Drones for Development in Ghana
Ghana has over the years made tremendous progress towards achieving accelerated development with the use of ICT and one of such ICT landmarks is the introduction and usage of drones in Ghana. Also referred to as Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), or a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), drones have generally had a sinister image, mainly due to its use by the military to track enemy combatants. Drones currently have key roles in aerial photographs and videos, real estate photography, elections monitoring, remote sensing, automated package delivery, and search and rescue in humanitarian response. Its application has also been seen in the area of E-Commerce order fulfillment/delivery, Territorial surveillance, Vessel traffic monitoring and Vessel Surveillance. However, improvements in technology and lowering cost has led to the remodeling of drones to have development applications to contribute in growth in sectors such as health, agriculture, security, road safety and traffic management; natural resource management, aerial photography, 3-D mapping; search and rescue, among others. It is against this background that Penplusbytes hosted the 2nd Technology Salon dubbed: “Technology Salon – Accra: How Can Drones Accelerate Ghana’s Development?” where it was realized that drones will play important role in Ghana’s development due to its myriad of areas of applications in almost every aspect of national life. This publication seeks to highlights the importance of drones and the opportunities its usage may present to the Ghanaian economy and beyond.
Data Journalism in Ghana
The concept of Data Journalism in Ghana is very much in its infant stage though the practice is gaining significant grounds among practitioners over the last few years. The effort to speed up the process for Journalists and media especially to take up and build this skill is however commendable. The call for in depth reporting of developmental issues prompted rapid training workshops for journalists across the country where Ghanaian data experts have drawn training curtains on Data Journalism in the past years to better inform and educate citizenry. This notwithstanding, organizations such as Penplusbytes stands out as one of the foremost bodies to whip life into data journalism practice. This paper study focuses on data journalism as an essential field to be explored by the Ghanaian media in order to enhance accuracy and professionalism in their field of work.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE 2013 KENYA GENERAL ELECTIONS
Social Media is almost as powerful as the traditional media such as radio, television and print media in terms of reaching a larger audience. Social Media, from the least common ones like flickr, digg, upcoming, Technorati, MySpace, to the most popular ones like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter were actively used during Kenya’s 2013 elections by various candidates in the bid to relay campaign messages and rally supporters. This study which focuses on the role of social media in Kenya’s 2013 elections and its implications on African elections, highlights effective monitoring bodies such as the Umati and Uchaguzi among other Apps whose main work was to monitor social media platforms against provocative and inflammatory postings with the potential to incite violence.
#HackAgainstEbola Final Report
#HackAgainstEbola is a campaign by the Global Editors Network from November 2014 to January 2015 in Ghana, Senegal, and Nigeria. The goal of the campaign was to fund the development of online and mobile tools by local journalists to tackle and prevent Ebola from spreading.
MOBILE APPLICATION FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE IN GHANA: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN AND OPPORTUNITY
Ghana has a vibrant mobile development landscape as a result of increase in growth and interest among young developers. One challenge among many Ghanaian app developers however, is the difficulty to identify and create opportunities for public participation in governance, and to develop apps that engage citizens in more exciting ways. This paper seeks to identify the gaps in the landscape of mobile application in the area of good governance and democracy, make recommendations and catalyze the development of mobile applications to advance the cause.
GAMES FOR DEVELOPMENT IN GHANA
The development of electronic games in Africa is rapidly growing and this growth is fueled by the popularity of mobile phones and climbing internet penetration. This publication explores the dynamics of Games development and it's prospect for Ghana's development.