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Need to Find a Hackerspace in Africa? Look on This Map
These days you can crowd-map about anything from Hurricane Irene to what you eat for breakfast as long as you either have a phone or a basic internet hook-up. One of the largest and most used platforms for crowd-sourced mapping is Ushahidi (Swahili for ‘witness’), an open-sourced platform has been used for tracking and mobilizing movement around more serious topics. Ushahidi was used in developing Syria Tracker, a crowd-sourcing of reported deaths in the conflict in Syria. Now the Ushahidi platform is putting technology hubs in Africa on the map. Literally.The map, simply named Tech Hubs in Africa, was launched by Bongohive, a self described non-profit technology and innovation hub located in Lusaka, Zambia for one purpose: To have likeminded organizations across Africa—notorious for low levels of tech infrastructure—begin plotting the locations of tech hubs available around the continent right now.The map has only been up since the beginning of February of this year, but Bongohive founders say that so far the number of sites that have begun to post across the continent is promising, especially considering the map is used as a resource for strengthening tech infrastructure around the continent.“In just a few days we have already learned about 15 tech hubs in 13 different countries across Africa,” Lukonga Lindunda, Co-Founder of BongoHive said in a release. “More reports are coming in every day. If we can get the message out there, with the help of Africa’s technology journalists, our goal is to map 50 hubs before the end of the month.”So far the map breaks down technology into four categories, including regular hubs, university labs, and business incubators. Interesting are the locations that also double as “hackerspaces” which apparently can be found from Egypt to South Africa, Botswana, and Ethiopia.It’s a refreshing idea that crowd-sourced mapping can be used to generate networks rather than just use them. After the past year in which people began to realize that crowd-sourced mapping is also good for advertising tv shows and other inane tasks, it’s ultimately nice to see things being put on maps that actually deserve to be there.