Ten people to follow on Twitter if you’re interested in international development. Not the top ten, necessarily – there are too many great people on Twitter for me to make that claim. But ten microbloggers who consistently engage my attention with interesting ideas:
Glenna Gordon – @Scarlettlion
Glenna Gordon is a journalist, photographer, and author of the Scarlett Lion blog, currently living in Uganda. Her writing, and the links she posts, offer beautifully written insight into Uganda, with a solid dose of cynicism and wry humor.
Sample tweet: Supermodel risks TB and Genocide by visitng Rwanda: Monika Schnarre, who considers herself a supermo.. http://tinyurl.com/65aymn
Why you should follow: For links to photos and articles on Uganda, Africa, and development which you wouldn’t have found on your own.
Chris Albon – @chrisalbon
Chris Albon is author of the amazing War and Health blog, and posts a great series of links on war and conflict.
Sample tweet: For the past 2 weeks I’ve been writing post on armed groups potentially exploiting Ushahidi. This is what I mean: http://tinyurl.com/56bes7
Why you should follow: For links to a huge range of articles and resources on conflict in general and conflict and health. He’s obsessed with the intersection of war and health, and obsessed people make great reading.
Vasco Pyjama – @vasco_pyjama
Vasco Pyjama is an aid worker who’s been everywhere, including Somalia and Afghanistan.
Sample tweet: Documenting lessons learnt and writing up methodologies. At first I thought I had indigestion. Now I realise it’s heartache.
Why you should follow: For a self-aware, intelligent, first-person perspective on aid work and its discontents.
Glenn Strachan – @glennstrachan
Glenn Strachan travels the planet supporting ICT for development. He blogs as well as using Twitter.
Sample tweet: Right now I am trying to assemble a list of the top 30 organisations worldwide doing work specifically in ICT4D. There is no list.
Maneno – @maneno
The twitter account of Maneno.org, which is devoted to making African voices heard.
Sample tweet: Toivo Asheeke’s latest post on his Maneno blog, “A Brief Case Study of A Successful African Country” (Namibia) http://tinyurl.com/6mste4
Why you should follow: To keep your news sources broad and deep.
I’ve got five more profiles coming up in my next post: @maratraingle, @chriswaterguy, @nadodi, @guaravanomics, and @joncamfield. Who am I missing? Tell me in the comments.
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(photo credit: FunnyBiz)
Chosen because I love graphs.
@whiteafrican is interesting I think.
Actually you and Vasco are the two I would have mentioned. @hexayurt, @charmermark, @bjelkeman and @CatComm are all doing really interesting work, but don’t tweet about it the same way that some of us do. Probably that just shows that they’re working much harder in the real world than me.
Thanks for the (prospective) mention – @chriswaterguy is just my occasional personal Twitter account though – there’s a lot more happening at @appropedia. (I think you knew that, but just to be sure.)
& thanks for the links – will add those I'm not already following!
@chris Good point re @appropedia; I will write accordingly. I hadn’t heard of @charmermark and @catcomm – I’ll check the out. I follow @bjelkeman but he doesn’t seem to tweet much.
Amazed that I actually follow almost all the people you list. =)
Agree that @whiteafrican is a good one to add!
kiwanja
@appfrica
a bit techie, and very much after our own hearts: @afrigadget
I don’t always catch up on @whiteafrican, but I agree. There are a bunch of other interesting people who I just haven’t paid enough attention to yet.
There’s a heap of other great people of course, worth knowing even if not specifically for an international development list. @NurtureGirl and @tropology are two of the people behind @CatComm, and I like their thinking (esp the thrivability meme that NurtureGirl has picked up on).
I learn much from @Jranck and am provoked (good and bad) by @hexayurt (now @leashless as well)