Picture the Continents

Over a year ago, I wrote the blog post, "Picture the World," to suggest how young people could begin to see what the world looked like and how people around the world lived. While I was thinking about how writers put together ideas for a TV show or a book by arranging notes on a cork board or wall, it occurred to me that blocks of space for continents could be assigned on a wall at home or on a black board at school. Pictures from various countries could then be placed in the correct continents to not only help kids visualize the world but also start some of them thinking about becoming foreign news, fashion, travel, or nature photographers.

With the Winter Olympics coming up early next year in Sochi, Russia, there soon will be a lot of photos to put under a wall's European heading. Blank spaces under other continents will motivate kids to scour publications for photos from around the world. Many used book stores have old copies of National Geographic that are a prime source of international photos. But any magazine, newspaper, alumni publication, brochure from a travel agency, or corporate annual report is a likely resource.

I have noticed more and more art museums are mounting exhibits of photographs. The Corcoran Art Museum in Washington, D.C. has an extensive collection of photographs, some of which are printed on postcards that could be used in a young person's own continental wall exhibit. Perhaps kids also could use photo copies of pictures from Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity, the collection of Susan Bright's non-traditional pictures of motherhood around the world, which was displayed at an art museum in London and is now a book.

Of course, children also should be encouraged to ask relatives and friends who travel to foreign countries to send them postcards and to take pictures that they can post in their panorama of the world. Should they be the lucky ones to travel to a different country, they should not only post their photos at home or school, but they should ask their parents and/or teachers to visit ngkidsmyshot.com to get information about how to submit their photos for possible publication in National Geographic Kids. Such an opportunity may be the beginning of a career that takes them around the globe.

The Write Help

Similar to the way Kids for Kids uses children's art from India to raise money for children's causes there (See the earlier post, "Global Drawing Power.") CAB (Conversations Across Borders) Magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by an international roster of authors to fund international schools and literacy projects.

Recipients can use CAB Magazine donations any way they want. Grand Ntumwa school in Uganda bought school supplies and paid teacher salaries. An orphanage for Kenyan children who lost parents to AIDS is using CAB Magazine money to build a high school

Diverse authors express various points of view. Bolivian author, Daniela Cortes del Castillo, contributed a story about a girl who outwitted male repression. According to Dennis Vannatta's essay, "we are the sum of our prejudices." Other authors have submitted works from Mexico, Odessa, Honduras, and the United States.

CAB Magazine is a quarterly. Full issues sell for $10; online pieces are $2 each. Information about applying for funds and submitting works is available at conversationsacrossborders.org.

Star-struck Realities

What dancers, singers, and actors have in common is the opportunity to perform anywhere in the world. Since producers, agents, managers, and casting companies around the world can watch YouTube videos, singers, songwriters, musicians, bands, and actors in every country have a global platform for discovery, record deals, films, TV shows, advertising projects, and tour engagements.

     Books about an eighth grader who makes it to Broadway, Tim Federle's Better Nate Than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate, can inspire young performers, but competition is intense. For evidence, consider the number of young people who try out for TV shows devoted to dance: Dance Moms, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Breaking Pointe, Bun Heads; for TV shows devoted to singers: Glee, American Idol, The Voice, X Factor; and for professional and amateur performances around the world. The little girl at the right is performing in a play in Montevideo, Uruguay.

     The audition is all important, when it comes to being discovered. What goes into this little showcase is the choice of a perfect performance piece that highlights your talent without boring the "judges." Hunting for new audition material is a necessity throughout a career. A middle school student who wowed the audience playing Miss Hannigan in Annie cannot use a song or monologue from that role to audition for an age appropriate part in the real world. Young performers also need to seek out  honest appraisals of their talent from others than Aunt Gertrude.

     Looks matter. Yes, Danny DeVito and Dustin Hoffman made it, but tall guys like Ben Affleck and George Clooney always will be the most desirable leading men and country western singers. A stage actor may be able to get away with less than perfect skin but a film star can't. What does Sofia Vergara have that you don't? A hair style like "the Rachel" may set you apart the same way Barbra Streisand's nose does. But how many roles are there for other chubbies like Rebel Wilson and Gabourey Sidibe?

