Why won't we see Mxit in the Developed Countries? Interestingly this is one of those technologies that has an easy fit to Africa even though it may never gain traction in developed countries.

• SMS costs nothing

The format of books is changing. As the emerging technologies converge, so too the way the world handles written text is also converging. This will affect three arenas of development – research policy communication; children’s education; and adult learning.

A new technology has crept onto the African scene that has enabled a step change in the way that the poor can access and share information. This concept note outlines why we believe that Instant Messaging (IM) through services such as Mxit can make a significant difference to the provision and impact of information services. It proposes a programme of action research

FAO have run a number of e-fora on their e-agriculture site.  I think this one is likely to be of widespread interest because it's scope is much broader than agriculture:

"This forum will examine the challenges that rural communities face in enhancing the benefits of mobile telephony, and look at some examples of interesting initiatives and good outcomes from around the globe".

Have a look at:

www.e-agriculture.org

Some early results from the new Ria studies - yeah them!

Nigel made an interesting observation from his trip to Uganda - that whereas in the recent past shaking hands was a long ritual, it has now changed to touching knuckles with a closed fist.  This was more so in the villages.  When asking why, people say that it is due to ebola - fear of, keeping contact to a  minimum.    Interesting rapid shift in a very basic cultural greeting!  Will it revert to a shake once the ebola fears subside?

At the GK3 recently, Steve Song pointed out that open hardware was becoming an option.  Mobile phone circuit diagrams opened up in Australia, were picked up by two small factories in China, and the designer invited to come and see them making his design.  Interesting -the factories made circuit but had not previously made phones.

Mind you the working conditions sounded a bit dodgy - soldering by dipping the board into a pan using fingertips!

Since Jackie is the only person I know who reads this, I should highlight her lunches.  C4D is a networking lunch foranyone into C4d and lives near enough to London to make it worthwhile.  Jackie is founder and keenie.  And it is growing and useful.  Kudos to Jackie.

 Want to join - email Jackie Davies - wont give you her email without her permission but google her and she will come up, and she is building a c4d site.

Met with Research into Use, who are conducting a multi million pound programme for DFID on Natural Resources and Livelihoods.  The short version seems to be, DFID spent 200+ Million over the last 30 years on research in Natural Resources, this resulted in 2800 projects.  3 years ago they considered enough was enough and reassessed what they were doing.  They noted that the important bit was to get the research used.  So they have committed 35+ million to the next 3 (or 4?)