Kabissa has joined the growing community of social enterprises, activists and innovators in Africa and around the world who are using Twitter to keep in closer contact, share information and deepen personal connections using SMS and the web.

What is Twitter, then? It is "a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" It is more than that. Erik Hersman, who blogs at WhiteAfrican.com, describes it this way:

Twitter represents a change in communication. By acting as a global gateway for updates via SMS (or the web), that then updates all of your followers, Twitter succeeded in breaking ground in one-to-many messaging.

If you are using Twitter, you can now follow Kabissa at http://twitter.com/kabissa ...and let us also follow you! 

Below is a helpful introductory video that covers all the Twitter basics: 

I remember meeting Ben Rigby at the first Mobile Active convergence in Toronto quite a few years ago now, and being struck by his innovative and bold ideas. He was then in the process of developing mobilevoter.org, a clever new initiative to use mobile phones to encourage people to register to vote. This is a big issue in America, where so many young people tend to be apathetic about politics and don't even register to vote, let alone go to the polls to cast a ballot.

Now he has teamed up with Jacob Colker to create The Extraordinaries, offering what they call "On-Demand Volunteerism by Mobile Phone". This initiative, powered by an iPhone application, will be only available in the US, but I could imagine this type of innovating having terrific potential in Africa where logistical conditions make volunteering of any kind very challenging indeed. When I wrote to ask about it, the response from Jacob was "I think it's going to be about a year before people can download the application internationally, but we DO want to go worldwide with this asap! Please watch our email newsletters for updates. Glad to know we have people that may be interested in Africa." What kind of mobile phone volunteering could you imagine happening in Africa within the next few years?

Follow The Extraordinaries at:

Via [DigAfrica]: Mobile phones are reaching people across Africa more rapidly than anywhere else in the world, say Richard Lester and Sarah Karanja. And they can be used to help manage diseases such as HIV/AIDS, provide support during political crises and improve health services.

USAID are offering a $10,000 grant to expand existing mobile technology projects. The deadine for submission is 5th December. For more information on the project see Netsquared/USAID

USAID is proud to announce the launch of the 2008 USAID Development 2.0 Challenge. Brought to you by the Global Development Commons.

Mobile technology, including everything from inventive applications for smart phones to simple text messaging, is increasingly ubiquitous in the developing world. USAID challenges you to explore its potential through an innovation for maximum development impact in areas such as health, banking, education, agricultural trade, or other pressing development issues.

There is a tendency to view technology as gender neutral and very little discussion really takes place on the social, gender, cultural and organisational implications of technologies include the mobile phone. Here Kutoma Wakunuma discusses whether women how women are using mobile technology including what are the barriers and social implications...

You can read more on the Ushahidi blog here:

http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/07/ushahidi-deploys-to-the-congo-drc/

Ushahidi, which means ''testimony'' in Swahili, is a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi's roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The new Ushahidi Engine is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web - and map them. It is being built so that it can grow with the changing environment of the web, and to work with other websites and online tools.