Every day we continue to see how the power of broadband and the Internet powers new and exciting initiatives. Recently I received word from some local DC friends that they were planning the launch of a new and exciting project called Africa Rural Connect. The project is a collaboration of several local firms in the DC area along with the National Peace Corps Association.
Wegora, a local startup still in private beta, was chosen as the platform to power ARC. Ernesto Gluecksmann and Mickey Panayiotakis, partners at Infamia, have been working closely to customize the platform.
The Wegora platform has been licensed for the ARC Community because of its unique properties for sharing ideas, remixing, and altogether smooth user-based operations. Coordinating a team to create and develop such a difficult undertaking, Gluecksmann said, We recognized the tremendous opportunity for both parties, National Peace Corps Association and Wegora, and have since been working in development for ARC. The Wegora platform meets the needs of the Association better than any other web networking program that we know of because of the ability for its users to edit content in this way.
The basic idea behind the ARC os to drive discussions of development challenges and solutions facing Sub Saharan Africa. The site will help to aggregate the knowledge and at the same time turn those ideas into a plan. To kick off the sites launch, they have come up with a competition to help get the ideas flowing.
Kick-starting the ARC Community, the NPCA has arranged a competition to collect the best practical solutions for African rural development. Starting in July, anyone can post their ideas to the platform and the ARC Community members will rate them, and remix them with input from each other. After 4 month-long rounds, the highest-rated submissions will be sent to a panel of judges. In November, the winning plan will receive $20,000 to help implement the plan, as well as exposure to the international development community, creating possibilities for additional funding.
Its great to see some of our good local friends not only out there using their skills to develop new and exciting internet “applications”, but also ones that have such a long reaching global impact with the hopes of helping those in need. So please stop by the site and help contribute your knowledge.
