.... plus and minus of social media future in Africa


By Oral Ofori

Jemila Abdulai is the founder and
writer of Circumspecte.com and a consultant at the African Center for
Economic Transformation in Accra, Ghana. She is very passionate about
Africa as I came to discover in my recent talk with her about social media
and its effects on the youths of Africa during which she made a passionate
call on political leadership on the continent to be more involved with
youths and carve out workable policies to make ICT more practical.


Miss Abdulai sees herself as a Creative problem solver with an analytical
mind and a multicultural perspective. She also comes across as very
passionate about media, communications, women, youth, and African
development. In the first quarter of 2013 she was adjudged the best blogger
in the category of citizen journalism and news in Ghana by Blogging
Ghana,
the official mouthpiece for bloggers of Ghanaian origin in the world.

*Click to hear Jemila Abdulai talk to this blog via
SoundCloud
*


My conversation whith Jemila lasted almost half an hour within which she
talked a bit about the first ever bilingual Google+ hangout organized under
the auspices of Blogging Ghana and moderated by
her.
The English and French speaking hangout highlighted experiences and lessons
of the various social media campaigns for elections in West Africa with
participants coming from Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria.

While praising social media for the power it has to bridge information gaps
and bring people together all cross the world, Jemila felt most of Africa
was far behind the ICT curve. The lack of constant or at least regular
supply of electricity and Internet connectivity was not helping the
situation as well.

Social media, like anything else has its associated negatives. Some of the
major ones that would negatively impact on countries in Africa as more
people become users of this technology include infrastructural constraints
(little or no access to electricity, computers and or Internet
connectivity), lack of skills required to maximize social media usage
beneficially and credibility of information obtained from social media
enthusiasts and websites. The problem of identity theft and child
pornography were also concerns that came up in my chat with Jemila.

As she prepares towards finishing up a Masters of Arts in International
Economics and International Affairs with the Johns Hopkins University Paul
H. Nitz School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC.
The well travelled Ghanaian blogger in an answer to my question of what she
was doing to positively impact Africa and the world told me that she plans on
reinventing her blog as a start.

On her new site, bloggers will have the opportunity of being guest featured
as she plans to also put together a communications consultancy that offers
basic services to help people improve upon their writing and basic
communication skills and strategizing, as a way of giving back to society.
Get all the download from the horse's own mouth by clicking this link to
listen to our conversation
now
and
watch out for more about this prolific Ghanaian woman.




Oral Ofori, +1202-706-9881, oralofori@gmail.com, Freelance Journalist:
http://www.oralofori.com/ Wikimedia Ghana Enthusiast, Broadcaster, Retail
Specialist, Music Promoter, Artiste. http://about.me/oralofori/