The Gambian man who made millions without a business plan

The Gambia's Muhammed Jah clearly remembers the day, in the late 1990s, when a friend told him that he was going to the airport to pick up a consultant who was coming to teach his department a word processing application popular at the time, WordPerfect.

"I said: 'How come we have a consultant coming all the way from Europe just to teach our people how to type a letter on a computer?'" Mr Jah told the BBC's series African Dream.

"That was funny but serious to me, and there and then I decided that I was going to start teaching people computing."

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18602723

TEDGlobal: Smart city ideas awarded at TED

The City2.0 awards, thus far, feature an eclectic mix of passionate urban entrepreneurs: artists, tech geeks, designers, youth organizers, makers, and professors. They are building amusement parks, DIY community centers, crowdsourced maps of “sonic health,” and citizen-led data collection on unsafe sanitation. They hail from Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, and the U.K.

Read more at: http://www.tedprize.org/first-half-of-the-city2-0-awards-announced/

Paralympic Cyclists Inspire Each Other, And A Documentary

..the Paralympic Games are on the way, as athletes with physical disabilities round into top form for the Aug. 29 opening day.

One of those athletes is Spain's Juan Jose "Juanjo" Mendez, who trains at the Barcelona Velodrome. He's featured in the new documentary Unstoppables, about a team of track cyclists who train and compete together. Many are amputees — Mendez lost an arm and most of a leg in a motorcycle crash, for instance.

Watch more at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/06/25/155727046/paralympic-cyclists-inspire-each-other-and-a-documentary

The Nigerian woman who sold two necklaces and never looked back

Six years ago Nigeria's Abimbola Balogun - affectionately called Bimbo - was a frustrated graduate, trained in petroleum marketing but coming to the sad realisation that it was going to be very difficult for her to get a job in the oil industry.

So at 29 she went out on a bead stringing course. She says that she just wanted something that kept her busy until "the real thing came" and she found a proper job.

"Now the beading has overshadowed the real thing," Mrs Balogun told the BBC series African Dream. And she exploded with laughter. She has, indeed, many reasons to be happy.

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18535002

Turning around lives of the homeless

A project helping homeless people in a Sydney suburb is claiming impressive results, by challenging the notion that people living on the streets need to find the help themselves.
Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18364972

The Unstoppable DREAMers

You can say that Obama was pandering for election-year purposes with his announcement last week that the government will no longer deport undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. You can say that the new policy does not go far enough in securing thoroughgoing immigration reform. So be it. The change is nevertheless a tremendous advance that will affect some 800,000 young people who have been living in fear and uncertainty about their ability to stay in the country.

And it is worth spending a moment to pay homage to the DREAM Act students whose extraordinary activism made it possible.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-engler/the-unstoppable-dreamers_b_1615159.html

Eddie Mabo, the man who changed Australia

People gathered this week in Townsville, Queensland, to remember a seminal moment in the nation's history, and the efforts of one man to bring it about.

Aboriginal Australians are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their landmark victory over land rights. It was on 3 June 1992 that the Australian High Court overturned more than 200 years of white domination of land ownership.

The victory was largely down to one indigenous man called Eddie Mabo.

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18291022

Innovative aid or how to get drinking water from a polluted stream

From using sunlight to purify water, to foam houses that can withstand gales, new technologies are helping sharpen responses to humanitarian disasters around the world.

Read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/jun/15/innovative-aid-drinking-water-polluted-stream

Highlights of Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize speech

Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize speech explored her views on the ideals of peace, the seeds of war, the bonds of our common humanity, and the rare power of kindness.

Read highlights at: http://news.yahoo.com/highlights-suu-kyis-nobel-peace-prize-speech-114158871.html

The woman who defied Saudi's driving ban and put it on YouTube

Growing up in Saudi Arabia, Manal al-Sharif was taught in school that listening to music -- just like driving, showing her face in public or making a decision without consulting her male guardian -- was forbidden and sinful.

She believed so strongly in music's satanic powers that she burned many of her father's and brother's cassette tapes so they couldn't play them anymore.

Then one day in 2001, al-Sharif was about to dub over one of her brother's American tapes with a lecture on Islam when curiosity got the best of her. She let herself listen to a few bars. And the first song to touch her ears helped reroute the course of her life

Read more at: http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/10/world/meast/sharif-saudi-women-drive/index.html

James Mwangi: World Entrepreneur Of The Year

Dr. James Mwangi, CEO and Managing Director of Kenya's Equity Bank Limited was tonight named the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2012 at an awards ceremony held in Monte Carlo's Salle des Etoiles. James was picked from among the 59 country finalists vying for the title across 51 countries, each of whom had already been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year in their home country.

"Not only has James really transformed people's lives across Africa by offering them access to funding that they have never had before, Equity Bank continues to grow quickly through a strong financial performance."


