC project was developed and deployed in three months, which is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself. Typically a project of this kind takes 6 to 12 months but the requirements of this project dictated a very aggressive schedule.  Several of my professional peers (aka competitors) expressed the view that we were crazy for taking it on, but that’s what we do at Infamia. We take big risks for great projects, and we make it happen.

And, if you’re going to do that as a contractor, you better really believe in the project! Of course, this project resonated with Mickey and me, and it resonated with our client, wegora. The vision there was to make this happen. Everyone got passionately on-board and we got it done.

If you haven’t yet signed up for Africa Rural Connect, please do. No idea is too small, no plan too elaborate. Just get on and take a look around and let us know what you think.

Related articles

• Bring your Ideas to Africa (ONE.org)
• Former Peace Corps Volunteers Called Back to Service (U.S. News & World Report)
• Africa Collaboration Goes Global (Change.org)