Last Saturday, on March 31^st, more than 30 enthusiastic young participants gather at iceaddis to learn how to develop a mobile app under the Android platform.  The training was very practical and the participants develop their first Android app.

Bantyder Bahru, the trainer and the iceaddis green member said that he has been working as a developer for quite for time and now he is developing for Android phones. Bantyder thinks there is a promising market in Ethiopia for Android based applications.

Bantyder develops mobile apps which will be on Google Play soon. He is now helping others to follow his footsteps. This training will continue in the coming weeks. To get updated information, please follow us on Facebook.

Download the last week course materials here: Introduction to Android

If you develop Android app and want to make it available on Google Play, please send us email to contact@iceaddis.com . We have a dedicated account for the iceaddis members in the Google Play

Abenezer Temesgen and Daniel Schneider in action

by Johannes HETZOLD

On march 23rd, more than 16 young and ambitious skaters attended at the iceaddis workshop about how to build a mini ramp with cheap and local resources.

After a short introduction about the basic knowledge and safety instructions they learned how to bend and connect bamboo.
The idea behind the workshop is to enable skaters in Ethiopia to build their own skate obstacles out of bamboo.

Motivated young skaters build their own ramp

iceaddis supports the creative industry and innovation. As part of the community support, this vibrant community is growing. If you want to keep in contact with the upcoming skateboarding events, follow us at www.facebook.com/iceaddis 

When: Saturday, March 16, 2013 from 9:00a.m – 5:00p.m

Where: iceaddis (EiABC, Lideta, next to federal court)

Entrance: Free (Registered participants get t-shirts & refreshments)

WhereCamp is a free ‘unconference’ for geographers, mobile location experts and social cartographers and all kinds of people interested in location. The first WhereCampAfrica was held at the ILRI campus in Nairobi in 2009. WhereKampala was held in conjunction with the 2009 AfricaGIS conference. The 3rd WhereCampAfrica was held at the iHub & NaiLab in Nairobi, June 2010.

We’re already looking forward to some great local presenters in Addis Ababa. This year we will have a workshop from Esri on creating beautiful and dynamic web maps with ArcGIS Online. The local team from AddisMap will be on hand to talk about using OpenStreetMap in Ethiopia. We will also be demonstrating how to install the Open Source GeoNode and OpenGeo Suite for publishing web maps.  If you have something you’d like to talk about, come prepared!  More information at http://www.wherecampafrica.org.

WhereCamp is free. Sign up here: http://wherecampafrica.eventbrite.com/#

We are launching a bi-monthly entrepreneurship day (e-day) at iceaddis. The first event will be held on Thursday, February 28th 4:oop.m. This is event is free of entrance.  In the upcoming event, we invited three speakers

• Zelalem Woldemariam – Zeleman production
• Sishu Deneke – Shishu Burger
• Tigist and Haimanot – T&H design

We welcome recommendations of speakers for the upcoming e-day events, please send email to contact@iceaddis.com . We would like to make sure that our young entrepreneurs learn from successful business men and woman.

When: Saturday, February 16th, 2013 3:30p.m – 5:30p.m

Where: iceaddis (EiABC compund, Lideta next to Federal court)

In the upcoming GDG Addis event, by popular vote(from different channels) we have decided to go with In-depth discussion on App Engine and Django for our Feb 16th GDGAddis event instead of  Mobile app development – UI patterns or Advanced Android (bimonthly presentation on Consuming webservices REST/SOAP, Persistence on Android, Consuming APIs…)

As one of the most popular Python web frameworks, Django is a first class citizen supported on GAE out of the box. In this talk we will be discussing the development and deployment of Django based web app on GAE.

We hope to go over live code so you would benefit more if you bring your laptop with you for this session. Please use this thread to raise any issues and questions you have over this topic.

Topics planned to be covered

Yared Ayalew

Yared is a software development manager at Clear ICT Solutions focusing on business solution provisioning, project management and team building. He is also a technical trainer and an avid agile practitioner who has worked on a number of web platforms and frameworks such as ASP.NET, Ruby on Rails and recently on Django.

 Follow him on twitter or read his blog 

It’s like one of those old stories our folks at home used to talk about a bird that went under our palm eating all the meal and find her way in to our armpit. The guy at the show who makes the illusive Craft with his magic box and a piece of garment like a handkerchief where the rabbit appears out of thin air. It all seemed impossible until I grew to realize all about it being a trick. We are learning how to trick people – we are the tricksters.

