RE: Developers Opportunities and Call For Social Content Providers

[Madi Yahya]

MONDAY, JULY 27 - Another invitation to Kenya's developer and entrepreneur community! Facebook and iHub are pleased to host a developer day dedicated to Internet.org.

Internet.org is a Facebook-led initiative focused on providing affordable internet access to the two thirds of the world’s population that is currently unconnected. We know addressing this challenge requires not only an investment in infrastructure, but also in local organizations who can develop content and services that are contextually relevant and can contribute to social progress.

Come hear from the Facebook team who will give an overview of Internet.org and the opportunities for developers to build and grow their services on the Internet.org and Facebook Platforms.

RSVP below:

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/facebook-and-ihub-developer-day-tickets-17807542840

Sent from Android device.

Madi-Jimba Yahya
+254 726 957658

[Cynara Vetch]

Hi,

I went to the Eventbrite page but it says "sold out" is it still possible to RSVP?

Regards,

Cynara

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[Simeon Oriko]

Thanks for sharing - I however would like to register a concern about Facebook’s Internet.org service.

Internet.org is a walled garden that curates the web for it’s target two thirds of the worlds’  unconnected people. This fundamentally goes against net neutrality principles and in know way helps to keep the web free and open.

Getting devs to build stuff is awesome but of what value is that if it locks people in to curated services and denies them the freedom of choice of what to consume on the web?

I’d like to know if this will be addressed at the event.

Kind Regards, 

Simeon Oriko | Digital and Innovation Strategist

Web: www.mtotowajirani.com | Twitter: @mtotowajirani

LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/simeonoriko

Cell: +254 724 892 941 | Skype: simeonoriko

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[Sasha Kinney]

Eureka, Simeon, someone said it, thank you!

Internet.org and its parent Facebook are not benevolent public interest entities, whose pure interest is in connecting us to our loved ones and providing affordable or free internet access for all. Yet we are all welcoming them with open arms (I've been observing this at different spaces over several months).

We can take advantage of opportunities for collaboration, but we should think about the terms of engagement, be aware of the restrictions that the offers entail, and advocate to preserve equal access across the internet, even if most people won't even know what they're missing. Free things always have strings attached.

I don't really understand the concerned "take what you can get" argument against fighting for net neutrality either... Facebook isn't going to pack up and take the "free" internet with them. Millions of African FB users (here's great data from SA) = Leverage. Choice.

I'm no expert on these issues, but, to me, we journalists-developers-allies should be most mindful of what it means for content to be curated by a corporate entity. The average Kenyan, the wananchi, can enjoy free Facebook access... but we're more informed and more responsible for helping to advocate for fair terms for everyone.

Sasha

p.s. Sounds like a good conversation around open internet and good policy was had at Moz Fest last weekend! :) 

[Njira Perci]

We should probably attend the event to make sure that that issue is addressed..

[Simeon Oriko]

That, in my opinion, will be reacting when it’s too late. I’d rather be proactive about this.

I’ve emailed the iHub team and asked them to reconsider the event and do away with the elements of the program that promote Internet.org as a service. Anything less will be a direct attack on net neutrality and keeping the web free and open.

Also Facebook shouldn’t use the local tech community as pawns for selfish gain. It’s about time the community also woke up to the impact of certain activities happening in the space rather than be blinded by short term benefits.

Kind Regards,

Simeon Oriko | Digital and Innovation Strategist

Web: www.mtotowajirani.com | Twitter: @mtotowajirani

LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/simeonoriko

Cell: +254 724 892 941 | Skype: simeonoriko

On July22, 2015 at 20:14:48, Njira Perci (nji...@gmail.com) wrote:

We should probably attend the event to make sure that that issue is addressed..

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[Sam Wakoba]

Great point Simeon,

I think the function is to introduce local devs to using Internet.org as a platform and not as a service. As a platform, it will be open to everyone with zero discrimination unlike as a service where just a few apps are handpicked. By coming to iHub where most of you are members, it means your apps qualify-you and your friends who need to hear this. Internet.org as a platform is open to as many developers and entrepreneurs to open the internet to everyone and is transparent and inclusive.

Why build on/for Internet.org? Unlike you and I who are nearly on 4G, there are folks who need these bandwidth-low apps which they can access via the Internet.org app which will be like a door to the internet for them. Internet.org as a service has been launched in Zambia Colombia, Guatemala, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and a couple others inclusing the Philippines and Indonesia.

One of the mistake the as a service had was to zero rate Facebook, Wikipedia, BBC News, some jobs sites among others but the net nuetrality issue made the giant Facebook to change track to open the platform for every developer in stead of talking exclusively to some  developers.However, there's Catch22, as it has to qualify the developers-probably due to quality, ethics among others. A few of the requirements before the net neutrality issue were -apps not being high-bandwidth, not VoIP or video, file transfer services or those apps with high resolution or high volume of photos-must have been resolved though.

