SXSW 2012

Africa is more than AIDS, poverty, civil strife and safaris. With the ever-increasing access to digital tools Africans on the continent and all over the world are using the web to farm a new vision of Africa in the 21st Century. Social media platforms amplify and help spread this “new take” on the continent, both enabling Africans to tell their own stories and offering an alternative to mainstream media’s coverage of Africa. Ultimately, using new media Africans can and are becoming the architects of what very well may be a new “African Renaissance.” This Core Conversation will discuss how Africans are using the mobile and social web, what sort of content is being produced and what are the messages being communicated. This conversation will also examine new media’s social and economic impact as it relates to Africa.