Tech4Africa in Numbers - What are we building here?

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For certain techies and twits in SA the big story of the year was not the soccer tournament but a conference that took place in August at the Campus in Bryanston and saw the elite of South African media types, entrepreneurs and web developers mingling with some of the most high profile technology speakers in the world.

As early as June, Tech4Africa became something of a meme on the local Twitterverse, generating reams of conversation around the idea that a conference of this stature, on a par with the likes of SXWS and TED was going to take place in South Africa. It also helped that best-selling author and Internet visionary Clay Shirky would be making a keynote appearance.

The timing was right for this sort of event. Perhaps people were looking for the next big story that would keep the momentum and feel good vibes of the World Cup going into the latter half of 2010. Tech4Africa promised to stoke the flames of an already jubilant crowd with renewed enthusiasm for enterprise, Africa and the power of the Internet.

To be fair, Emerging Media, the PR Company who handled the communications for Tech4Africa did a remarkable job, milking every media opportunity possible before, during and after the event to ensure the conference and the speakers enjoyed the highest levels of publicity.

But possibly the most interesting phenomenon from the conference was the sustained, general awareness driven via the social media channels. For example, there was a high level of participation on Twitter, in which users tweeted and retweeted content around the conference and their own experiences during the event. The result of this hyperactivity online was an event that left the constraints of time and space and moved into an existence that was far bigger and weightier than its actual two day, 500 people affair.  What we ask now is where to from here, what legacy will these talk shops and bursts of activity leave in and for Africa? The inaugural conference has set the tone and the challenge issued to African Web entrepreneurs is to have something to show for themselves by next year's event.

BrandsEye and Emerging Media, with some help from the brains at Quirk put together this graphic to make visible the astonishing reach and influence of the Tech4Africa meme. While just under 500 delegates attended the conference, BrandsEye found that over 24 000 times as many people could have been exposed to the conference before, during and immediately after through the press, broadcast and online media.

This data was pulled from online reputation management software BrandsEye, which was used by Emerging Media to monitor the conversation around the event.

“It was an amazing process. There were literally thousands of mentions of the conference and the keynote speakers and key delegates taking place online in the build up to, during and after the event.” Says Tim Shier, MD of BrandsEye; “Over 4400 online mentions together took the power of social media to new heights, increasing exposure well beyond that achieved through the traditional media channels, both in terms of reach, volume and geography.”

Tech4Africa was mentioned in regions as far-flung as Canada, India, Norway, and in the rest of Africa, most notably Kenya and Cameroon.

The organisers of Tech4Africa said they “want to thank everybody who attended, and those who spread the message about the conference to the rest of the world. Everyone made Tech4Africa what it is. “

About the infograph:

The conference enjoyed remarkably high levels of online and offline conversation. This infographic reflects the relative spread of the conversation and the various sources through which the exposure was attained.