     One piece of advice I heard given to a young performer merits repeating. If you see a long line of actors in front of you, start trying to find a shorter line. That may lead you to form your own garage band or to develop original material, like a Taylor Swift or Tina Fey. Original YouTube performances have launched careers the way Meagan Cignoli's six-second Vines have launched hers. In her book, Pamela D. Pollack asks and answers the question, Who Is George Lucas? Reading about the creator of Star Wars is a sure way to inspire creative youngsters to consider their own new ways to develop special sound and visual effects and even to become film producers, screenwriters, and directors.

     The need to stand out could lead to crazy stunts, like twerking, tongue-flapping by Miley Cyrus or outrageous costume-wearing by Elton John, that may or may not get the kind of attention you want. At one audition, a singer got rid of a long line by lying to those waiting. He said he had been asked to tell them there wouldn't be any more auditions that afternoon, because the pianist had another engagement.

     Performers need to beware of scams. When its performances were canceled, a Russia ballet company ended up in the U.S. State of Delaware with no way to get home. Always make sure to get round trip tickets (and don't surrender your passport to anyone) before leaving on a foreign, or even a domestic, tour.

     Change is rapid in all fields of business these days and the business of show business is no different. When my daughter was a child actor, we co-wrote the book, Stars in Your Eyes...Feet on the Ground: A Practical Guide for Teenage Actors (and their Parents!). It is one of many books that gives advice to young actors. But just like diet and self-help books, one "size" does not fit all. Each performer has to craft together bits and pieces of advice and, most of all, hope for a lucky break. It helps to understand the business of show business, too. Sweden's Academy of Music and Business is a model for other schools that could teach performers how to turn their talent into a career.

Climate Control

One of the most surprising things I learned about Thomas Jefferson, when I visited his historic home near Charlottesville, Virginia, was his interest in weather. He kept a daily diary of weather conditions, a practice every student could imitate. By keeping such an annual diary, for example, students could check the dates when they see the first robin. Are northern migrations getting earlier each year? Could this be an indication of global warming?

     Although an individual's record of temperature changes over a lifetime cannot predict a long-term climate trend, an interest in weather has a wide variety of global applications. Young people already are interested in weather and its many facets according to the number of children's books on sun; clouds, storms, lightning, and hurricanes; wind and tornadoes; winter and snow; global warming and climate change; how to dress for the weather; and weather experiments. When my granddaughter was younger, she put snow in a jar, measured it, let it melt, and compared how much "rain" made how much snow. Children also can monitor the direction of wind using weather vanes, windsocks, and flags and record how the temperature changes or a storm develops after wind strengthens. In a trivia contest, I learned that the official measure of wind velocity is taken 33 feet above ground and that a flag flies straight out when wind is blowing at least 25 miles per hour.

     Of course, most students already know how Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that lightning was electricity. Lightning occurs when air can no longer prevent the attraction between oppositely charged drops of moisture in a cloud and the earth. Flying a kite tipped with a metal point into a thundercloud, Franklin watched a door key attract lightning's electric charge travel down the kite string. During a storm, since the static electricity discharge from a cloud seeks out the nearest points on earth, lightning strikes tall trees and buildings. As a practical application, Franklin suggested mounting a pointed metal rod, a lightning rod, on tall buildings to neutralize lightning's electrical charge and therefore prevent buildings from catching on fire.

     Weather has long played an important role in military maneuvers. Armies have attacked with the daily sunrise behind them in order to blind their enemies. Russia's winter defeated Napoleon, just as fog prevented him from knowing British Admiral Lord Nelson's navy had slipped between his fleet and his planned attack on Egypt.

     According to the Bible, even God has worked His will with weather. In the story of Noah and the Ark, God showed His displeasure with man's evil deeds by causing a flood that destroyed everything on earth. After the waters subsided, God said that a rainbow would be a sign that He would never again use a flood to destroy the earth. Some Czech citizens still honor Our Lady of Hostyn and the Christ Child in gratitude for the fierce lightning sent in response to prayers for prevention from a Mongol attack in 1241.

