- KICTANet - KICTANet

Leading technologist from Africa joins Internet Society staff
by Dorcas Muthoni 03 May '08

03 May '08

We are very proud of Michuki.. congratulations on this appointment. Keep flying the Kenyan flag high! * RESTON, VA, USA and GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - 30 April 2008 -* Michuki Mwangi, a leading figure in African Internet development and technical capacity building, has joined the staff of the Internet Society (ISOC) as Senior Education Manager. http://www.isoc.org/isoc/media/releases/080430pr.shtml -- Muthoni My Blog: http://rugongo.blogspot.com/ -------------------------------------------- Mahatma Gandhi once said:- First they ignore you, Then they laugh at you, Then they fight you, AND THEN YOU WIN!!!

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Are ICT issues drying up?
by Victor Maloi 03 May '08

03 May '08

Dear Members, Just like many projects in Kenya, I feel like we are going downhill yet there are many policy issues we should be discussing. This morning I perused through the Ministry of Information Website only to find there is all the important Bills that they have lined up. What is wrong with Bwana PS. Is there something you want to hide from us? The just concluded ICT conference at the KICC was sinply great. Missing in action was the ICT Board. They could not even bother to have somebody man their stand throughout. Was meeting Kenyans at the conference not important? Although the PS attended all the sessions, it was not enough because we needed his troops there to help the thousands of people who attended. Bwana PS we do not want the elitism in the Board to continue. These are people more known outside of Kenya than the people they pretend to help. Victor Maloi

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Part-Time UNIX System Administrator
by Moses Kemibaro 01 May '08

01 May '08

Part-Time UNIX System Administrator Dotsavvy is currently looking for a part time UNIX (primary) and Windows (secondary) system administrator, to assist us maintaining our offsite servers and potentially the ones we have in house as well. Qualifications. The applicant must possess the following skills . Experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. . Experience with securing UNIX systems (lockdown). . Expert in installing and configuring Apache, PHP, MySQL . Able to configure and maintain Postfix and SSH. . Ability to document your work. The applicant ideally has experience with the following skills. . FreeBSD administration. . Samba configuration. . Asterisk configuration and maintenance. . Windows server 2003 administration with Active directory configuration. The Work. At Dotsavvy you will be part of a young and dynamic team dedicated towards delivering industry leading web-solutions. We offer a flat organizational structure where everyone is encouraged to voice any issue in order for the company to improve as a whole. You will be responsible for making sure the Server(s) are running with as little problems at all possible. It will be expected that you are able to define and document your own procedures in respect to managing the servers. The position currently available is 2-6 days of work a month, which will most likely grow over time as the operations expand. We are looking to fill the position as soon as possible. Application. Applicants interested should send a CV / resume of experience to jobs(a)dotsavvyafrica.com right away. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ YOU ARE IN KAZI AFRIKA GROUP UNSUBSCRIBE: kaziafrika-unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com www.kaziafrika.com www.wananchiforums.com MPESA (for Adverts): 0726 034 530 FOR A VERY PEACEFUL KENYA -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

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Part-Time UNIX System Administrator
by Moses Kemibaro 01 May '08

01 May '08

Part-Time UNIX System Administrator Dotsavvy is currently looking for a part time UNIX (primary) and Windows (secondary) system administrator, to assist us maintaining our offsite servers and potentially the ones we have in house as well. Qualifications. The applicant must possess the following skills . Experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. . Experience with securing UNIX systems (lockdown). . Expert in installing and configuring Apache, PHP, MySQL . Able to configure and maintain Postfix and SSH. . Ability to document your work. The applicant ideally has experience with the following skills. . FreeBSD administration. . Samba configuration. . Asterisk configuration and maintenance. . Windows server 2003 administration with Active directory configuration. The Work. At Dotsavvy you will be part of a young and dynamic team dedicated towards delivering industry leading web-solutions. We offer a flat organizational structure where everyone is encouraged to voice any issue in order for the company to improve as a whole. You will be responsible for making sure the Server(s) are running with as little problems at all possible. It will be expected that you are able to define and document your own procedures in respect to managing the servers. The position currently available is 2-6 days of work a month, which will most likely grow over time as the operations expand. We are looking to fill the position as soon as possible. Application. Applicants interested should send a CV / resume of experience to jobs(a)dotsavvyafrica.com right away.

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The dynamics of mobile operator-subsidized laptops
by alice 01 May '08

01 May '08

* http://www.arcchart.com/blueprint/show.asp?id=462 The dynamics of mobile operator-subsidized laptops *printer friendly articles <http://www.arcchart.com/blueprint/print.asp?id=462> 2 Apr 2008 /by: Matt Lewis/ *Last weekend, a friend was showing off his shining new laptop – an HP machine with Intel processor, 1GB of memory, DVD burner and a large 15.4” display. Not amazing specs, but it had an amazing price – it was free! After checking to see if the serial number had been filed off, I learnt the laptop was free from AOL UK, which is now owned by the Carphone Warehouse. The broadband provider has a promotion which bundles 8Mbps broadband with unlimited local and international calls for $50 a month. Oh, and they throw in a free HP laptop as well. What’s the catch? Well, there isn’t really much of one. The deal locks the customer into a two-year contact: a prison sentence for someone like me, but manageable for a typical consumer, particularly one that doesn’t already own a PC or is looking to upgrade their old one, as was the case with my friend.* Giving away a free laptop allows a broadband service provider to achieve three key objectives in a developed market like the UK, which is highly competitive and where household internet penetration is flat-lining. Firstly, it provides a differentiated service offering, distracting consumer attention away from the price versus speed comparison. Secondly, it opens up a new constituency of consumers who have a desire for internet access but for whom the affordability of a PC is beyond their means. Finally, a free laptop sweetens the two-year contact, making consumers more willing to lock themselves into an operator for such a long period of time. Wholesale, I estimate the laptop probably costs AOL about $550. The operator will amortise that over the two-year period, but is unlikely to be making any margins from the laptop itself, especially when the associated distribution and logistics costs are taken into consideration. As a bundled offering, margins will come from the plain vanilla broadband and VoIP telephone services. However, as the terminal provider, unlike its competitors, AOL is in a position to pack the laptop full of content, features and services which has the potential to take their customers’ monthly ARPU well over the $50 mark. If these economics sound vaguely familiar, they certainly should. The terminal-subsidy-content-and-services-premium model is an established aspect of the mobile phone industry. As newer, more powerful and feature-rich handsets have come to market, operators proved willing subsidizers (often down to zero dollars) in order to proliferate these devices across their subscribers base in the hope of reaping bigger rewards from the take-up of premium services. From last year, laptops started shipping with embedded mobile broadband modules –initially for EV-DO networks and subsequently for HSPA. Now, all the big laptop vendors have mobile broadband devices on their roadmaps and many will be shipping products in 2008. Apart from this, the industry has seen a jump in the take-up of 3G data-cards (primarily used with laptops) on the back of aggressive promotional activity over the last 12 months from mobile operators – particularly those in Europe. It is now possible to get a USB data-card and 3G broadband for less than $20 a month, with an 18 month lock-in. By now I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. Now that laptops are becoming mobile broadband enabled, does it make sense for cellular operators to start subsidising the cost of the laptops as they are already doing with handsets, and as some fixed broadband operators, like AOL, have started doing? On one hand, the raw economics make sense. For example, the wholesale cost of a Nokia N-series devices or a high-end Samsung phone is higher than most basic laptop models. There is also more opportunity to pass on support costs to the laptop vendor, something not possible with handsets. From the end-user’s perspective, a laptop destined for home use will have its value spread across all family members (unlike a phone which is only used by one person), augmenting the perceived value and increasing the potential for lock-in periods of longer than 18 months. The opportunity for service bundling which includes laptop, handset, broadband and voice is also compelling. However, while all this is a powerful service differentiator for a mobile operator trying to grab consumer mindshare in a market where all operators have identical network capabilities, the ability to boost ARPU through a subsidised laptop offering is more challenging and will only be achievable by certain cellular providers. Going back to the Nokia N-series phone; an operator will be inclined to generously subsidise such a device since the multimedia (music, video, camera etc.) and navigation features mean a user is more likely to consume data and premium content. The same cannot be said for a notebook unless the operator, like AOL, has a portfolio of online collateral which it can channel the laptop user towards. A few mobile operators do have such collateral – Orange is perhaps the best example and has resulted from the France Telecom ownership of the pan-European Wanadoo ISP which has now been completely re-branded as Orange. It will be interesting to see how the operator laptop subsidy plays out. T-Mobile toyed with such an offering last year in Germany, and discussions with two other mobile carriers show they’re not averse to such a concept. One scenario is that mobile operators which also have an ISP business in a local market (e.g. Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile in Germany, Orange in France and the UK, Telefonica in Spain and TIM in Italy) adopt the laptop-subsidy model primarily to keep their ISP business competitive. However, as a result, competing mobile operators may feel compelled to offer a similar laptop-subsidy package to remain competitive. Such an eventuality would speed the day when consumers no longer pay – or expect to pay - for any of their terminal devices, be it a set-top box, WiMAX router, laptop, mobile phone or gaming console.

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Kenya IXP reduces connectivity costs, Internet speeds
by Rebecca Wanjiku 30 Apr '08

30 Apr '08

Kenya IXP reduces connectivity costs, Internet speeds The cost of Internet connectivity in Kenya has been significantly reduced and speeds have improved since 2000 when the Kenya Internet Exchange Point (KIXP) was set up, according to a Wananchi Online executive. KIXP acts as a junction between multiple points of Internet presence. Local peers are able to directly connect to each other to exchange local Internet traffic. "About 20 to 30 percent of most ISP's traffic could be classified as 'local' within Kenya. Mostly, this might be e-mail traffic. International bandwidth costs about $5,000 per megabyte and the local megabyte costs about $500-1,000 -- it is a significant change," said Riyaz Bachani, chief technical officer of Wananchi. http://computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/29/kenya-ixp-reduces-connectivi… Tel. 254 720 318 925 blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

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Account Manager
by Moses Kemibaro 30 Apr '08

30 Apr '08

Dotsavvy is looking to recruit an Account Manager to assume responsibility of managing service delivery to our clients as well as identifying new business opportunities. This position will entail the following responsibilities. - Acting as a principle business contact to a selection of our clients. - Taking ownership of client relationships - Responsible for identifying opportunities within client accounts sto improve customer service and minimize cost - Project co-ordination The skills required to be successful in the Account Manager position include the following: - Strong communication and influencing skills along with the ability to drive and co-ordinate projects. - Account management experience is essential - Direct operational experience within a ICT and/or marketing environment. - Flair for ICT and excellent presentation skills - Service orientation with a natural instinct to take ownership - 2+ years in operational and client management experience - Preferably Degree/Diploma level education (Equivalent as a result of work experience can be considered adequate). If you meet these criteria, kindly send your CV to jobs(a)dotsavvyafrica.com. The deadline for applications is 15th May 2008. ---

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Business Developer
by Moses Kemibaro 30 Apr '08

30 Apr '08

Dotsavvy is looking to recruit a Business Developer to assume the responsibility of generating new business for our offerings. This position will entail the following: - Generate new business for existing and prospective clients. - Identifying and developing opportunities. - Take part in varied, stimulating and challenging projects throughout East Africa - Work as part of an elite Business Development team - Be self motivated and a first class communicator with a professional and articulate manner. The key skills and experience required for the role of Business Developer include: - 2+ years sales and marketing experience. - University Degree or Diploma Level Education (or the equivalent in work experience) - Excellent sales skills, including experience of establishing need, objection handling, negotiation, closing - Superior proposal writing skills and the ability to make compelling business presentations. - A tenacious and organized approach to business development tasks. - Proven ability to build business relationships - Proven track record of working within a target driven environment and achieving these targets consistently - Commercial acumen - ICT literate. If you meet these criteria, kindly send your CV to jobs(a)dotsavvyafrica.com for consideration. The deadline for applications is 15th May 2008

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Graphic Designer
by Moses Kemibaro 30 Apr '08

30 Apr '08

A great opportunity has arisen for a Graphic Designer at Dotsavvy. You should have a good portfolio demonstrating creative flair. This should show examples of the following: . Excellent Layout and Typographical Skills . Interactive Flash Design . Corporate Design . Commercial Design The candidate would work within the production team covering a wide range of day to day activities. . Ability to articulate and communicate to client's creative concepts effectively and passionately . Take primary responsibility for the development of design solutions in response to client briefs . The ability to juggle a number of projects at one time whilst offering support and advice to the rest of the design team . Liaise with all in-house staff to ensure that the best possible design solutions are offered . Take part in client meetings and conference calls offering advice and solutions . Create innovative and exciting design solutions and have an eye for detail with excellent conceptual skills Of the above points, the following two are key: . Ability to articulate and communicate to client's creative concepts effectively and passionately . Create innovative and exciting design solutions and have an eye for detail with excellent conceptual skills As well as: . Outstanding conceptual and creative designer (High level) . Excellent Flash, Photoshop, After Effects skills . Minimum 2+ years industry experience . Be able to demonstrate a strong and varied portfolio of work . Mature, level headed, honest and hard working Qualifications: A degree/qualification in Graphic Design/Multimedia, or Graphic Design related subject will help, but is not essential. It is essential that candidates are able to demonstrate their creative, innovative abilities through an online portfolio. Links to previous websites that have been designed or worked on must be included. Drawing/illustration/photographic/video/audio skills would be advantageous as well as the ability to create written concepts. General Requirements: The successful candidate should be self-motivated, enthusiastic, have experience in working to deadlines and willing to learn in order to progress within the organisation. Good communication skills and the ability to work in a team are essential. If you meet these criteria, kindly send your CV to jobs@dotsavvyafrica,com for consideration. The closing date for applications is 15th May 2008.

