A deep breath after a busy few weeks. Home in DC to go the wedding of a close friend. She is the first of any of my friends from high school or college to get hitched. Weird.

If you are in DC this weekend, check out the Homeless World Cup action. My great friends Jeremy and Pat are very involved in the 'sports for social change' movement in Uganda, and have organized the Ugandan delegation for the past few years, bringing young leaders from Gulu and Pader to Capetown and then Copenhagen.

From Friday, June 27 – Sunday, June 29, the Homeless USA Cup, a program of Street Soccer USA, will take place in Washington, D.C. at the Old Convention Center site at H and 11th Street, NW. More than 100 players representing 11 cities from across the United States will play for a chance to win the Homeless USA Cup, and the opportunity to be selected to the US National Team that will represent the United States at the Homeless World Cup in Melbourne, Australia in December. Admission to the event is free and open to the public.

Labels: off the grid, post-conflict development

The only book Thoreau had at Walden Pond was Homer's Iliad. I just bought a copy from a bearded woman for $1.47 in the Mission District in San Francisco.

My mind has been racing lately, but I've been pouring my energy, not into blogging, but into understanding the strange Google universe and the fascinating and murky overlap between the fields of telecommunication policy and international development. More on that soon, but...

In Kigali, Josh Ruxin says Rwanda needs Microsoft's billions and its managers.

In Washington, Nicholas Carr writes that the Internet probably ruins are ability to be literate. I think he is right.

In Nairobi, Hash is geeking out with Barcamp Nairobi.

In New York, Paul Graham explores, in the best article I've read in a while, the unique character of global cities.

Labels: off the grid

Via one of Andrew Sullivan's readers:

My grandfather, 86 years old and a veteran of WWII, just gave me a call. He was calling all of his grandchildren to let them know what an important night this was in the history of our country.

Grandpa drove a truck for over 50 years, and he told the story of how he drove with a team of drivers, 2 white (including him), and 4 black. When they stopped at the truck stops, the black drivers had to use seperate restrooms and showers, and had to eat in a small room in the back of the kitchen. Grandpa and his co-driver would eat in the back with the rest of the team, and while they didn't speak of it at the time, they knew it was wrong yet felt powerless to change it, and believed that it would never change.

Tonight, he told me, we have come full-circle. Many people, especially the younger generation who supported Obama, will never fully realize the historical import of what happened tonight. But he wanted his grandchildren to know this story that he had never told us, and it was the second time in my 33 years that I have heard my grandpa cry.

So, I moved to San Francisco a few weeks ago to start a summer internship at Google Inc. I’m working for Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s Head of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs, researching the best ways that Google can help make internet access cheaper and more widely available throughout Africa.

Needless to say, I’m madly excited about this gig. The crux of my excitement is what Andrew calls the ‘chicken and egg’ paradox of technology in Africa. In other words, while technology has been shown to be a driver of economic development in the poorest countries, there is no incentive for market entry without an established surfeit of users. Thus, many large technology companies are at a point where they get to explore demand and supply opportunities at every level, ranging from major investments in submarine infrastructure to innovative rural-end solutions, as well as perfecting the art of interacting with both host and donor countries on issues of access.

The ‘chicken and egg’ paradox ensures that I won’t get bored this summer. That and the fact that San Francisco was just named one of the top five cycling cities in the US.

Labels: east africa, Internet and Democracy, West and Central Africa