India which strongly opposed internet.org as a service has 350 million internet users and is set to hit 500m in two years and doesn't need this welfare in the name of Internet.org whether as a platform or as a service. Kenya, on the other hand is still struggling to double up its numbers. You personally help kids get onlineto access educational materials and if they can get anything low-bandwidth before they get 4G or fiber could make sense.

We can't rely on welfare to push our agenda but in a failed market welfare is bound to come in-most likely in another name not Internet.org. But yes, I support Internet.org as a platform and not as as a service because there's nothing as free lunch!

[Simeon Oriko]

Thanks for your thoughts Sam. But I respectfully disagree for one simple reason. Sasha put it best:

“Internet.org and its parent Facebook are not benevolent public interest entities”

Once you understand this, especially in the light of net neutrality and open principles, you’ll realize that a walled garden - platform or service, isn’t beneficial to anyone in any way.

Facebook doesn’t need to regulate quality of apps, bandwidth, network quality etc - the market does that for itself perfectly well. Letting Facebook regulate through Internet.org in the name of providing the best service to the unconnected (note that this is their primary target audience - not low bandwidth users etc) is essentially giving up your freedom to choose for yourself.

If anyone can correctly justify why Facebook should regulate anything for me, then I’m happy to not only accept, but also endorse Internet.org. Until then, I’m for Net Neutrality and keeping the web free and open away from silos.

Secondly, it’s awesome you focus on the end user. Perfect. We need to be thinking about them and frankly, I don’t need Facebook to help me do this. I can go to the end user myself, ask their needs and design for them. For a region that prides itself with design thinking skills, this shouldn’t be too hard to do and does not require an intermediary to do it either.

My major focus however is about the impact on the tech community. We keep being owned by some organization and it never ends well. It started with Android and the whole Google craze. Then we went to Nokia and Samsung for a bit. Then Microsoft came in and woo’d the community. What do we tangibly have to show for it in terms of impact? The various organisations got more content on their app stores and more numbers to brag about - things they can directly profit off of. Nothing wrong with this. They’re in it to make money - after all, they’re not benevolent public interest entities.

But what did the community get? What tangible impact was there? Economically? Socially? You well know I’m a data guy so if you have these stats, I’m happy to look over them.

Now it’s Facebook’s turn. With all the lessons we can learn from dealing with past organizations, will we continue down the same path with Facebook? Especially at the costly price of freedom?

Kind Regards,

Simeon Oriko | Digital and Innovation Strategist

Web: www.mtotowajirani.com | Twitter: @mtotowajirani

LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/simeonoriko

Cell: +254 724 892 941 | Skype: simeonoriko

[Simeon Oriko]

One more thing:

We shouldn’t be turning the attention of our community developers to platforms and services. We should be focusing on specific skills.

We had this right at the early days of our community. We were known to be PHP guru’s and many were even contributing code to the PHP Open Source Project.

Then we lost it and started developing for S40 and S60 platforms. Where are those platforms now? Then we went to Android. Is there a chance this can, in the future perhaps, fade away as well? What of that time we were all Meego and Bada? Remember that?

We can learn a lot from our neighbours in Uganda who have focused their efforts on building the capacity of their community members’ skills. They were pretty much the first to adopt and use Ruby and Python on a wide scale in East Africa.

UG has a wider variety of technical skillets than we do - primarily because they focused on skills instead of platforms.

Point is, platforms/services/frameworks will come and go. Actual competency in specific skills will pretty much stand the test of time. If you don’t believe me, find the less than 10 COBOL programmers in the country that are making tons of money maintaining legacy ATM and security systems in EA.

Kind Regards,

Simeon Oriko | Digital and Innovation Strategist

Web: www.mtotowajirani.com | Twitter: @mtotowajirani

LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/simeonoriko

Cell: +254 724 892 941 | Skype: simeonoriko

[Njira Perci]

As I wait for my competency to stand the test of time I need to make a living. And if I can earn more from a Microsoft hackathon than a Kenyan employer then by all means I will help myself to it.

While we are still upcoming we cannot afford the luxury of choice, later on when we get the networks, recognition and what have you and our hearts are settled is when we can bother about other factors other than where our next rent will come from.

[Njira Perci]

I also don't think that those COBOL developers have done only COBOL in their lifetimes.. There must have been a season when they were also chasing what was hot then, then money stopped being an issue then they married COBOL

[Simeon Oriko]

At the price of freedom?

Do you realize a free and open web is the reason you’re able to learn skills, build networks and get recognition in the first place? And you want to trade that freedom? For what exactly?

What has Facebook (and all these other organizations) done for you that you are so loyal to them?

Simeon Oriko | Digital and Innovation Strategist

Web: www.mtotowajirani.com | Twitter: @mtotowajirani

LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/simeonoriko

Cell: +254 724 892 941 | Skype: simeonoriko

[Soud Hyder]

1 billion + MAU's , include WhatsApp and Instagram it get crazier, one of those in or out situations, damned if you do and damned if you don't, 

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S o u d   H y d e r

M: +254 722 387 512

[Sasha Kinney]

I would just add one point + send more detailed info from EFF on Internet.org, as below.

