The three winners of the 2015 FIRE Africa Awards received a travel grant to attend the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2015, held in João Pessoa, Brazil from 10-13 November. We catch up with Florence Toffa (Code for Ghana), Tidiane Ball (Malisanté) and Chancel Malanga Mathoy Mata (Côte Na Tshombo) during their busy week to find out more about their projects and how their US$ 3,000 FIRE Africa Award will help their projects.

Code for Ghana

 Code for Ghana brings developers, journalists, and civil society together to create a network of civic-minded activists who use their knowledge and voices to make the local government system better through open data hackathons, trainings , and data visualisations.

Tell us how this project impacts Internet access and development in your country?
Citizens and CSOs need to understand the language of government and be able to engage or take decisions appropriately. Releasing raw data to the public enhances this dialogue. Code for Ghana seeks to empower media organisations and the youth through the organisation of data bootcamps to share knowledge on open data tools and demonstrate the value of open data to the broader society. We also build civic apps that keep citizens well informed about government activities.

How did the FIRE Africa help your project by giving you this Award?
FIRE Africa has supported us to a significant extent with seed money that helps us to sustain the core component of our fellowship program and, more importantly, given us the opportunity to attend the 2015 IGF Conference which has given the project great visibility and enabled us to connect to various stakeholders/partners. Further, the Fire Programme can help us grow Code for Ghana and the open data initiative through enabling us to expand our networks, through mentorships and allowing us to scale the project in other regions/countries.

Malisanté

• Malisanté is a medical information platform for the people of Mali. To achieve its goal, Malisanté uses web and mobile technology. The available information includes medical facilities' addresses, and healthcare professionals contact details.
• Malisanté est une plateforme d'information médicale destinée aux populations maliennes. Pour ce faire nous utilisons la technologie web et mobile. Les informations accessibles sont les adresses de structures médicales, des professionnels de la santé.

English: How did the FIRE Programme help your project by giving you this Award?

"Firstly, the FIRE Award gives us a lot of visibility. It is also a recognition of the work we have accomplished over the past years. The Award will also enable us to establish our voice server in the rural population areas and move on to the next level of our project. For this, we rely in building partnerships with community health associations, to which the state has delegated some of its powers."

Francais: Expliquez nous comment le Programme FIRE a pu contribuer au succès de votre projet?

Ce prix nous apporte d'abord de la notoriété. Il est aussi pour nous une reconnaissance pour le travail accompli durant des années. La bourse nous permettra surtout d'implementer notre serveur vocal à l'endroit des populations rurales donc de passer a une étape supérieure. Pour cela, nous comptons tisser de liens avec les associations de santé  communautaires  à qui l'Etat a délégué une part de ses pouvoirs. 

Côte Na Tshombo

English: How did the FIRE Award contribute to the project?

The funds I received for the FIRE 2015 program will help me to :

- Buy the cotenatshombo.edu domain and a dedicated server with a windows server 2012 Professional Edition installed; 

- Finalise the design of the application and improve some of its features

After the Working session, I think that the project is now ready to:

- Support the development of affordable and effective Internet infrastructure,

- Develop and promote the adoption of innovative applications and services supporting the awareness of fundamental rights of individuals and strengthening trust between organisations and individuals in the region.

Français: Qu’est ce que le FIRE Award va apporter au Projet ?

Les fonds que j'ai reçus du programme FIRE 2015 vont m'aider à :

- Acheter le domaine cotenatshombo.edu et un serveur dédié avec windows server 2012 professional Edition installé ;

- Finaliser le design de l'application et améliorer certaines de ses fonctionnalités

Après la session de travail je pense que le projet peut envisager à :

- Soutenir le développement d’une infrastructure Internet abordable et efficace,

- Développer et favoriser l’adoption d’applications et de services innovants, soutenant la sensibilisation aux droits fondamentaux des individus et en renforçant la confiance entre les organisations et les personnes dans la région.

About FIRE Africa

FIRE Africa provides funds for projects, initiatives, tools and platforms that harness the power of the Internet to empower the local and regional community to solve the region’s unique online communications problems. Since we ran our pilot project in 2007 to identify innovative ICT solutions to the challenges faced by local communities, FIRE Africa has grown into a fully-fledged programme that has helped over 30 initiatives in 16 countries over the last eight years.