Animation is an art that all impossible things become possible with computer graphics imagery (CGI). In the CG world we create, destroy; regenerate or simulate anything that is very expensive to do physically or simply impossible.

William Fetter was credited with coining the term computer graphics in 1961 to describe his work at Boeing. One of the first displays of computer animation was Futureworld (1976), which included an animation of a human face and a hand produced by Ed Catmull and Fred Parke at the University of California. 3D Animation consists the process of forming a computer model of an object’s shape, the motion and placement of objects within a scene, the computer calculations that based on light placement, surface types, and other qualities to generate the image. Animation refers to the temporal description of an object, i.e., how it moves and deforms over time. Popular methods include key framing, inverse kinematics, and motion capture. These techniques are often used in combination. As with modeling, physical simulation also specifies motion.

There was time back in the days before the giants we stood upon created the tools. Animating a single object was a painstaking process. It was difficult to make even simple movements of figures and objects. During this period animations were done by sketching and moving pictures frame by frame. After decades of development of the art now 2D and 3D animations can be done using different techniques and soft wares. Today companies in the developed world make complicated 3d environments with light and textures real world constraints like gravity and other complex applications of Physics. These days CG animated movies are equivalently competing in the film industry.

In Ethiopia not more than a hand full of people tried and experimented on developing characters from legendary folktales and stories. In the last two decades; Senzero, Yawiwi, Abeba and Abebe and Aleka Abebe are some of the list of few animations produced in 2D and 3D that are bold enough to be mentioned. These animations are made by individuals effort or their special interest and tendencies of getting exposed to these graphic soft wares and engineering tools.

It is important to have a strong animation industry in a country. A nation gets many benefits from this industry in many aspects. Some of the areas, which can be illustrated with 3D models animation, are Architectural and urban models, chemical reaction visualization for different biological and medical purposes. In addition to this the entertainment industry needs products of CGI; Movies and video clips that are aided with CGI are more attractive and pleasant to the viewer.

In building architectural forms and models CGI plays a great role in showing the quality of a building or architectural form before it is built practically in real world. 3D models that are completely generated on a computer help to analyze solar orientations by taking original geographic coordinates and simulate factors like Shading devices, thermal control, ventilation, acoustic control and so.

This helps to reduce the cost that comes due to miscalculating these factors and make the builders to rebuild or correct errors in construction world. In our time fly through animations becomes common for the designed architectural buildings. These are also used for promoting a design and also ease the discussions with clients and stakeholders at different level before deciding and commencing a construction process.

Urban flythrough animation and visualization are also benefited from this industry for a certain city or neighborhood design. Quality of space is one of the major achievements in urban design. Since it is difficult to change urban environment after it is built spatial qualities can be visualized with renderings and animation of the 3D model of that space before it is built.

Students at different educational level need more explanation about science, chemical and biological processes in simpler ways. Different illustrations of processes can be made with 2D and3D models. These illustrations will enable students to understand the processes easily.  Producing these illustrations in a simpler and the right way will push students to have further research in their filed after they have basic concept. Other educational filed like technical drawing, physics, and mathematics are better visualized or illustrated than expressed by words.

Kids are also the one who are directly attached to animation. Kids are directly attached to stories and legends in their community. It teaches students and introduces the good characters and heroes in life. Different teaching materials for kids are made with animated characters and puppets based on their preferences of color and form. As we know stories were written and told about our culture, legends and different superstitions but never seen on screen. We need to transfer those values and assets of our culture to the coming generation who has become increasingly exposed to visual Medias like TV, Movies and the Internet. We live in an era where seeing has become much more for believing.

The entertainment industry of once country obviously needs CGI. Animation movies and video clips are one of the major sources of entertainment in a country. The booming film industry needs the art of visual effects as main ingredient to become competing world widely. CGI & Animations add to the production value in movies by producing impossible visual effects. In addition It could be also a good job opportunities specially for those in college and higher education facilities with basic skills to contribute and be part of the mass productive group which is demanded highly in the developed countries and benefit its self in the process. If well worked out in groups and discipline our products could get to be attractive enough they may have a chance to a worldwide attention.