     In her book, Weather of the Future, Heidi Cullen tells how an ambulance driver named Lewis Fry Richardson set out to forecast battlefield weather conditions in World War I. He used values for the atmosphere's pressure, temperature, density, water content, and east, north, and up wind in 12,000 columns (3 degrees east-west and 125 miles north-south) in Central Europe. Without a computer, however, his calculations required too much time to be of any use for generals, and the data he used were too incomplete. Nonetheless, his book, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, made a groundbreaking contribution to meteorology. Students like Richardson, who develop an interest in predicting the weather, might get a start on a career by reading Instant Weather Forecasting by Alan Watts. Using pictures of various skies, he explains his technique for relying on cloud studies that are more accurate for countries in the temperate latitudes than in the interior of Africa and the Caribbean.

     Research by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is raising major concerns about the effects of rising earth surface temperatures, higher sea levels, and decreasing glacier melt and snow cover. Methods for attacking these problems, which are attributed to the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are suggested in the earlier blog post, "A Healthy Environment."

Robot Revolution

Children all around the world have a similar interest in robots. Check ePals.com to find schools in a wide variety of countries where students are eager to collaborate on robotic projects.

      The word "robot" was first used in Czechoslovakia by the playwright, Karel Capek, to describe human-looking machines that could do the same job over and over again. Nowadays, robots utilize software, computer chips, sensors, microphones, lasers, video screens, wireless communications, remote controls, solar power, nanotechnology, and gyroscopes. Robotic devices can replace injured body parts, like legs and arms; load and unload ships; install and weld parts on an assembly line and under water; work in outer space; operate on the human body; enter the body to fight disease and diagnose illnesses; carry supplies around offices and hospitals; perform dangerous tasks like checking for bombs and hunting for survivors buried in rubble after an earthquake; hit military targets; and create special effects for theme parks and movies. Now, they are about to work alongside people in electronics factories, too.

     Some robots are human-shaped, humanoids that move like persons; others look like machines. YoungExplorers.com, mindware.com, and Museumtour.com offer both varieties. With the help of a detailed manual, children can use the programmable rover they sell to make a robot that avoids obstacles and works for them.

     Usually, robots prefer perfectly predictable conditions. The Roomba robot, for example, can scoot around the floor sucking up dust and dirt, but, when we tried to use it in a women's clothing store, it would get stuck in the dressing rooms. Children can see if they can clean a floor with their own "Brush Robot" from mindware.com.

     Students (and adults) from all over the world who design their own robots enter competitions. Details about these events are available at robogames.net and robotbattles.com. A variety of websites offer free robot designs to get you started. Also, teens 13 to 18 can enter the annual Google Science Fair by going to googlesciencefair.com. Submissions this year are due by May 12, 2014.

     Scientists are trying to design robots with artificial intelligence that can think on their own and human cyborgs implanted with robotic parts connected to their nervous systems and the outside world. Some argue that a machine may have the appearance of having conscious understanding without actually having it. Creating an ethical and legal system to deal with artificial intelligence and cyborgs could be a job robots cannot handle.

     An article in Time magazine (September 9, 2013) noted three types of jobs that will not be replaced by robots: 1) solving unstructured problems (writing a persuasive legal brief or designing a corporate strategy); 2) working with new information (driving a truck in the fog on a rain slicked road); and 3) performing non-routine manual tasks (styling hair or fixing plumbing).

     One further note. In the October, 2013 issue of The Futurist, the magazine of the World Future Society, Julie Carpenter, a researcher at the University of Washington, discusses the relationship between military personnel and the robots they use on the battlefield. Ms. Carpenter is concerned about the human, emotional attachment that can develop. She found that some soldiers name their robots for their girl friends. A soldier whose robot had saved his life may not want the robot to return to danger on the battlefield. And if a robot is damaged or fails to perform correctly, a soldier may get angry with it or think of it as a "poor little guy" that needs a proper funeral.

