[kictanet] Google appoints Kenyan Ory okolloh to manage its Africa policy

[Alice Munyua]

Congratulations Ory!

best


alice
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Google recently appointed Ory Okolloh, an online activist and co-founder 
of Ushahidi <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushahidi>, as Policy Manager 
for Africa. Ushahidi <http://www.ushahidi.com> is a famed crowd sourcing 
site dedicated to information collection, visualisation and interactive 
mapping.

Google's appointment shows its confidence in Africa's digital growth and 
recognises the continent as a future tech giant.

Okolloh is a TED <http://www.ted.com> fellow, Global Voices contributor 
<http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/author/ory/>and a Harvard-educated 
lawyer. She is a regular speaker at prestigious conferences such as TED, 
World Economic Forum <http://www.weforum.org>, Poptech 
<http://www.poptech.org>, CGI, Techonomy <http://www.techonomy.com>, 
Mobile Web Africa <http://www.mobilewebafrica.com>, and the Monaco Media 
Forum <http://www.monacomediaforum.org/>on issues around citizen 
journalism. She has been very active in building Africa's technological 
landscape.

Okolloh comes into the role with a strong background in law having 
worked as a corporate lawyer for an organisation in support of 
entrepreneurs in South Africa. She has also been at the helm of Ushahidi 
for the last three years. Okolloh steps down as Ushahidi's Executive 
Director and will take up her new position in Johannesburg, South Africa 
mid January.

According to a recent post on her blog Kenyan Pundit 
<http://www.kenyanpundit.com/2010/12/23/stepping-down-as-ushahidi-executive-director/> 
she writes "the role will involve developing policy/strategies on a 
number of areas of relevance to Google and the Internet in Africa and 
will involve working with different parties including government 
leaders, policy makers, regulators, industry groups and so on.

"It is a huge opportunity to bring Google's resources to bear as far as 
the growth and development of the internet in Africa. I'm very excited 
about the move and I hope I can continue to lean on your support and 
insight in my new role."

ReadWriteWeb 
<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_hires_kenyan_activist_to_shape_africa_polic.php> 
noted that Okolloh's portfolio will include the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Overall, I'll be working to get more people online and policies 
favourable to that, also (cultivate) support for local content and an 
environment which supports innovation," she tells ReadWriteWeb.

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