In Ethiopia by the year 2011 Mirt animation group was established aiming to create a strong animation & CGI industry, which brings all the above benefits and values for the country. The vision of this group is to see a strong Animation and CGI industry that has an Ethiopian identity. This group is now working with different companies, groups and individuals in order to bring a change on the art of the Craft. This group is working first to build Ethiopian animation community that has a lot of contributing members.  The group is open for everyone who wants to comment support and contribute our values, vision and goals. Mirt animation is incubated by iceaddis with green membership.

Currently we are about to launch our own website with an official launching ceremony and brief presentation. The launching ceremony will be held in February 23,2013. This event is prepared to introduce the content and services that the webpage provides for the public. The event consists of descriptions and discussion on the web page, new and previous short animations prepared by Mirt animations group, carton pictures that are going to be posted in the web page, music and additional entertaining programs. Guests from different professions, supportive members of Mirt animation group, Radio show hosts and different Medias will attend this ceremony. The web page is going to be weekly updated art and entertainment webpage.

The main goal of Mirt animations group is to establish Ethiopian animation community, which has its own entertainment industry. This webpage is going to be a communication media between the community members.

by Mirt ANIMATION

In this post,  a summary of developments of economic interest since late August 2012 is published. This compilation of positive news includes projects on infrastructure development, investments, loan and aid agreements, and  current economic trends.

Highlights

* World Bank launches a $4 billion strategy in Ethiopia

* World Bank report: Ethiopia inflation is significantly down, competitiveness up. Attests double digit growth.

* Steel factory and sugary  factories to invest $500 million, 600 million, respectively

* Two China car builders to expand car manufacturing  in Ethiopia

* Ethio Telecom builds new services

* Railway and Road projects

* New large airport to be built

************

Ethiopian Government Establishes Oil Company(Sept 13, 2012 )

*Will mine oil and gas

*will partner with private sector

*Named: Petroleum Development Enterprise.

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

Ethiopian Airlines Aims  to increase Revenue ‘File-Fold’(Sep 07, 2012)

*will buy 14 new aircrafts

*Aims $10 billion sales per year, 120 planes by 2025

*Profit will be ‘reinvested’ in new fleet and infrastructure.

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

Ethiopia’s Sugar Corporation and China’s CDC bank  agree on a $500 million deal(Sep 26, 2012)

*Will be used to build two factories

*Bank extends $120 million in advance

*Sugar Co. plans to build a total of 11 new factories

*Required amount $5.5 billion

*40% will be covered from sugar sales.

Read more at  Bloomberg.

************

RC aims to complete 42% of Addis light rail project this year(Sep 29, 2012)

*34.25 km double track, electrified

*Fences 13 meters wide

*‘Mobilization’ works complete

*Ground works underway

*Will have 41 rails, can carry 286 passengers each

*15,000 people/hour/one direction, 60,000/hour in all directions.

Read more at Waltainfo.

************

Saudi billionaire and Italian Company agree to build a $600 million steel plant(Oct. 5, 2012)

*Place: Gelisa, near Kombolcha

*Will take three years to  build

*Input material to be imported from Europe and US

*Will have impact on the ongoing economic growth and infrastructure development.

Email Source: William Davison(Bloomberg correspondent)

************

ERA to announce bids for five major road projects( Oct 06,2012 )

*$415 million dollar investment

*A total of 433km

*International Construction companies are invited

*Roads will stimulate: industrial, agricultural and tourism developments.

*A slew of other road projects are planned and underway.

Read more at The Reporter.

************

ZTE, Huawei to be Awarded Ethiopian Telecommunications Contracts (Oct 11, 012)

*Is a two-year contract

*Debretsion:’We are not investing; we are inviting companies to come with their finance’

*Anticipated mobile subscribers, currently at 18 million,  is 40 million by mid-2015.

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

Ethiopia signs 18.02 billion birr loan agreement with World Bank (Oct 18, 2012)

*10.5 billion birr for potable water, education, health care project in low-income areas

*7.39 billion birr for road projects under construction

Read more at Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

************

Ethiopia signs 456m Birr grant, loan agreements with China (Oct 30, 2012)

*256 million birr grant

*200 million birr interest-free

*China representative: support for the realization of Ethiopia’s GTP will continue .