     To keep up with developments in the field of robotics, check the library for Clive Gifford's How to Build a Robot, Mark Beyer's Robotics, and later books. If you want to draw a robot, like I did for this post, pick up the book, You Can Draw It! Robots, by Maggie Rosier and illustrated by Steve Porter.

Dairy Cows on the Moove

From the newly opened "Millions of Milkshakes" in Bahrain to everyone's need for bone-building calcium, there is worldwide consumption of milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, skim milk powder, and whey products from dairy cows. Once prosperity led to better nutrition options in India, for example, current production of milk, formerly a scarce commodity, reached 132 million tons, compared to 22 million in 1970, according to TIME magazine (November 18, 2013). Members of dairy cooperatives, many with only one or two cows, have now made India the world's largest milk producer and a dairy exporter.

      Young 4H members, dairy farmers, and international dairy cow shippers, such as Dens Ocean Livestock Express (livestock@densocean.be) and the ones used by T.K.Exports (livestockgeneticsbytke.com), have a prosperous future. The U.S. has become the world's largest cheese exporter. And with more women working the decline in breastfeeding has led to a boom in baby milk powder sales. West Coast dairy processors in the U.S., as well as a companies, such as Mengniu in China, are taking advantage of this increased demand in China and other Asian countries. There also is a growing world market for whey-based ingredients used in infant formula and human and animal nutritional supplements that is offering new opportunities for dairy products.

     Just outside Harbin in Shuangcheng (northeast China), Nestle has invested in a $400 million Dairy Farming Institute. The aim is to train about 700 students annually to become the dairy farmers, managers, and agribusiness suppliers who will meet China's growing demand for milk in a sustainable manner. In the past, China's dairy industry, which had reported sales of $28 billion in 2014, has had tainted milk problems from poor sanitation and deaths from infant formula.

      In the United States, dairy farmers have an outstanding research facility at the University of Wisconsin's Babcock Center for Dairy Research, named for Dr. S.M. Babcock. The Center is  the largest dairy research institution in the United States. Along with studying how to increase milk production,  students learn how to be business competitors, not only with dairy farmers in Wisconsin, California, New York, Arizona, and Texas, but also in the world market. Since the Center has an outreach program, it provides technical support and information about findings that help dairies, suppliers, government regulatory agencies, and domestic and international dairy organizations.

     Profitability, in the dairy farming business, relies on forecasting demand and careful record keeping and analysis of the cost of the feed cows need to maintain their size and health and to produce milk before excess feed just becomes manure. New Zealand's dairy giant, Fonterra, for example, reported that although more milk was processed into milk powder which has a higher return, rising input costs caused a 53% six-month drop in net profits. The desire to control all aspects of raw material to final product, there is some cross-country vertical integration in the dairy industry. For example, the Chinese company, Pengxin, has acquired both dairy farms in New Zealand and corn farms in Bolivia. China's state-owned Bright Food Group also has controlling interests in dairy producers in New Zealand and in Israel's Tnuva.

    Wisconsin's Dept. of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection distributes $200,000 in annual grants to farmers to finance studies of dairy feed, housing, and other factors that improve milk production. By calling 855-943-2479, dairy farmers and processors can find out about resources and technical assistance available from the State of Wisconsin. Currently, the State also is offering a $50,000 "Grow Wisconsin Dairy Processor Grant" to a licensed Wisconsin dairy processing plant that writes a proposal that would benefit the industry. The application form, due by February 21, 2014, is available at GrowWisconsinDairy.wi.gov.

      In recognition of Dr. Babcock's contribution to the milk industry, he received awards from dairymen in New Zealand and the Wisconsin legislature. In the future, an award may be given to someone who solves the problem of reducing the climate changing greenhouse methane gas released by cow flatulence. Considering a cow, by chewing its cud, expels 4.42 pounds of carbon dioxide for every gallon of milk it produces, methane is a serious concern. Phosphorus runoff from the cow manure that pollutes lake and other water sources also becomes a major problem when the number of big storms increases. But there also are uses for cow poop, check out the 251 facts in Dawn Cusick's kid's book, Get the Scoop on Animal Poop.

