ICTworks by Inveneo

You know the amazing photograph of the earth at night showing all the lights of population centers around the world. And you've seen the Facebook friendship map that shows where the concentrations of Facebook users are around the globe.

Ian Wojtowicz mashed those two images together to get The UnFacebook World. The dark lines are Facebook usage and the bight yellow dots are where there are population centers that have bright lights at night but no Facebook friends.

Do you notice anything odd about Africa? How about that São Tomé and Príncipe have electricity but no Facebook and the millions in Rwanda, Burundi, and DRC have neither Facebook nor electrical lights at night.

This is a stark visual reminder that not everyone one is on FB, regardless of the hype around Facebook usage doubling in a month across Africa in 2011.

Recently Ian Thorpe took advantage of a unique feature of Google Plus, the ability to create and share "circles" to produce a circle of over 70 international development thought leaders who are on Google+. A great resource to track what they're thinking.

Taking his lead, I am making a circle of all the ICT4D people on Google+

Are you skilled in ICT? Are you international development? Are you on Google Plus? If you answer "yes" to all three questions, then please reshare or comment on this post and I will add you to my official ICT4D Circle.

Hurry though, I will "close" the circle on Monday and share it as final. Get in now (sign up to Google+ even) to be in the ICT4D Circle.

At the beginning of 2009, Vinny Lingham put forth the idea of a Silicon Cape - an effort to recreate the success of Silicon Valley by removing the barriers major barriers to South African technology companies:

Silicon Cape Trends Map

1. Punishment for failure
2. Failure to take risks
3. Unavailability of capital
4. Too many consultants
5. Lack of global experience
6. No liquidity events
7. Too much focus on advertising

From that initial recognition, a movement has started to push for recognition of these barriers and ways to overcome them. This movement culminated in a Silicon Cape Social Network that launched on October 8, with much Twittering. But does a social network make a Silicon Valley?

I think we all know the answer to that - it doesn't. But its a start. You have to recognize there is a problem before you can look for a solution. And you need a shared vision and resources to build the solution to so many problems.

These problems will not be solved overnight. So a social network is a good start. Its definitely a good way to overcome #1,2, & 5 in the list above. By sharing ideas, connections, and reinforcing the communal challenges, I do hope that the Silicon Cape social network inspires more African entrepreneurship.

I just wish there were more than these 5 ways to support it.