Read more at Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

************

PM gives nod to new airport project(Nov 3, 2012)

*PM Hailemariam gave a ‘green light’

*‘Giant’ international airport around Modjo,  around 60 km North East of Addis.

*Will seek  finance from EXIM bank of China, after parliament endorsement.

Read more at The Reporter.

************

DEG of Germany Invests $10 Million in Ethiopian Growth Fund(Nov 09, 2012)

*Schulze Global Ethiopia Growth and Transformation Fund I, created this year

*Targets small and medium enterprises

*For agro-processing and manufacturing

*Plans to invest $100 million more in the future

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

ERA to construct ten roads to new sugar factories(Nov 10, 2012)

*Total 574 km: 519 km asphalt, 55 gravel roads

*48% local bidding companies expected

*Sugar will satisfy local market, and will have 2.5% global market share

*Design of sugar factories complete, construction undergoing.

Read more at The Reporter.

************

Ethiopian looks to regional hubs in southern Africa((Nov 10, 2012)

*On going talks with Tanzania, DRC, and Zambia

*The airline’s ‘Vision 2025′ strategic plan includes establishing additional regional hubs in central, southern and west africa.

The airline won Diamond Prize for Excellence , on Dec 2, 2012.  Its CEO also won awards, CEO of the year and African Business Leader of the Year, on Nov 24 and Dec 22, 2012, respectively.

Read more at The reporter.

************

Mesfin Engineering to build for China’s Geely Cars (Nov 13, 2012)

*Mesfin Engineering  builds six cars/day Geely Car

*Full production within 3-5 years

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

China to Put $1.4b in Railway Pouch(Dec 02,2012)

*Will finance the National Railway Project, 2000 km

*Planned to be complete by 2015

*Two phases:  A total of 5000km

Note: The historic Addis-Djibouti railway had a glorious past. It was, in fact, a subject of pop music and humor for being the only one and at the same time tardy  before it became dysfunctional out of old age.

Read more at Addis Fortune and Ethiopian Railway Corporation.

************

SouthWest Energy of Ethiopia to Raise $100 Million in Equity(Dec 05, 2012)

*Will raise $100 million to finance drilling projects

*Chairman Tewodros Ashenafi: Ethiopia the next oil producing country in East Africa.

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

Ethiopia’s Sesame-seeds sales surge (Dec 06, 2012)

*$900 million sales from spices, oil seeds, and spices

*Government provides ‘incentives’ for companies

*Sales estimated $2 billion by 2015

Foreign currency obtained from sales is a collateral for loans secured from Chinese  bank to be deposited at Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

Mercy Corps, private aid agency Plans $10 Million Private-Equity Fund (Dec 11, 2012)

*Portland-based agency hopes fund will encourage foreign investment

*US and British companies have shown interest

*Country Director Graham: Private equity better than debt finance for rapid growth

Email source: William Davison (Bloomberg correspondent)

************

World Bank Ethiopia Economic Update:Overcoming Inflation, Raising Competitiveness(Dec 13, 2012)

*‘impressive growth’

*World Bank calls Ethiopia’s growth impressive at an average of 10.6% GDP/year 2004- and 2011.

*Twice as much as average of Sub-Saharan countries.

*‘Overcoming Inflation, Raising competitiveness’

*Government of Ethiopia ‘made a progress in tackling persistent high inflation’

*Inflation is in decreasing trend.

*Lars Christian Moller, Lead Economist and Sector Leader for Ethiopia:

Ethiopia’s comparative advantage lies ‘in export of primary products and labor intensive, low-skill manufacturing goods.’

Read the full update report  at World Bank.

************

Ethiopia to get LTE(Dec 17, 2012)

Arguably, the  most exciting news in the ICT sector is that Ethio Telecom, the only telecom in the country, has developed:

‘new products and services to offer to enterprise customers such as business mobile, machine to machine business solution and 3G VPN, and upcoming products such as hybrid business mobile, GPRS and prepaid roaming services.’

Read more at telecoms.

This  will trigger unprecedented motivation for technology entrepreneurs to develop business and consumer services and solutions boosting technological innovations. Using the backbone network of telecom, small or large enterprises  will catapult to an new level of business operations in the country.

************

Lifan of China Mulls Africa Expansion After Ethiopian Plant Move (Dec 17, 2012)

*To spend $30 million over five to manufacture cars

*Will move into a new assembly plant  at a cost of  $3.5 million next year.

