Celebrating and Protecting the Global Internet By Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State & Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), U.S. Department of Commerce The U.S. government, working through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), has played a critical role in the stewardship of the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS). But now is the time to transition that role, based on the success and maturation of the multistakeholder…
Read MoreCategory: PEOPLE
Satya Nadella Is Officially Microsoft’s New CEO
Microsoft has made official what we all pretty much expected: Its new CEO, replacing Steve Ballmer, is Satya Nadella. Nadella has spent 22 years at Microsoft, and was previously Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise. Nadella also takes a position on Microsoft’s Board of Directors. Nadella is credited with being a key leader in moving the company towards cloud services, around products including Bing, Xbox and Microsoft Office. His time at MS oversaw a period of huge growth for Microsoft Business Services, too, growing that segment of the…
Read MoreWhat Africa’s Billionaire Aliko Dangote told the World Economic Forum in Davos
Africa has many entrepreneurial people with the capacity to be successful in business, but access to financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) remains a major challenge. So said Nigerian-born Aliko Dangote, believed to be the continent’s richest man, today during a session titled ‘Africa’s Next Billion’, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He explained that while Africa offers a large enough market for SMEs, borrowing costs are generally too high. “If you are going to borrow money at 20% and above, it might be very, very tough…
Read MoreBloomberg TV: Sophia Bekele featured in “African Women to Watch”
“Fearless, Competitive and Visionary Leaders of our time. We celebrate a new generation of African Women, closing the gender gap and shaping the continent’s political, social and economic landscape” says Bloomberg in its special TV Women to Watch FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRLog (Press Release) – Nov. 15, 2013 – “Africa is blooming and this is the time to tell the Africa story from the African perspective” , says Bloomberg TV Africa, which is avidly covering contemporary developments that are shaping the new and emerging Africa and producing a new TV…
Read MoreThe Open (Internet) Society and Its Enemies: Can Multistakeholderism Survive “Information Dominance”?
Information Dominance For General Keith Alexander, the head of the US‘s major surveillance agency, the NSA’s fundamental ambition appears to be what he and the US military call “Information Dominance”. “Information Dominance is the ability to seize and control the information domain “high ground” when, where and however required for decisive competitive advantage… Information Dominance means freedom of action to maneuver and act — conduct offensive and defensive actions, kinetically and non-kinetically — at the intersection of maritime, information and cyberspace domains” John Arguilla, a leading US cyberwar strategist defines…
Read MoreFears over NSA surveillance revelations endanger US cloud computing industry
American technology businesses fear they could lose between $21.5bn and $35bn in cloud computing contracts worldwide over the next three years, as part of the fallout from the NSA revelations. Some US companies said they have already lost business, while UK rivals said that UK and European businesses are increasingly wary of trusting their data to American organisations, which might have to turn it over secretly to the National Security Agency, its government surveillance organisation. One British executive, Simon Wardley at the Leading Edge Forum thinktank, celebrated the publication of…
Read MoreFacebook Announces Searchable Hashtags, Promises More Features For Following Public Conversations
Facebook just announced that it is indeed launching ability to follow conversations via hashtags, as was reported in March. To be clear, there was nothing stopping you from including hashtags in your Facebook content before — it’s just that they didn’t have any real functionality. In its blog post announcing the new feature, the company acknowledges that this isn’t exactly a new idea, noting that it will be “similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest” — when you click on a hashtag, you’ll get a feed of…
Read MoreU.S. Confirms That It Gathers Online Data Overseas
WASHINGTON — The federal government has been secretly collecting information on foreigners overseas for nearly six years from the nation’s largest Internet companies like Google, Facebook and, most recently, Apple, in search of national security threats, the director of national intelligence confirmed Thursday night. The confirmation of the classified program came just hours after government officials acknowledged a separate seven-year effort to sweep up records of telephone calls inside the United States. Together, the unfolding revelations opened a window into the growth of government surveillance that began under the Bush…
Read MoreSophia Bekele Speaks on Technology for Economic Development in Africa at the Yale University
The Yale Undergraduate Association for African Peace and Development held a youth conference on the theme: Re-imagining Africa: a closer look at Autonomy, Identity and Perspective. The Yale Undergraduate Association for African Peace and Development held the second annual Sankofa54: African Youth Empowerment Conference on April 12th – 14th, 2013.The student youth conference was held on the theme: Re-imagining Africa: a closer look at Autonomy, Identity and Perspective. The conference included five discussion panels concerning economic development, global health, and peace and conflict resolution, as well as a series of breakout…
Read More88mph: The VC Firm Investing In Africa’s Tech Startups
This story was featured in Ventures Africa magazine’s February/March Edition…. A global network of experienced entrepreneurs prepare to invest the time and money required to give Africa’s most promising early stage tech companies the head start they need. VENTURES AFRICA – A small group of Cape Town-based mobile tech start-ups are next in line to take part in the 88mph programme, which has already given some of Nairobi’s mobile web businesses a major boost. Founded by Kresten Buch, 88mph is an early stage start-up fund combined with a three-month accelerator programme…
Read More