I am compiling a list of the most intriguing technology tools developed by Africans or in Africa. This will be an on-going list.  In no particular order, some fascinating African start-ups/web tools;

1. African Pixel

Founded by Wilfred M Mworia,  African Pixel (or AP for short) is a startup mobile software development company that specializes in making great software for Smartphone platforms. Its target platforms include the iPhone, Android, and Symbian. One of its apps, the iScribe, is a simple tool for writing a journal (such as a word press post) on one’s phone. With iScribe one can add video, images and audio to one’s journal via phone.

2. Ushahidi

Founded by Ory Okolloh, Erik Hersman et al, Ushahidi is an open source project, which allows users to send information about crisis via sms, e-mail or the web. Ushahidi uses the concept of crowd sourcing for social activism and public accountability and has among others been used to track electoral malpractices, relief efforts, crime prevalence and swine flu. In December 2009, Omidyar gave Ushahidi a $1.4M grant to enable them scale up the platform among other uses.

3. App Africa

Founded by Jon Gosier, AppAfrica is an investment company and software development firm that facilitates and incubates technology entrepreneurs in East Africa. Appfrica picks up where East African colleges leave off by offering hands-on experience in programming languages like Java, C++, C#, Ruby on Rails, Django and Python, CouchDB, PHP, Perl and Kannel that are not often taught in-depth locally at university. Entrepreneur projects are refined and prepped to help them secure funding and launch sustainable, profitable businesses.

4. Bundu Blog

Owned by a company based out of South Africa, Rival Industries, Bundu Blog is a free blog host for Africa dedicated to giving all Africans a voice by means of blogging.

5. Kukurooku

Kukurooku is an African micro-blogging site which is based around bird technology. A 160 limit microblogging post is called a cluck, and to follow someones’ posts is to flock.  One can also  get popular clucks, and cluckers. It’s like twitter, only cooler…:)

6. The Grid

Funded by Vodacom.co.za, the Grid connects your cellphone and web browser into a social network that is aware of where you are. It is a mobile social network that allows you to chat to friends, see where they are on a map and share photos or videos with them.

7. Zoopy

Zoopy is an online and mobile social media community, hosting user generated videos, photos and audio. It launched into closed beta in late 2006 and moved into live beta with public access on 5 March 2007. In December 2007, Nokia selected Zoopy as their regional imaging partner for South and West Africa. On June 26 2008, Vodacom purchased a 40% share stake in Zoopy and increased their stake to 75% as announced on February 13 2009

8. My radeo

Founded by Aneto Okonkwo, My radeo is a microblogging service for music. It helps you share and discover songs with your friends. “It’s like Twitter for songs or Pandora if your friends pick the songs for you”

9. Waaazap

Founded by Adebambo Oyekan Oyelaja, Waaazap helps users keep in touch with people from around the world. Users can add music and movie reviews, chat and debate issues amongst others. It has a clean user interface.

10. 7a.m.

7a.m. is a mobile social network that helps one share location, photos and videos with one’s mobile phone. 7a.m also lets one post status updates automatically to one’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. As at the time of this post, registration on 7a.m.com is via mobile phone only.

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