Africa++, New Ideas for Africa and Femi Longe

On Thursday evening, 20th November, I went along to the Royal Commonwealth Institute in Northumberland Avenue for the monthly New Ideas for Africa meeting. New Ideas for Africa is an open-space event where people who have ideas and projects with a positive benefit to Africa meet with people who can help their ideas to grow. I hadn't been to one of these meetings before, but I picked up news about it at OpenEverything earlier this month, when I ran into Femi Longe who leads Africa Plus Plus (also known as Africa++). Even if you can't attend the London meetings you can keep up with them through the Africa++ Ning that Femi has set up. (Femi is in the middle of the photo.)

Networking notes

I first met Femi earlier in the year at another OpenSpace event, which we had both heard about through our links with Chris Macrae (more of Chris in another blog entry).

I invited Ben Parkinson to New Ideas for Africa. It was our first face-to-face meeting, although we know each other by email and phone. I e-met Ben through John Dada of Fantsuam Foundation (see the sidebar for more information about John, and our collaboration as Dadamac).