We recently announced the 5 Winners for the FACT Social Justice Challenge and we are thrilled at the caliber and impact of all the Projects. As such, we want to give you a closer look at these collaborative technology Projects and the people behind them. Each Monday in the month of November, we posted an interview from one of the Winning Projects using the fact interviews tag.

Later this year, 200 African thought leaders will gather to discuss how to accelerate the building of innovative societies at the Open Innovation Africa Summit. Contribute your opinions on how to best implement solutions and you could get yourself a free ticket to contribute at the event in person.

YEI engages communities in discussing effective prevention of and care for HIV/AIDS through
home visits, worksite discussions, anti-stigma campaigns, weekly radio programs
and sensitization debates at schools, colleges
and hospitals.

Programs designed and implemented by our local community members have made it possible for YEI to provide many of the services critical to HIV/AIDS prevention and care for free, including:

Thank you everyone who voted for Kabissa Connections on Netsquared to get us into the final 15 and thank you judges who selected us to be among the 5 winning organizations to receive a $5,000 cash prize. I also would like to congratulate the other 4 winners, in particular Agricultural Marketing Information Services in Cameroon and Integrated Electonic Peace Building Project in Kenya which are both very innovative and powerful projects deserving of recognition and support. 

In a nutshell, Kabissa Connections will address trust concerns by providing a platform revealing the connections that organizations have with networks, international organizations, supporters and service providers. We will do this for organizations working in Africa while collaborating with others on open source tools, standards and approaches that can be replicated in other regions.

I am very excited to receive this recognition for an idea that has been brewing for years and which it appears we will now have the opportunity to implement. We will have more news soon over at kabissa.org on next steps and opportunities to get involved, so please be sure to join Kabissa and subscribe to our monthly member newsletter.

In the meantime, please help make it happen by making a donation to Kabissa. Thanks!  

Crossposted from http://kabissa.org/news/kabissa-wins-netsquared-fact-social-justice-challenge

I have been following the FACT Social Justice Challenge and have been honored by the outpouring of support for the KABISSA CONNECTIONS project in the comments (see below) and number of fans. It appears the other African projects we support are also doing well which I find tremendously gratifying.

If you have not yet decided on all 5 projects you want to vote for and share our vision for empowering African organizations at the grassroots, please consider adding KABISSA CONNECTIONS to your ballot. Our project will help build their repuation online by revealing the many positive relationships they have with each other and with international organizations, foundations and online networks.  

Since there is no open leaderboard, please also tick the star or "add to my bookmarks" link on the Kabissa project page to help us see how we are doing. Add a comment too if you have suggestions or ideas for how you might use the platform. 

A selection of comments follows. 

I just went through and made another round of improvements to the Kabissa Connections project on Netsquared to Build Reputation and Trust of Organizations By Revealing Relationships Online. I'm feeling quite good about it and am very excited about the possibilities for Kabissa to serve the African civil society sector in a new way.

Changents is hosting a contest with P&G Give Health calling for bloggers to share why they are clean water Change Agents. What's in it for bloggers? A few great things:

For the past two years, NetSquared membership has been growing in Cameroon. Today there are 5 groups in Cameroon and this Saturday they are hosting the first ever NetSquared Camp.

Vodacom is hosting three challenges to support people who are using mobile technology to solve problems dealing with education, health, or community information that are deployable in South Africa. Their hope is to find projects that can demonstrate value for users, ease of use and deployment, scalablability, sustainability, and innovation. The winning teams will receive R20,000 ($2,646) and the winner with the most promise will receive an additional R20,000.

I recently had the opportunity to connect with Avi Kaplan, the Community and Events Director at Epic Change, to discuss the upcoming TweetsGiving campaign and events.  Avi is just back from Tanzania where he and other Epic Change team members were working with the students in the classroom built with last year's TweetsGiving proceeds.

Find out more in the interview below!