The truth is, there are many things needed in the world right now, but another piece of ill-conceived technology is probably not one of them.
Over the last few years, the dangers of the power held by the big tech companies has been under close scrutiny. And revelations of how Facebook deliberately undermined rivals to grow its dominance reinforce these dangers. But they’re not the only ones that should be subjected to close scrutiny.
Information blackouts through shutdowns and restrictions are not the only tactic closing civic space nor is it unique to Uganda. The expansion of surveillance tactics by governments and private actors, legislative attacks and targeted mis/disinformation campaigns are a few more tactics that have also been used to shrink, and even close, civic space in recent years.
At the core of any movement should be the people it hopes to uplift. Here I present on the importance of building people-driven initiatives at a women leaders conference themed, “Claiming our stories, Raising our voices”.
In June South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, had the unenviable task of releasing an adjusted supplementary budget for the country. The budget was in response to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which will have an impact not only on revenue generation, but also expenditure as new needs emerge. As the Minister spoke, […]
For almost a month, South Africa has been undergoing rotating load shedding – or rolling blackouts – owing to the country’s power utility Eskom battling to meet electricity demand. These blackouts are now creating cellphone signal blackouts due to networks reportedly struggling to keep their towers running. The impact of these signal blackouts is particularly […]
Accepting the $100, 000 Waislitz Global Citizen grand prize award. The funds are being used by amandla.mobi to continue building the community, which includes launching a campaigner fellowship programme for Black women and non-binary community organisers.
More than 140 mentally ill patients died after they and 1,500 other patients were forced to move to poorly equipped NGOs. The death toll could rise still as 62 patients cannot be accounted for in any records. Despite being warned of the potential consequences, the patients who had been living at Life Esidimeni were forcefully relocated […]
While many functions in society have been automated for a very long time, with traffic lights being the most recognisable form to most of us, the combination of robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies have created much more sophisticated versions of automation. These have given us things like self-service kiosks and driver-less cars. […]
In conversation with the Institut français des relations internationales (ifri) about the historic and contemporary role of ‘civil society’ organisations in South Africa, as well as their interactions with government and people.
On Monday, two voice clips in which a 17-year old, Grade 11 learner from Pietermaritzburg Girls High School refers to her Black classmates as ‘k****rs’ were uploaded on social media. In the clips, she’s heard using the racial slur because her name had been pronounced and spelled incorrectly by another learner. According to reports, some […]
This morning as I woke up from dreams about peach slices, jelly, custard and Choice Assorted biscuits, I came across a blog post that made me want to throw up food that I had not even eaten yet. In the post Goodwill Ambassador of the CEO SleepOut, Yusuf Abramjee, claims that the “CEO SleepOut is […]
The success of start-ups such as Slack, BuzzFeed, flipkart.com and some sects of the on demand economy such as Uber and Air bnb were all part of the refining and spread of start-up culture. A culture that is often sold using the stories of individuals who quit something solid to ‘chase their ambitions’, ‘work in […]
Over the last few weeks, we have seen intense policing and private security at various university campuses across the country. This followed an announcement by the Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande that universities will determine their own fees for 2017, with increases capped at 8%- a move that was merely a passing of the […]
The excessive, indiscriminate force; arbitrary arrests and detentions that are currently taking place in our higher education institutions and surrounding areas, have put a spotlight on securitisation and militarisation. But neither is new, South Africa has for some time consistently been steadily securitising and militarising in various ways. Think of the way private security has […]
"...Through My Eyes..." 