     The Financial Times (April 9, 2014) reported that the major impact of methane on global warming has motivated companies and research institutions, such as the following, to study ways to reduce methane emissions from cows:
     - The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in Illinois
     - C-Lock Company in South Dakota
     - The National Institute of Agricultural Technology in Argentina
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding a $10 million, 5-year study to determine how the dairy industry can reduce greenhouse gas from methane 25% by 2020.Promising ideas about how to reduce cow-produced methane include: anti-methane grains and dietary supplements laced with basil or garlic, an improved digestive system for cows, scanners that monitor the gas content of cow burps, a strap-on-backpack connected to tubes that collect methane gas from cow stomachs, and a reduction in the world's cattle herd (In the U.S. there are 88 million cattle). To date, these ideas are too expensive to be practical. The Resources Defense Council did mention that methane from cows could power cars and refrigerators, if it could be harnessed.

     Methane is not the only cow-related problem. Phosphorus runoff from manure is a major contributor to water pollution, since it causes the growth of harmful blue-green algae. Limited phosphorus reduction is now achieved by digesters that use an anaerobic process to separate liquids from solids and then capture and burn off methane gas to generate electricity. Another machine that relies on a nutrient concentration system is also being used to remove excess phosphorus. Thus far, however, most raw manure remains untreated.

     It is interesting to note, according to Laurie Winn Carlson, in her book, Cattle: An Informal Social History, that Dr. Babcock never took out a patent on the machine he developed to measure the fat content of milk, because he believed it should be available to all. His invention prevented milk diluted by water to be sold for full price and enabled cows to be ranked not only by the quantity of milk they produced but also by the fat content of their milk. A cow that produces milk with a high fat content is doubly valuable because her eggs can be harvested and sold for artificial insemination. Cattle of the World by John Friend describes the process of harvesting fertilized eggs from dairy cows and freezing semen from bulls known to produce outstanding calves. In the frozen form, semen from desirable bulls can be exported to improve and/or provide cross-breeding with dairy cattle herds anywhere in the world.

     The variety of dairy cow characteristics John Pukite mentions in his book, A Field Guide to Cows: How to Identify and Appreciate America's 52 Breeds, suggests reasons why farmers import specific dairy breeds out of the world's approximately 920 different cow breeds. The Holstein-Friesian dairy cow, found in at least 125 countries, produces the largest amount of milk, but she feeds on a concentrated diet of grain/corn, lives in an environmentally controlled barn, and needs regular veterinary care. In contrast, quite a few dairy breeds, such as the Canadienne, Galloway, Jersey, and Brown Swiss, graze in pastures out-of-doors. The Brown Swiss, like the Jersey, Guernsey, Pinzgauer, and Ayrshire, produces milk with a high butterfat content and also is second only to the Holstein in terms of milk yield. Multipurpose breeds, such as the Maine-Anjou, MeuseRhineYssel, and Normande, are bred for both milk and beef throughout the world. The hides of the Galloway and Pinzgauer also are known for their good quality leather. All dairy cows are usually easy to handle. Some, like the Salers and Simmental, have good mothering instincts. The South Devon, Red Poll, and a few other breeds have long lifespans.

     Whereas, the ships that carried beef cattle across the Atlantic Ocean to England in the 1880s were overcrowded and filthy, health protocols now cover the ventilation, watering, feeding, and manure handling conditions of live animals when they are in transit by ship. Cargo planes also are specially fitted to ensure the safe, humane transit of livestock. At livestockexporters-usa.com,
the online newsletters of the Livestock Exporters Association (LEA) provide dairy cattle exporters with information about policies of the U.S.Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) regarding, among other information, the health certifications of livestock exports and insurance underwriting guidelines for ocean transit of animals, as well as information about new markets, such as Jordan and Iraq.

     Dairy cows are not just traded among agriculturally developed countries. Through the not-for-profit Heifer International organization, children, scout troops, schools, and parents can donate cows to impoverished families around the world. Just go to the heifer.org website to contribute the $500 it takes to donate a cow, or $50 for a share of a heifer, and see some of the happy recipients who have learned to care for their gifts. Since families who receive a cow from Heifer International agree to pass on the first calf offspring to another needy family, each donation is a part of an endless chain devoted to eliminating world hunger and poverty. In Kenya, Heifer International also holds a 40 percent share in a plant that cools and processes milk and seeks new markets for the 6000 households that gain a secure monthly income by bringing their milk to the plant.

