Last weekend, the White House announced that whitehouse.gov now runs on Drupal a widely used open source content management system. Until now, the Obama administration has continued to use tools purchased during the previous administration. These tools severely limited what the administration could do with the website, limiting opportunities for interaction with users. In switching […]
The Rwandan Ministry of Health, has unveiled its first batch of software programmers who will be in charge of developing and implementing the Open Medical Record System (OpenMRS). OpenMRS is a community-developed, open-source, enterprise electronic medical record system platform which is being implemented in Rwanda to nationally track patient-level medical information, connecting over 500 health […]
Open Source Software – from the Linux operating system through a range of SQL database engines to SQL/PHP based web development /content management environments – has much to offer. There are far too many systems in Africa running unnecessarily on expensive proprietary licences that require similarly exorbitant support contracts. Open Source is being delivered in […]
The Africa e-Governance Academy was opened in Accra in July. Three months on there is very little sign of it (3 months to develop a little web site for the e-side?). It is hosted by the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, whose website seems to have disappeared. And no mention of it at […]
The Danqah Institite, a liberal think tank, is organising a conference in December on the Viability of Electronic Voting in Ghana. The institute is trying to push the pace of electoral reform against the advice of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, which is seeking to implement a biometric registration system but argues caution against moving too hastily […]
The African Elections Portal, started as a West African project, has expanded to Southern Africa and is monitoring the elections taking place in Botswana today. It is hosting sixteen first-time bloggers as part of its monitoring process.
The Fogarty International Center, part of the US National Institutes of Health, today announced it will award more than $9.23 million to eight global health informatics programs over the next five years – two of them from Africa. The University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa will use its new award to develop research and training […]
THE Agra Cooperative has started a new Internet service by offering livestock auctions online where bidders can buy animals at the click of a mouse – a first for Namibia. The Agra e-Auction service was launched last week and will save buyers and sellers time and money, not having to drive to and from auctions.
The South African Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA) controversial project to distribute access to its Identity and fingerprint databases is running into overspend and late delivery problems. The project could potentially revolutionise the DHA by providing access to two core systems to branch offices and field teams. The national population register (NPR) and the Home […]
by Bismark Bebli in The Chronicle via allAfrica.com (see also BBC) Contrary to reports that UK Company, Vodafone Plc bought 70% of Ghana Telecom (GT) for $900 million, it has been revealed that the country received a paltry Two Hundred and Sixty-six Million, Five Hundred and Seventy Dollars ($266.57m) in payment. Former President John Agyekum […]