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Souvenirsmiles of HAand PACAI

OPEN SOURCE COVERING BOTH HIGHWAY AFRICA 2011 AND PAN AFRICAN CONFERENCE ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION

http://www.pacaia.orghttp://reportingDNA.org

http://www.highwayafrica.com

HA/PACAIA 2011

EDITION 4

TUESDAY

20 SEPT 2011

5 6pgOry Okollohpro free flowof info

AFRICAN MEDIA AND THE GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGECAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA 1720 SEPTEMBER 2011PAN AFRICAN CONFERENCE ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION

mediaaccess

toINFOrmation

and

ENVIRONMENTALawareness

Whats trending @DCIndaba?By Enathi Mqokeli, Candace Gawler and

Wilhelmina Maboja

The 6th Digital Citizens Indaba (DCI) got

off to an exciting start on a chilly Monday

morning.

Unfortunately, keynote speaker Ndesanjo

Macha, Sub-Saharan Africa editor of Global

Voices Online, was unable to attend due to a

road accident. Nevertheless, Prof. Jane Dun-

can (DCI Coordinator and Highway Africa Chair

of Media and Information Society at Rhodes

University) gave a strong welcoming addressto a room full of citizen journalists, media pro-

fessionals and curious members of the public.

Weve tried to capture the moment, said

Duncan in reference to this years DCI themes.

The WikiLeaks controversy has many impli-

cations for online journalism: when does the

mass release of information start to threaten

society? she asked.

Also on the agenda was the question of how

free and open the internet really is, in light of

the clamp down on access to information on

the internet in various African countries (such

as Zimbabwe and recently Tunisia.

Related to access to information, is the impor-tance of information being available in local

languages. Ndesanjo Macha was one of the

first people to set up a blog exclusively in an

African language called Jikomboe (free your-

self in Swahili).

The first panel discussion was on net neutrali-

ty and the censorship of information online. The

panel comprised Electronic Freedom Charter

author, hacktivist David Robert Lewis, and

Association for Progressive Communications

(APC) executive director Anriette Esterhuysen.

Lewis advocated for the idea of net neutral-

ity, not just in terms of bandwidth access, but

also accessing information without nationalboundaries. He also brought up the Blackberry

furore, and their encryption of their instant mes-

saging service.

Esterhuysen similarly pointed out that eve-

ryday devices and tools threaten net neutral-

ity. In terms of the iPhone, telecommunication

network Safaricom and the Vodafone product

M-pesa from Kenya: be aware that youre

financing the destruction of net neutrality, she

said.

As early as 1985, American writer and online

innovator Stewart Brand said, information

wants to be free. Information also wants to be

expensive ... that tension will not go away.Years later, this remains a key issue.

Mendi Njonjo,moderator for the

panel discussionabout Freedom ofAccess to Online

Information.Photo: FungaiTichawangna.

AnrietteEsterhuysen,Executive Directorof the Associationfor ProgressiveCommunications,discussed thedestruction ofinternet neutrality,

at the paneldiscussion.Photo: DesireeSchirlinger

Prof. HarryDugmore, director

of the DiscoveryCentre for Health

Journalism, speaksabout his Knight

Foundation-fundedproject, IndabaZiyaka which

trains citizenjournalists.

Photo: DesireeSchirlinger

Julie Posetti,described by JaneDuncan as TheQueen of Twittershared advice onsocial networking atthe Digital CitizensIndaba.Photo: DesireeSchirlinger