ICTworks by Inveneo

When Ritse Erumi read an article that said ICT lacks female leaders she took it upon herself to tweet, "ICT lacks female leaders. Hmmm, what to do?!"

I do know what to do - let's prove this article wrong!

I can think of a number of women leaders in ICT4D, starting with my boss and Inveneo co-founder Kristin Peterson. From there, I can list the many women who inspire me and empower the ICT4D movement. But why have just my list? I know there are women driving ICT and development around the world.

And if we want more women in ICT, it's proven that girls need role models and mentors to inspire them. Many of these ICT4D women are on Twitter too. So...

Introducing the ICT4D Women Twitter List

Here's is the ICT4D Women Twitter List - an ever-growing cadre of leading ICT4D women we all can be proud to follow. Be sure to add to the list by Tweeting to us @ICTworks with the #ICT4Dwomen hashtag or by adding names & Twitter handles in the comments below.

Either way, be sure to be proud to follow these pioneers - in technology as much as gender.

For the next two weeks, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Nigeria will be registering voters for the upcoming presidential elections in April. Yet there are already serious ICT issues with registration and too great a focus on fingerprinting voters which is causing concern.

You can follow all the INEC registration drama on Twitter, of course, in two ways:

1. Search for #inecregistration hash tag on Twitter, or
2. Follow the INECregistration Twitter List of people tweeting on the #inecregistration hashtag

I would suggest the latter, and while doing so, start to follow individual tweeps too. My favorite so far are Akin Akintayo and RM Ajayi. Add your favorites to the comments section below and I'll add them to the INECregistration Twitter List.

Adesoji James Adegbulu says he has created a list of the 20 most influential Nigerians on Twitter. But he's just found 20 Nigerians with the most followers - and several are scammers & spammers who just collect followers (often bots) and are actually useless.

A much better guide to who is the most influential Nigerians on Twitter is the WeFollow rankings. There we see the real top 10 Nigerian Twitter influencers:

Congrats to the top 3 - I know each of them and can personally vouch for their influence and integrity:

1. Loy Okezie for leading Nigeria's Business & Technology Startup and Social Media Community
2. Gbenga Sesan a Nigerian social entrepreneur with keen interest in the use of ICTs
3. Oluniyi David Ajao a Internet Entrepreneur, Website Developer, Blogger & Photography Enthusiast

Oh and yeah, congrats to the top 3 in ICT4D too ;)

On the social networking site Twitter, there are many people who talk about ICT4D, and many who talk about Africa. But there are few who talk only and consistently about IC4D in Africa. So to try and cut through the clutter and hone in on the relevant voices for ICTworks, back in August I started a FollowFriday list in the ICTworks Network.

While that effort did find a few new voices, it wasn't very effective at sharing these voices with others. Then just yesterday, Twitter turned on a "list" functionality - you can now make your own lists of Twitter people, and share this list with others. And now we have:

@ICT_works/ICT4D-Africa-Twitters

You can now follow ICTworks's ICT4D Africa Twitters list in Twitter, which will give you a high-quality, real-time understanding of what is happening in Africa around information and communication technologies for development.

But by no means is this list fixed - members may come and go, depending on their focus and tweet quality. If you know of others that we should follow, please let me know. Self-referral is okay too - just add yourself in the comments below.