Discover Africa

The African continent is three times the size of the United States and nearly three million square miles bigger than Europe, including the Asian portion of Russia. By 2100, the U.N. estimates Africa will have 3 billion more people than it has now. Future opportunities in this vast and growing continent need not be overlooked because of the world's somewhat warped historical viewpoint. A new guide, Emerging Africa, by Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu dispels some of the assumptions about lack of development on the continent. And in 2015, one of the discussions in the Foreign Policy Association's Great Decisions program will feature "U.S. Policy Toward Africa."

    Headlines do not tell the whole story of what is happening in Africa. News reports rightly warned that the Ebola virus was out of control in West Africa. In April and May of 2014, the world heard that over 200 teenage girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group in northern Nigeria. Since then, the group has taken additional girls and women as wives, cooks, and suicide bombers; young men and boys have been abducted to serve as soldiers. On January 15, 2019, al-Shabab terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda would kill at least 21 in an attack on a hotel/office complex in Nairobi, Kenya. In April, 2015, jihadis from al-Shabab killed 147 in a raid on a Kenyan university. Earlier,  terrorists attacked at a Kenyan mall.

     Europe's scramble to colonize the continent between 1876 and 1912 left independent African countries in the 1960s with an uneducated population, some leaders who exploited their people in imitation of former colonial administrators, disease, and transportation ties to Europe rather than each other. To this day, Fastjet is still having trouble launching its plan to provide affordable African flights.

     But just like Pablo Picasso in 1907, when he first saw the African artifacts that caused him to create a new form of art, young people are in a position to look at Africa in a new way. Beginning with the book Ashanti to Zulu, kids can learn the alphabet and 26 African traditions at the same time. With the help of ePals.com, classrooms can connect with African students in several languages by email, Skype, and project collaborations.

     Students need not see Africans only as impoverished children who can live on 50 cents per day donations. According to trendwatching.com, 65% of Africa's 8- to 18-year-olds have access to a mobile phone. In Gambia and Ghana, trendwatching.com reports entrepreneurs run solar-charging kiosks where the public can charge their mobile devices for a fee. In addition to social contacts, mobile devices are facilitating education and job-hunting in Africa. By 2060, trendwatching.com expects there will be 1.1 billion middle class Africans. Already, the SABMiller bottler and Coca-Cola have joined forces to profit from Africa's growing middle class.

    Africa's growth is attracting $24 billion in foreign investment this year. In fact, the Financial Times (April 4, 2014) reported that return from private equity investments in Africa is comparable to the return on investments in China and Latin America. No wonder the Rothschild Fund is looking to invest $530 million in African projects that have a long term social development aspect to them. And the Swedish risk capital firm, Swedfund, is investing in a partnership between the H&M retailer and Ethiopian textile firms that manufacture according to high social and environmental standards. (Also see the later blog post, "Never Too Young to Invest in the Future.")

    Forbes magazine listed 27 billionaires in Africa. Today's richest African is Aliko Dangote of Nigeria, who makes his money from the cement used for construction throughout Africa. Recognizing the potential for African construction, Dubai has invested $300 million in Dangote Cement. Other riches have been made in areas, such as oil, sugar, flour, banking, media, telecommunications, luxury goods, diamonds, supermarkets, and pharmaceuticals. Looking past the current drop in oil prices, Dangote increased his oil refinery investment from $9 billion to $11 billion in December, 2014. (Nonetheless, his estimated $21 billion fortune has taken a $5.4 billion hit due to sagging oil prices.) Stephen Saad of South Africa, founder of Aspen Pharmacare, is making his fortune by manufacturing generic drugs. Isabel dos Santos, Africa's first female billionaire, a former head of Angola's state oil group, and the daughter of Angola's president, is a major player in the banking industry. She seeks to block Spain's CaixaBank's attempt to assume full control of the Portuguese bank, BPI, where she is the second largest investor. As an alternative, she has proposed a merger of BPI and Portugal's Millennium BCP bank to reinforce their presence in Africa's Portuguese-speaking Angola and Mozambique. (As of President Joao Lourenco's election as President of Angola, Ms. dos Santos no longer heads Angola's national oil company and the former president's son has been charged with fraud for transferring $500 million out of the country.)  Bob Diamond's Atlas Mara, founded to invest in Sub-Saharan African financial institutions, continues to expand with its latest interest in a 45% stake in Banque Populaire du Rwanda.

