FortySouth

Shortly after the launch of Google Mapmaker, users were given the ability to edit maps by adding roads and other markers previously uncharted, to Google Maps. And now, thanks to the awesomeness of crowdsourcing, you can use this user-generated content to get directions too.

Using the mashup, I got really simple directions from *K-Street to Kenyatta Hospital in Nairobi (and no, I’m not suggesting anything here; correlation does not imply causation )

This feature is really great because not many cities outside of North America and most of Europe are that well mapped. In many African countries, directions are given mostly based on landmarks, like a nearby building. Those proclivities will always remain and do have their place so I think this feature will serve as a great supplement. What’s more, with a 3G-enabled mobile phone, driving around could get a lot easier!

Head over to Google Mapmaker and help map your city.

*In the interest of “teh balance”, Koinange Street is Nairobi’s Red-Light District.

So it’s now official – the Kenyan Government will indeed push for the repealing of contentious sections contained in the Kenya Communications Act 1998, most notably a number of clauses in Section 88.

So what are they looking to amend?

1. Deletion of Section 88, which gives the Internal Security Minister authority to “take temporary possession of any telecommunication apparatus or any radio communication station or apparatus within Kenya”
2. Establishment of a Broadcasting Service Advisory Board which will deal with issues of content and registration of the stations
3. Expand the Appeals Tribunal, established under Section 102, from five to seven members to allow for the appointment of two other people in consultation with the media industry stakeholders

On the Media Act 2007, the government agreed to fund the Media Council, the Board constituted by the Act for regulation of the media. (The Kenya Communications Amendment Bill passed in December 2008 has erroneously been referred to as the Media Bill even by though we had a Media Bill in 2007, now it’s an Act of Parliament).

Once Parliament reconvenes, the AG says that the motion will be tabled. The amendment when presented will likely, pass with little or no filibustering.

This is a first step, hopefully the political will doesn’t peter out.

A curious observation from performance data released yesterday by the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) of the 2008 edition of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE):

Notice the massive drop in males obtaining the grade A in the exam – a drop from 806 in 2007 to 489 in 2008. For kicks you could throw in the 770 from 2006 to establish a plummeting trend. Well, this offset is balanced out by a stacking of the C- to E brackets.

What caused the drop?

There’s no empirical data to support this yet, but I suspect there were two contributory factors: the post-election violence and incidences of school’s unrest over the last year.

Unfortunately the statistical data provided does not detail the performance breakdown by province as well, which would have provided more insight on the probable effect of Post-Election Violence (PEV), which seemed to have affected some provinces (read: Central, Rift Valley, Nyanza) more than others.

What else could have caused such a drop anyway?