JAMLAB’s accelerator taking off
JAMLAB’s fifth edition looks at RootIO’s radio in a bucket in Uganda and explores findings from the Wits Internet Research seminar

Did you know you could have a radio in a bucket? In Uganda, radio continues to be a powerful tool for community information. RootIO founders, Chris Csikszentmihalyi and Jude Mukandane established a radio in a bucket using household materials and broadcasting to small communities flung far from the Kampala’s urban cities. The grassroots radio is the first of its kind to be deployed in the world. It is an innovative radio technology with a potential to transform last-mile communication in hard to reach areas.
In South Africa, the first JAMLAB Meet-up hosted Asmaa Malik, an associate professor at the Ryerson School of Journalism in Canada at the Tshimologong Precinct. She shared on some cases studies of media start-ups that have grown out of the Digital Media Zone, a tech hub at Ryerson. Two teams from the JAMLAB accelerator programme were also part of the panel and shared their journey’s thus far of starting their own start-ups.

Indra de Lanerolle, director of JAMLAB, shared some of his findings on Mobile Phone Diaries of the Less Connected. His paper reports on diary study of South Africans on low incomes’ use of mobile phones and mobile Internet in everyday life. This is part of the Wits Internet Research Seminar convened by The Network Society research programme at Wits Journalism and the LINK Center.
Book your seat for Public Seminar on Cyber-security and technopolitics
On August 29, the LINK Center will host a public lecture on Cyber-security and techno-politics. Prof Ewan Sutherland, from the LINK Centre, and also an independent telecommunications policy analyst will share on what the state of South Africa’s governance of cyber-security is. Iginio Gagliardone, a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand will be speaking on the hidden ‘technopolitics’ of ICTs, their ability to embody and enact political goals in especially Ethiopia and the rest of Africa. Do not forget to book your seat for this seminar.
Accelerating innovation
We’re nearly two months into the JAMLAB accelerator programme at the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Johannesburg. And the teams have been hard at work. This week, we introduce Media Factory, led by Nelisa Ngqulana from Cape Town. Through creating a virtual newsroom called IndabaNet, she hopes she will help reduce the number of unemployed journalists in many rural areas of South Africa.
And finally, we have blogs from JAMLAB’s accelerator programme teams. Online magazine Black Girl Fat Girl say they will be faking it until they make it, while The African Tech Round-up is making their mark within the emerging African tech and innovation industry. The team from Volume News are trying to make local news viable again.
Please join the conversation on Twitter or Facebook. Or feel free to email us at jamlab@journalism.co.za
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