typicalugandan:

Kampala rising: On the startlingly green shores of Lake Victoria, on the other side of Kenya and Tanzania, a new generation is ready to upend your perception of Africa. The urban, connected and enterprising youth have taken control of technologies at hand to build a different Uganda.

Robots in classrooms. Cellphone apps that measure fetal heart rates, propose where to look for cheapest gas or help you argue with a taxi driver. Digital girl power. Business incubators brimming with ambitious youth.

All that in one megavillage on the lush tropical shores of Lake Victoria, in a country that misinformed people can actually be afraid of. In the city of Kampala, a young connected generation is redefining Uganda and our perception of Africa. They are citizens of the world.

They have learned their skills from on-line tutorials, they are called to global meetings, they win international prizes and, heck, they even move a rap star like 50 Cent.
They are all hungry, of course. Hungry for change, for social development, for success and prosperity.

• Kampala, Uganda ‘s capital city of about 1.7 million people, is built on many hills. This is the central one, Nakasero, with the state house and upmarket hotels overlooking it all, and the business heart of the city down in the valley.

• Daniel Ogwok, Michael Tukei and Kevin Biretwa are confronting a new challenge: how to calculate a fair fare that would help Android users negotiate with taxi drivers without meters. Their app BodaPay has already done that for customers of passenger motorcycles.

• The first RailsGirls event in Uganda was an Outbox initiative, while ThoughtWorks provided the finances and training support. Young women from different walks of life were happy to learn how to make a website using Ruby on Rails.

• Fundi Bots students Henry Masiriwa, Victor Kawagga and William Odokonyero pose with robots and prototypes. Most are assembled from imported educational kits but “Atobot” is made out of locally accessible materials, for example bicycle parts.

• Christine Ampaire gathered her team, CodeSync, at a 48-hour hackathon. She attended it out or curiosity with no intention of participating. She ended up meeting four guys and building MafutaGo, a crowdsourcing app that assists drivers with finding the cheapest fuel. The app was the first runner-up at the Barcelona Premier Mobile Awards.

• Solomon King believes robotics can help solve major problems of African education. His organisation, Fundi Bots, brings robot kits to classrooms, providing the practical aspect not offered anywhere else. Students integrate work with mechanics, electronics, programming, biology, physics, math and chemistry.

• Terry Karungi of Kola Studio, one of the two startups at Outbox, an incubation, collaboration and innovation hub in Kampala. Terry’s team have made Matatu, a popular free smartphone app based on a local card game that they are now trying to monetize.

• Collins Mugume has established Meka, a web product platform that was selected for Demo Africa in 2012. Available on all major mobile platforms, its main utility is in comparison shopping that saves buyers time.

• Evelyn Namara checking her phone at a gathering of Women In Technology Uganda. When she is not busy helping rural women get access to solar technology, Namara is an instructor for ladies-only networking classes all across the continent.

  The rest of the profiles are via Kampala rising by Ciril Jazbec.

dfw-cub:

terra-mater:

15 amazing things in nature you won’t believe actually exist

Source

I am gonna make it my personal mission to see these places some day.

think-progress:

LAST NIGHT: 100,000 Brazilians flood streets to protest World Cup spending and government corruption.

See more amazing photos here (AP)