Read more at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/james-mwangi-of-kenyas-equity-bank-named-ernst-young-world-entrepreneur-of-the-year-2012-2012-06-09

Watch a clip at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ktn/?videoID=2000058303

Pakistani villagers learn to rebuild homes destroyed by floods

In 2010, Pakistan was hit by the most severe floods in its history - at least 18 million people were affected.

Two years on, a group of architects is helping villagers in Punjab's district Muzaffargarh to rebuild their homes themselves.

Watch at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18371703

Championing Africa's food revolution

The quick and high returns of Nigeria's oil industry have led to it dominating the economy to the detriment of other sectors.

But Jite Okoloko saw an opportunity in the disarray of the agricultural sector to champion Nigerian farmers.

After seven years living in the United States Mr Okoloko returned to Nigeria and launched Notore Chemical Industries Ltd in 2005

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18154609

Alfred's Free Press

In Liberia, a country where radios and televisions are luxuries most people cannot afford, one enterprising journalist has found a way to get daily news and information to Liberians. Alfred Sirleaf founded an innovative newspaper, TheDaily Talk.
The paper is Alfred's answer to the misinformation he says caused Liberia's brutal civil war. His innovation is to write it up each day on a blackboard in the centre of the capital, Monrovia, accessible to all. 

Read more at: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2012/04/201243084347660868.html

Syrian woman blogger gets human rights award

"Razan Ghazzawi is typical of the selfless courage shown by all the human rights defenders nominated for this year's award.

"She has challenged the repressive forces of the Syrian regime and has chosen not to hide behind a pseudonym but to speak out publicly. In doing so she has become a force to be reckoned with," Lawlor said.

Since the start of the Syrian uprising Ghazzawi, an English literature graduate from Damascus University, has become a symbol of the resistance to the repression by the Syrian Government

Read more at: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-woman-blogger-gets-human-rights-award-000819722.html

32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow

We tend to rewrite the histories of technological innovation, making myths about a guy who had a great idea that changed the world. In reality, though, innovation isn’t the goal; it’s everything that gets you there. It’s bad financial decisions and blueprints for machines that weren’t built until decades later. It’s the important leaps forward that synthesize lots of ideas, and it’s the belly-up failures that teach us what not to do....

That’s what this issue is about: all the little failures, trivialities and not-quite-solved mysteries that make the successes possible. This is what innovation looks like. It’s messy, and it’s awesome.

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/03/magazine/innovations-issue.html

Svante Myrick, Ithaca's Youngest-Ever Mayor, Converts Personal Parking Space Into Public Park

Svante Myrick's story is one of incredible grit and perseverance. In February this year, the 24-year-old made headlines when he became the youngest-ever mayor of Ithaca, NY. In an interview with NBC News's Kate Snow, Myrick talked about growing up homeless, his father's drug addiction problem and the challenges he faced on the road to political success.

Now, Myrick is giving us another reason to cheer for him. After giving up his car, he recently converted his personal parking space into a mini park, Grist.org reported. The reserved parking space next to City Hall is one of his mayoral privileges.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/03/svante-myrick-ithaca-mayor_n_1564151.html

Formal Opening of AfDB 2012 Annual Meetings: Tanzanian President says Africa is set to become world economic power

Africa is poised to become the world’s new economic power house for the 21st century, provided it continues to embrace the sound economic policies that engendered the progress being witnessed today, Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete said in Arusha on Thursday at the official opening of the 2012 Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

“We must strive to maintain macro-economic stability and sustain it through tackling high budget and overall external deficits,” the president suggested, calling for more efforts to lower the high inflation rates in many economies and keep it at single digit level.

In his view, regional integration is a unique vehicle that would enable Africa to build capacities for self-reliance and resilience against the uncertainties presented by the current crisis in the global economy.

Read more at: http://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/article/formal-opening-of-afdb-2012-annual-meetings-tanzanian-president-says-africa-is-set-to-become-world-economic-power-9339/#.T8fIsnkdPMA

Timor-Leste has much to celebrate on its 10th birthday

Asia's newest nation celebrated its 10th birthday this month: 20 May in Timor-Leste was a celebration of freedom that also deserved to be a celebration of development. After centuries of foreign rule, Timor-Leste has readied itself to be a full partner in what is shaping up as Asia's century.

Nation-building is a complex process, and the world's media have documented Timor-Leste's difficulties, from the graphic images of violent uprisings in 1999 and 2006, to the assassination attempts of 2008. These disturbing episodes earned it the moniker of fragile state. What some may have missed, however, is that Timor-Leste has emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia and the Pacific. Projections by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) show the economy has the potential to sustain a near double-digit rate of growth over this decade and beyond.

Read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/may/31/timor-leste-celebrate-10th-birthday