The NY Times has a photo op called "A Global Graveyard for Dead Computers in Ghana" that shows how Ghana is dealing with its ever-increasing number of dated computer equipment. The computers, which come mainly from the U.S. and Europe, are sent as charitable donations with the hope that they will reduce the digital divide. But as the pictures show, the recipients find more value obtaining the precious metals inside the computers, than using the computers themselves.

Due to the toxicity of those metals as well as the unorthodox methods of extracting them from computers, our donations are actually polluting Ghana. Greenpeace sampled the soil there and found high levels of lead and cadmium, among other not-so-friendly elements and compounds.

It's quite a dilemma. On one hand, it feels great to give to the less fortunate but on the other hand, our charitable gifts sometimes have adverse effects. Unfortunately, it's not always obvious (or documented) how things will turn out.

The last slide sums up the dilemma very well:

"The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, agreed to in 1989 and now adopted by a majority of notions, was meant to stop the dumping of toxic waste in poor countries. But rules get complicated when waste arrives as a gift." 

A lot happened on the internet in 2009:

• 90 trillion emails were sent
• 47 million new websites were added
• 1.73 billion people--a little over 1/4 of the world's population--were on the web.

The internet truly is a force to be reckoned with. But at only a quarter of world using it, we still have a ways to go. And in my opinion, that's especially true for Africa. Africa has ~1 billion people but of them, only 6.7% have access to the internet. That's crazy! Despite being the second most-populous continent, only 4 out of every 100 internet users lay their head there.

The continent has been plagued with senseless wars, underdeveloped infrastructure, and unimaginable corruption leaving the people unempowered.  But the internet can change that. It provides access to both the world and a world of information. It breaks down barriers and creates new opportunities.  Many people await change from the outside;  with the web, change can come from within. Given the right tools, Africans will take matters into their own hands.

Take William Kamkwamba for example. With some pictures and old schematics, he managed to build a windmill from spare parts and provide electricity to his family. His government was lacking so he made something happen. And this isn't an isolated case. There are plenty of other examples of African ingenuity.

Imagine how much more progress the people of Africa might independently make if they had access to the web. Africa needs the Internet. It's already transformed every other continent (except for maybe Antarctica). Once given access, people have been known to educate themselves, build businesses and use their own ability to prosper. If given the chance, Africans will too.

So apparently, Nigerians "created" cool. Or, at least, they extrapolated the idea of it. I was checking out Jamel Shabazz's "Back in the Day" photography book and the introduction discussed the origin of "cool":

What is cool? Robert Farris Thompson writes in his 1983 book Flash Of The Spirit that cool originated in Nigeria in the first half of the 15th century. Ewure was the name given to a ruler crowned king of the Nigerian Empire of Benin. At the time, the word literally meant, "it is cool". Thompson writes that Nigerian civilisation was impressive not only for its urban density, refinement and complexity, but also for the inner momentum of conviction and poise they maintained in the face of ongoing political oppression. Other leaders followed suit. Later in that century, a Yoruba leader from Ilobi (an area that is now southern Egabado) decided on the name Oba tio tutubi asum, which means "Cool-and-peaceful-as-the-native-Herb-Osub." Thompson discovers cool in these different black civilizations and attributes them to a special inner drive and confidence that kept these civilizations going...