     African startups also are winning outside support. IBM's "Project Lucy" coordinates the work of local universities, development agencies, startups, and others who want to create ventures that solve key African issues. BiztechAfrica reports that, as part of its 4Afika Initiative, Microsoft has made five innovation grants to the following startups: Uganda's access.mobile, which facilitates information sharing in the fields of agriculture and healthcare, Kenya's Africa 118, a mobile directory service, and Kytabu, which rents textbooks on tablets (A US entrepreneur just found funding for a similar project on the TV show, "Shark Tank"), and Nigeria's Gamsole, which creates games for Windows, and Save & Buy, which facilitates e-commerce purchases.

     In a long entry in March, 2014, " trendwatching.com's African" described how African governments and developers are facilitating areas, like Ghana's Hope City, Nigeria's Eko Atlantic, and Kenya's Konga Techno, that invite entrepreneurs to set up shop. Better than being  unemployed, business-minded young adults are responding by using crowdfunding platforms, such as Globevestor; developing tech applications, such as Nigeria's bus travel website (bus.com.ng); entering competitions (South Africa's First National Bank holds an "Ideas Can Help" competition for inventors, Yola sponsors a build-your-own website contest, there's a Anzisha Prize and a TechCabal Battlefield prize); and formalizing Africa's informal economy of outdoor markets, street hawkers, and resellers. Kenya's e-commerce Soko platform, for example, now connects global shoppers with local jewelry artisans who use natural and upcycled materials. FirstBank Nigeria is one of the firms that facilitates secure online payments.

      Projects involving the rich history of Egypt are already a staple of school curricula. Tracing Mansa Musa's religious pilgrimage from Timbuktu, the West African city in Mali, to Mecca in 1324 introduces an African mogul who distributed gold on his journey and returned with an architect to build a great mosque and scholars who created the Sankore University. A video about Shaka Zulu can introduce students to a military genius.

     Looking back through previous blog posts, Africa is mentioned in a variety of contexts.

• There are T-shirt designs from Swaziland and a U.S. artist who studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa ("Global Drawing Power")
• Somali children were featured in Asad, the live action short nominated for a 2012 Academy Award ("See the World at the Movies")
• Paul Simon's "Graceland" recording incorporated the township rhythms of South Africa ("Music of the Sphere")
• Ghana's kente cloth was mentioned in "The World of Fashion" and Ghana's chocolates tempted taste buds in "Pizza, Plantains, and Moo Goo Guy Pan."
• In 2004 Wangari Maathai of Kenya won a Noble Prize for mobilizing a campaign to fight global warming by planting trees and launched the U.N. project to plant a billion trees around the world ("Hope for the Future" and "A Healthy Environment")The website, About.com African History, has a list and description of Africa's 25 Nobel Prize winners. 
• Students located the African countries that produced the products they found in their scavenger hunt bags ("Games Children Play")

Just like the missionary, David Livingston, who happened to come upon the African falls he named for Queen Victoria, Africa still is open for discovery. China has discovered Africa's many minerals, such as iron ore and copper, and is building railroads to transport them to ports for export. French-speaking Chinese students have followed Chinese companies to work for them in former French colonies. Oprah Winfrey has founded a school for girls in Africa. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has set out to help eliminate malaria and HIV in Africa. George Clooney sent up a satellite to watch for atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. And, like Alexander McCall Smith, the author of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana, there's still the possibility of finding riches by writing one of Africa's fascinating stories.