*China’s Lifan chose Ethiopia as Africa  base because favorable relations of the two countries, low crime rate  and political stability in Ethiopia.

*General Manager Liu Jiang: ‘The economy is growing, everything is growing,Of course it has great potential.’

Foreign Direct Investment is rising in Ethiopia, said William Davison of Bloomberg,  referring to an email from World Bank. It is expected to increase from 3.1% in 2011 to 20112 4.5% of this fiscal year.

Read more at Bloomberg.

************

World Bank launches $4 billion worth plan for Ethiopia(Dec 22, 2012)

*The Bank launched a new strategy with $4bn:

*Implementation years 2013 – 2016.

* Targets to increase ‘competitiveness and job creation’

*World Bank Country Director, Guang Chen: Strategy

‘is a result-based strategy anchored in the Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation Plan’

GTP vision is Ethiopia to ‘extricate itself from poverty to reach the level of a middle-income economy between 2020 and 2023′

*World Bank: GTP ‘Ambitious but attainable’

*Sufian Ahmed, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, welcomed the move

*Said will support achieve an annual growth rate of 11-15%.

*The previous strategy launch date was April 2, 2008.

Read more at Waltainfo,  World Bank PDF Report.

************

* This digest was originally published by Guish Gerezgeeher at Daniel Berhane’s Blog

Social media pioneers and experts from eight countries met in Addis Ababa October 8–10 to discuss the potential use of social media within GIZ. The event was organised by GIZ’s Corporate Development Unit in Bonn, Germany, and was hosted by the Ethiopian young entrepreneur’s innovation hub, iceaddis.

The pioneers worked on approaches to link internal and external knowledge communities across geographical and topical borders, for instance by bringing sector networks, communities of local experts, partners and other stakeholders together. “Social network platforms and participatory web tools (Web 2.0) can help programmes achieve sustainable results,” said Dr. Anselm Schneider, head of the development unit, explaining, “Using such tools, project teams, partners and participants can collaboratively generate action-oriented knowledge and build a knowledge commons online.” The event culminated with a policy draft for GIZ’s social media use.

A service provider for GIZ, iceaddis supports efforts to motivate partners and target groups to use online social media in order to enhance project impacts and better reach target groups, particularly within topic-related expert communities. Its specialists employ proven online instruments, an interactive newsletter, user-generated blogs, webinars and other collective knowledge products. iceaddis also advises clients on flexible open licensing to ensure that no conflicts arise regarding usage rights and sharing.

This article is printed at GIZ’s Ethiopian news magazine.

 technology . ideas . businesses

When: November 16th, 2012. 3:30p.m – 6:00p.m

Where: iceaddis, EiABC compound

Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) is a worldwide campaign to celebrate and promote entrepreneurship among young people. Its primary objective is to create a generation of entrepreneurs by inspiring young people everywhere to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity as well as help them to make their mark and to turn their ideas into reality. Engaging them through a range of signature events and workshop activities, the Week provides aspiring entrepreneurs with the skills, networks and values they need to turn their innovative ideas into sustainable enterprises.

iceaddis is proud to announce that it is the host of GEW 2012 and in doing so help promote the entrepreneurial spirit in the nation and its people. Ethiopian society had always been a society of entrepreneurs. In preparing such a campaign, iceaddis and its partners hope to help young Ethiopians to discover new ideas at the intersection of cultures and disciplines and demonstrate to opinion leaders and policymakers how entrepreneurship is central to Ethiopia’s economic growth and culture.

iceaddis has scheduled for the campaign to occur at November 16, 2012 at the EiABC compound in the iceaddis headquarters.

Our target groups for this event are students of EiABC and AAiT. But anyone is welcome to join.

Date: October 23rd, 6:00p.m – 8:00p.m

Location: iceaddis / EiABC compund

Speaker: Stephen Kovats

After successful open source approach in Juba, South Sudan (#OSJUBA) this event in Addis Ababa aimed bridging open source / open systems people, projects and methodologies which could be shared  in Juba.

Target groups for this event include the open source technologies,urbanism and open government scenes.

To confirm your particpation: please this facebook event page – Click here  or send email to contact@iceaddis.com Please send email or click join only if you are sure to come.