“All of which is a long but colorful tale that demonstrates an exciting trend in Kenya and just beyond its border: the surprisingly powerful influence both apps and websites are having over people and government. Across East Africa, civic-minded developers are working to hold officials and institutions more accountable to the general public. The website Kenya Open Data publishes maps of water sources that help people keep an eye on government spending in the water sector, and the website’s data on class size, attendance and graduation rates at public schools help parents make more informed decisions about where to enroll their kids. Another group is using crowdsourcing to correct rumors and mistruths in real time as they spread across the Internet… “People fear that they’ll be held accountable. It’s a cultural thing we are struggling with,” says Kasongi. And that, he says, is precisely what Africa’s developers must disrupt. ”
That is definitely the first time I have seen the words ‘Africa’s developers’ used in that sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment