Al Jazeera’s Redi Tlhabi chats to Google Africa’s Ory Okolloh as they explore how technology is transforming Africa

Al Jazeera’s new African talk show host Redi Tlhabi chats to Google Africa’s Ory Okolloh and Stuff magazine editor Toby Shapshak

This Friday on Al Jazeera’s new global talk show South 2 North, Redi Tlhabi chats to Kenyan cyber activist Ory Okolloh, Google Africa’s policy manager, and South African Toby Shapshak, founding editor of the South African edition of Stuff magazine, the world’s largest selling technology magazine.  

Ory co-founded Ushahidi, a website which was used to collect and disperse information during the 2007/2008 election violence in Kenya. Ushahidi, which combines mapping with eye-witness reports, has since been used to monitor xenophobic violence in South Africa; elections from Mexico to India; the Gaza War; and post-earthquake crises in Chile, Haiti and Christchurch.  Six years later, Ory is monitoring the Kenyan elections again with The Kenyan Elections YouTube channel, which will curate content from across YouTube.

Toby Shapshak, founding editor Stuff magazine

A former ICT Journalist of The Year in South Africa, Toby ran the Mail & Guardian website when it was the first news site in Africa. One of the first technology writers in South Africa, Toby has a keen interest in how technology is transforming Africa.

Joining the two guests are four young techies – Dominik Obojkovitz, Raymond Rampolokeng, Evan Robinson and Dinesh Balliah – who challenge Ory and Toby on the various challenges they are facing in their fields of tourism, tax, gaming and journalism.

This week’s episode of South 2 North premieres on Friday at 8:30pm WAT and screens Saturday at 3:30pm WAT, Sunday 5:30am WAT and Monday 9:30am WAT.

For more information, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/south2north/, where all episodes are available to watch online.