April and I went to East Africa in November/December. She went ahead of me to Ethiopia and Kenya (and met Obama's grandmother!); I caught up in Tanzania.

Our take-aways are both sobering and hopeful. Inspiring people, infrastructure often horriffic, historic development efforts all-too-often fruitless or counterproductive, potential enormous, technology a crapshoot (four bars on the Ngorongoro Crater rim?) and tech communities forming.

Though PC/internet access is difficult, blogs like Afrigadget, White African and the Appfrica blog network are gaining momentum (follow Jon Gosier's tweets here). Cellphones are ubiquitous, and payment services that use them are growing quickly. BarCamps are picking up in Africa, too.

Together, let's discuss: 

• What's working, surprisingly? What's not?
• How do the countries differ from one another?
• What might successful new international collaborations look like, whether public or private?