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About VC4A Questions:

VC4Africa seeks to connect entrepreneurs with the network, capital and knowledge they need to build promising businesses on the continent. We have members from 156 countries that network via our online platforms and offline via our VC4Africa Meetups. Our matchmaking site VC4Africa.biz is a tool for entrepreneurs to publish their venture and connect with possible business partners and investors. Our matchmaking program further supports entrepreneurs in their business planning and support entrepreneurs seeking venture finance. So how do we support the community with knowledge?

Building a business is hard and having access to the right knowledge and information is critical. Unfortunately, in the African space information is too often lacking. What do the changes in local tax code mean for the tech sector? What are the import duties for heavy machinery? What are the key points investors look for when reviewing a cash flow prognosis? What are the legal issues I need to consider when expanding across borders? VC4A Questions is a collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by the VC4A community. Together we are building a community generated database of knowledge. A few points that make VC4Africa Questions & Answers unique:

A Growing Knowledge Base

People use VC4A questions to document their African business adventures. Over time, the database of knowledge should grow and grow until almost everything that anyone wants to know about doing business in Africa is available in the system. The information is organized, the history of the questions is archived and the information is freely accessible for anyone with the same question today or tomorrow.

Community Managed

Each question makes use of tags that make them easier to find across multiple search queries. This also helps members link new questions with existing discussions and further centralizes the conversation. Members can find similar questions they can borrow from when outlining additional context. Each question and answer is also rated and sorted by the users. This ensures that only the most pertinent questions rise to the top of the landing page and search results. It helps push prominent issues into the forefront and crowds out any unwanted messages or noise.

Follow Discussions

Members can follow topics they are interested in. Any updates are automatically forwarded per e-mail and this helps maintain an active dialogue. Members, the VC4Africa team and officers can also ‘recommend experts’ with certain questions and encourage them to share their expertise and input. This further serves to mobilize an active network and adds to the growing knowledge base.

VC4A Reputations

VC4A Questions is linked directly to member profiles. The system tracks who posted a question, who responded, how many responses were recorded and whether or not the questions and answers were valued by the VC4A community. This feedback is part of a reputation the user builds via the system. This helps other users appreciate the quality and level of a user’s contributions and serves to recognize the members who contribute the most and are otherwise experts on certain subjects or specific fields of interest.

Moving forward,

Please visit the new section of the website http://vc4africa.biz/questions/. We encourage you to take a look and play around with this new tool. Please add your own questions or share feedback with the community. We look forward to building this resource together and for the benefit of the entrepreneurs and investors working to build promising businesses on the continent.

Regards and happy networking!
The VC4A Team

In response to last week's post about Facebook's usage in Africa doubling every 7 months, Victor van R, a Dutch ICT4D researcher asked the following pertinent question: Is there any development impact of FB? I immediately thought of at least 3 development impacts we can expect from Facebook's amazingly fast adoption rate.

ICT Adoption

As I've pointed out before, Facebook is driving ICT adoption in Africa by making technology a primary means of communication - for work, pleasure, or politics. All the chatter about Facebook accounts is driving new customers to invest in smartphones for Facebook 0 or computers and Internet connectivity for the real deal. "I need to get Facebook," is becoming a common refrain at retail technology stores of all types.

Literacy

Facebook is driving both ICT and actual language literacy. By having a relevant draw for people to connect, FB is the carrot which has everyone from children to grandparents learning new digital tools. An in schools, there are at least 4 reasons why Facebook is an educational tool: language development, interpersonal skills, group collaboration, and ICT skills.

Community

Physical logistics in Africa is a challenge we all know and face daily. Not so much online. On FB, you can declare your candidacy and reach over a million countrymen without even leaving your house. Soon enough, I expect to see civil society organizations in sub-Sahara Africa learning from North Africa's revolutions to plan their own regime changes - governments already have.

During last week's engaging #SocEntChat around mHealth, organized by Ashoka, I started to wonder what other Twitter chats might be out there.

Thanks to chloevdc, I learned of this Twitter Chat Schedule. While pretty comprehensive, I was struck by a glaring omission. Even though there are Twitter chats for everything from JapanTravel to DaddyTalk there isn't a scheduled chat on Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D).

But its not for a lack of those talking about ICT4D. Just one quick look at the ICTworks ICT4D Africa Twitters List, there are at least 40 people who focus on the topic daily. Looking at the #ICT4D hashtag and even more people think about it on a regular basis. So its about time we organized a...

ICTworks' #ICT4D Twitter Chat

On Friday, November 13, join your fellow experts and interested parties in a ICT4D Twitter Chat starting at 17:00 GMT (1700 GMT in your timezone). The likes of John Gosier, Michael Downey, Wayan Vota and others will be discussing engaging in these topics on 15 minute intervals:

Using Eastern Time:
• 12:00pm: Introductions - Please tell us your name, org, key interest area
• 12:05pm: Which ICT4D initiatives do you admire the most? Please name them & explain why.
• 12:20pm: What lessons have you learned from ICT4D failures? Bravery Bonus: talk about your own program failures.
• 12:35pm: Is Cloud4D (Cloud Computing) possible in ICT4D? Or is it still 5 years+ in future? And should we plan for it now anyway?

If you're wondering what a Twitter Chat is, see the great recap of the Ashoka Chat. It was essentially a freewheeling conversation around the key questions asked by Ashoka, with refreshing voices from outside the usual small world we live in.

Expect thi ICT4D Twitter Chat will be even more so, creating greater awareness and excitement about technology's role in social and economic development across the developing world. So join us at 12:00 noon Eastern Time.

Update

Wow! that was an amazing hour of serious conversation. I hope you enjoyed it. And here's a few recaps for you:

• ICT4D Twitter Chat Members
• ICT4DTwitter Chat Transcript

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