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The Open Internet for Africa

The Open Internet for Africa. Also Monitoring Mangroves in the Pakistan Indus Delta with drones and what was the tech talk at Web Summit 2022.

We hear about a new plan to drive economies and improve lives across Africa 鈥 the Open Internet project between the continent and the EU. A report 鈥淭he Open Internet as Cornerstone of Digitalisation鈥 is funded by the EU and points out in detail what needs to done to secure easy, reliable and cheap online access without which development will simply stall. We speak to two of the report鈥檚 authors 鈥 one from the EU and the other from Africa.

Monitoring Mangroves in the Pakistan Indus Delta
Mangrove forests are hugely impacted by climate change and monitoring them from space with satellites doesn鈥檛 deliver enough data to know fully how they are being impacted by rising temperatures and sea levels. Now a pilot project in the Indus River Delta, just south of Karachi in Pakistan, has used drones to image the mangroves allowing the researchers to study one of the world鈥檚 largest forests. The project鈥檚 director Obaid Rehman is on the show to tell us about their work and also how these mangrove forests can be used for carbon capture. He says their work should lead to more plantations of the forest too.

The talk at Web Summit 2022
Technology gatherings are back in full swing and Web Summit in Portugal is one of the biggest. This year鈥檚 conference was at full capacity and tech reporter Jane Wakefield joined the queues to see what was preoccupying the tech industry as 2022 draws to an end 鈥 and the big thing appears to be the Metaverse.

The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Ghislaine Boddington.

Studio Manager: Tim Heffer
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

(Image: Getty Images)

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37 minutes

Last on

Mon 21 Nov 2022 00:32GMT

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