FRANCIS PISANI

Yasmine E-Mehairy doesn’t have children yet. No doubt this is  the reason that, one day in in the fall of 2010, she was struck by the stresses of her sister-in-law’s pregnancy, by the difficulty in finding useful information, and the impossibility of choosing from the deluge of advice offered by countless mothers.“We’re very social,” she […]

After living for 15 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I covered information technologies for several European and Latin American media outlets, I decided to leave and search for the future elsewhere. And I would like you to accompany me on this adventure.Five years from now (a little bit more or slightly less, […]

Winch 5, my global tour of innovation, is actually the natural continuation of the 16 years I spent in Mexico, and the 14 years in California after that. In each case I was looking for things that could change the world. Maybe I got stuck in a May ’68 mentality… even if I realize that […]

I was joking when I said that The Economist,The New York Times and Foreign Policy were following Winch 5′s trail, celebrating innovation coming from regions beyond those normally covered. I also found a lot of useful things in the articles. The most important, no doubt, being that that it is the nature of the web, internet […]

As you know, Winch 5 is on the search for the innovations coming from other places, with the hope of finding the most interesting things being done in in the world today. The idea came to me after I realized that Silicon Valley was losing momentum. Maybe it’s temporary, but it’s pretty evident.The reason most […]

Hidden in one of the University of Nairobi’s buildings, Fablab is a veritable treasure trove. One that I describe in more detail in my column published this week’s Le Monde’s Sciences&Technos supplement.But I also have some photos to share.First, a small precision for people not familiar with the term: “A Fab Lab (abbreviation of ‘Fabrication Laboratory”) is […]

I’m joking, obviously, but this makes me happy nonetheless. The value of my investigation/reportage into innovation off the beaten path has just been confirmed by three publications.The cover of this week’s Economist is dedicated to “Africa Rising.” According to the article, after “decades of slow growth, Africa has a real chance to follow in the footsteps […]

The surgery was “a little bit over two weeks ago”, and I’m still in bed like an idiot, leg up on a pillow, since it’s still a bit swollen. I don’t feel bad, but I really don’t like this bluish foot and its sick and fatty toes.Right now, I should be hopping through Istanbul towards […]

Facts first: I just had an emergency operation on my Achilles tendon, for the second time in six months. It hasn’t been a serious problem, but it is rather disabling. Since the first operation wasn’t successful, I had to accept that a second was necessary. Doctors recommended that it be done as quickly as possible, […]

Herman Chinery-Hesse was described to me as “the African Bill Gates,” but what he’s launching is more like the continent’s eBay. He lacks the Microsoft founder’s fortune and power, but he did launch a software company serving SME’s in Ghana, where he lives, as well as other African countries, over twenty years ago.The comparison with […]