We shouldn't make this a simple pro/con discussion, where Facebook is either embraced or condemned. In or out. Isn't it about the terms of engagement, the conditions of what's offered?

We have voice and leverage here. The welfare mentality is what keeps us down...

We don't need to roll over to Facebook's conditions any more than Indians do. Also, our only choice isn't to opt out, which conveniently isn't possible anyway. Now, instead, by wholeheartedly embracing and celebrating such efforts, we are just making it even harder for even others to push for freer fairer terms.

And a little informed conversation and pressure can really change things. It already has forced some changes from Zuckerberg and Internet.org. In South Africa, Right2Know took this stance, a strong one though not sure it was that constructive... but at least it's a starting point for negotiations. State your position, at least. If we don't advocate for larger community interests, who will? 

Sasha

EFF: We agree that some Internet access is better than none, and if that is what Internet.org actually provided—for example, through a uniformly rate-limited or data-capped free service—then it would have our full support. But it doesn't. Instead, it continues to impose conditions and restraints that not only make it something less than a true Internet service, but also endanger people's privacy and security.

the whole article: 

Internet.org Is Not Neutral, Not Secure, and Not the Internet

MAY 18, 2015 | BY JEREMY GILLULA AND JEREMY MALCOLM

Facebook's Internet.org project, which offers people from developing countries free mobile access to selected websites, has been pitched as a philanthropic initiative to connect two thirds of the world who don’t yet have Internet access. We completely agree that the global digital divide should be closed. However, we question whether this is the right way to do it. As we and others have noted, there's a real risk that the few websites that Facebook and its partners select for Internet.org (including, of course, Facebook itself) could end up becoming a ghetto for poor users instead of a stepping stone to the larger Internet.

Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of the expansion of the Internet.org platform earlier this month was aimed to address some of these criticisms. In a nutshell, the changes would allow any website operator to submit their site for inclusion in Internet.org, provided that it meets the program's guidelines. Those guidelines are neutral as to the subject matter of the site, but do impose certain technical limitations intended to ensure that sites do not overly burden the carrier's network, and that they will work on both inexpensive feature phones and modern smartphones.

Compliance with the guidelines will be reviewed by the Internet.org team, which may then make the site available for Internet.org users to access for free, by routing the communication through the Internet.org proxy server. That proxy server allows the sites to be “zero rated” by participating mobile phone operators; allows the automatic stripping out of content that violates the guidelines—such as images greater than 1Mb in size, videos, VoIP calls, Flash and Java applets and even JavaScript; and inserts an interstitial warning if a user attempts to leave Internet.org's zero-rated portion of the Internet, so as to prevent users from accidentally being billed for data charges they may not be able to afford and didn't mean to incur.

We agree that some Internet access is better than none, and if that is what Internet.org actually provided—for example, through a uniformly rate-limited or data-capped free service—then it would have our full support. But it doesn't. Instead, it continues to impose conditions and restraints that not only make it something less than a true Internet service, but also endanger people's privacy and security.

That's because the technical structure of Internet.org prevents some users from accessing services over encrypted HTTPS connections. As we mentioned above, a critical component of Internet.org is its proxy server, which traffic must pass through for the zero-rating and the interstitial warning to work correctly. Some devices, like Android phones running Internet.org's app, have the technical ability to make encrypted HTTPS connections through the proxy server without becoming vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks or exposing any data (beyond the domain being requested) to Facebook. Internet.org's Android app can also automatically bring up the interstitial warning directly on the phone by using the app to analyze links (as opposed to Facebook serving the warning via its proxy server).

But most inexpensive feature phones that can't run an Android app don't support phone-based warnings or this sort of proxying of HTTPS connections. For these phones, traffic must pass through Internet.org's proxy unencrypted, which means that any information users send or receive from Internet.org's services could be read by local police or national intelligence agencies and expose its users to harm. While Facebook is working to solve this problem, it's extremely difficult from a technical perspective, with no obvious solution.

Even if Facebook were able to figure out a way to support HTTPS proxying on feature phones, its position as Internet gatekeepers remains more broadly troublesome. By setting themselves up as gatekeepers for free access to (portions of) the global Internet, Facebook and its partners have issued an open invitation for governments and special interest groups to lobby, cajole or threaten them to withhold particular content from their service. In other words, Internet.org would be much easier to censor than a true global Internet.

While we applaud Facebook's efforts to encourage more websites to provide support for low-end feature phones by stripping out “heavy” content, we would like to see Internet.org try harder to achieve its very worthy objective of connecting the remaining two thirds of the world to the Internet. We have confidence that it would be possible to provide a limited free Internet access service that is secure, and that doesn't rely on Facebook and its partners to maintain a central list of approved sites. Until then, Internet.org will not be living up to its promise, or its name.