Africa: Social Networking in Continent

The Zanzibar Beach boys are a group of young men who share a passion for football and come together to support their favorite teams in the English Premier League. Because their small island off the African coast lacks basic technology, the group has been forced to come up with innovative ways to obtain information about their favorite teams. Borrowing laptops from tourists and locating Wi-Fi signals became a way to not only access information regarding football, but also a way of increasing English language skills and broaden their knowledge of social networking technology.

The story of the Zanzibar Beach boys is one of many that will be featured in African Digital Diaries, a grassroots project aimed at showcasing hundreds of Africans who will soon be known as "Online Heroes." These stories will appear on an open and free website using podcasts, blogs, and videos. A team of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) specialists will work with diarists to make the voices of groups like the Zanzibar Beach boys heard around the world.

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