Coders4Africa

The Future We Are Creating

At the end of December 2012, 5 unique, real life projects in different sectors: agriculture, healthcare, business, education and social need will be delivered at the completion of the project. What are the end open source products?

Elimu (Education)
With both Mobile and Web interfaces allow students, teachers and admins to manage their work online and on their phones.
CoopNet(Agriculture)
A coffee crop management system to assist coop manager, farmers and stakeholders to solve issues with Human Resource management, coffee crops inventory, pricing & weight calibration (including currency and weight conversion tools)
OpenData (Social Need)
The entities that hold the most public and infrastructure data are always government institutions. Getting information from them, no matter where you are in the world can be difficult. In Africa it can be very hard indeed. The OpenData initiative is established to bring together parties who desire to see African Societies governed openly, by creating and promoting Open Data and Open Goverment ecosystems in Africa. 30 developers will be broken into groups of to work on projects about open data.
Database Management & Repository System (Business)
Will help small medium enterprises be more effective and efficient in running day to day business tasks by bringing government agencies to the digital age, (most institutions in Africa still rely on paper). There are huge opportunities in creating centralized databases that can be tied in to the open data initiative.
Symptom Health Checker (Healthcare)
Self-improvement and disease management tools to empower people to manage their health via mobile phones. By choosing a few symptoms, the app may suggest what you may be suffering from and suggest you go see the doctor right away. Possibly you App can identify a doctor that handles that in your zone.

How We Are Creating It

Through practical project-based training. Unlike traditional software training practices, our approach treats each 30 software developers (trainees) as a potential employee or entrepreneur. The thirty developers will be broken into groups of 5.

Trainees are treated as “junior employees” and are expected to explore, visualize, create and demonstrate innovative concepts and to experience using technology, analyzing the technical, economical and social feasibility of the project.

Moreover, they will be taught to understand the art of technical writing and how to effectively communicate with other developers, engineers and the common civilian.

The $33,000 we need for this venture will go towards:

1) Two vetted professionals that are going conduct the training for three months

2) Venues where the training will take place with:

-uninterrupted power supply
-adequate Internet bandwidth
-video conference capability
-computer lab ready

3) Software licenses

4) Hardware: Laptops, mobile devices and servers

5) Training Material: Mainly books -hard copy and digital format.

By December 2012, these five products will be ready to use by stakeholders in their respective communities. Actually, stakeholders will be involved very early in the training program. Trainees will approach them for requirements, acceptance criteria and will keep them updated throughout the process.

Our Story & Why You Should Support Us

You've heard the ghastly stories before, seen the images on TV: the starving African kids, the wars and genocides, wild animals roaming around, villages and rural areas, famines, technology deficiencies etc. There is so much more to Africa and when it comes to this last digital frontier, 6 friends decided to give the youth a chance to make a difference. They co-founded Coders4Africa.

The success of these 30 African software developers will depend on how much support we receive from YOU. On Start Some Good, if we meet our fundraising goal, half of their battle has been won! The more we surpass our goal, the stronger the message we send them - "There are a lot of good people rooting for you!"

Why do we do what we do? Because we love it! We feel a deep sense of fulfillment when young men and women innovate. We feel their joy when they succeed and are proud to be actively altering the direction of a whole continent. We do this to show future generations that if you plan your work and work your plan, impossible is nothing.

With the success of this initiative, we hope to inspire others to give back to their respective communities. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. We are inventing a community of innovators that will help Africans conquer this last digital frontier.We can't do this project without all of you - if we fall short of our goal, the 30 developers will not be able to achieve their dreams because we won't receive any of the pledged money (everyone gets refunds).

Please tweet, fb, email, this page along to anyone and everyone who you think supports the concept of giving back and paying it forward. Such is software development, very similar to alchemy. You invent something tangible out of letters and numbers. That's magical! Thank you so much for your time and help!

If you have any other questions, comments, suggestions, please don't hesitate to write us donate@coders4africa.org. You can also visit our website www.coders4africa.org and link us on Facebook and Twitter to see what we are up to!

Thank you again for all your support!

The Coders4Africa Team