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[Fwd: [APC Forum] Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use]
by alice 30 Apr '08

30 Apr '08

Apologies for cross-posting! We are pleased to announce the release of a new report on Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use - http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-trends-ngo-mobile… Mobile technology is transforming the way advocacy, development and relief organizations accomplish their institutional missions. This is nothing news to readers of MobileActive.org, of course! The recent report Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use, released today by the United Nations Foundation and The Vodafone Group Foundation, brings this point home. Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use was written by Sheila Kinkade (ShareIdea.org) and myself, and commissioned by the United Nations Foundation-Vodafone Group Foundation Technology Partnership. The report examines emerging trends in “mobile activism” by looking at 11 case studies of groups active in the areas of public health, humanitarian assistance and environmental conservation. The link again: http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-trends-ngo-mobile…. Please feel free to pass on to other interested parties, and thanks! Best, Katrin Katrin Verclas Co-Founder and Editor MobileActive.org katrin(a)mobileactive.org <mailto:katrin@mobileactive.org> + 1 413 687 9877 MobileActive.org: A global resource for people using mobile phones for social impact. ======================================= APC Forum is a meeting place for the APC community - people and institutions who are or have been involved in collaboration with APC, and share the APC vision - a world in which all people have easy, equal and affordable access to the creative potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve their lives and create more democratic and egalitarian societies. _______________________________________________ apc.forum mailing list apc.forum(a)lists.apc.org http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/apc.forum

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Kenya works on training information security managers
by Rebecca Wanjiku 29 Apr '08

29 Apr '08

Kenya works on training information security managers Lack of training institutions for information security management has made IT investment expensive for many organizations in Kenya. http://computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/28/kenya-works-training-informa… Tel. 254 720 318 925 blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

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[Fwd: [Fibre-for-africa] As SAT-3 Opens Up, Neotel Makes Its Move]
by alice 28 Apr '08

28 Apr '08

Michael Malakata , IDG News Service Wednesday, April 23, 2008 2:10 PM PDT Now that the SAT-3 undersea cable has opened up to competition, with South African communications network operator Neotel gaining access to the network, industry insiders hope that prices will come down. Neotel's access to the cable means that consumers have a wider choice of operators, which could lead to lower prices for international calls. Since 2002, cable consortium members with landing points had an effective monopoly on providing cable bandwidth in their own countries and to countries without landing points. As a result, the cost of bandwidth remained high. Neotel, however, will be offering bandwidth between South Africa and the U.K., without having to touch the Telkom S.A. network. Local landing rights to the cable were held exclusively by Telkom, a South African government-owned provider, allowing the company to operate the cable as a monopoly. The South African government and other African countries where the cable had landing points had control over who got direct access to SAT-3 cable system. Neotel Chief Technology Officer Angus Hay said Neotel gained access to the cable last week, enabling the company to carry international voice and data traffic to London at competitive prices and giving consumers a choice of operators. SAT-3 cable links South Africa to Portugal, Spain, India, Malaysia, and West Africa including Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola and Senegal. South African Minister of Communication Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri declared last year the termination of all exclusive provisions contained in SAT-3 agreements. Neotel's Hay said, meanwhile, that the company has deployed its own equipment at the Melkbosstrand and Mtunzini landing stations of the SAT-3 cable system, connected directly over its own high availability fiber-optic network. "Neotel is now able to obtain international capacity on the cable and is able to pass the cost benefits to customers," Hay said via e-mail. African policymakers, nongovernmental organizations and consumers had been pushing for SAT-3 to include more operators to make the market more competitive and bring down telecom costs. The end of the SAT-3 monopoly over access will now subject the cable to international bandwidth business competition and is likely to bring down the cost of telecommunication in the region. Already, Telkom has announced it is considering bandwidth price reductions for the second time this year. There are fears, however, that a bandwidth rush may occur among African countries following the opening of the cable, causing it to run out of capacity. Source: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145021/as_sat3_opens_up_neote… _______________________________________________ Fibre-for-africa mailing list Fibre-for-africa(a)lists.apc.org http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fibre-for-africa

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Outsourcing is a huge opportunity: example Acturial Services outsourcing india
by Paul Kukubo 27 Apr '08

27 Apr '08

I got this article from the Times of India online. Actural outsourcing is catching up. 24 Apr 2008 They are the professionals who design our insurance policies. Their job is to assess the financial implications of unforeseen events and the money needed to cover the risks. As the global insurance market hots up, actuaries have become hot property. And ever since actural process outsourcing (APO) has caught up, KPOs especially in India are wooing actuaries with lucrative packages. Experts say the estimated revenue from Indian offshore insurance BPO services are expected to rise from $790 million in 2007 to about $2 billion by 2010. However, as the market matures , Indian IT companies, who till now provided only back office insurance services like claims processing and others, are now moving to doing the more complex actuarial valuations jobs as well. While APO is fast emerging as a niche KPO segment, there are no official studies to forecast the market yet. ‘‘ The global insurance KPO market is estimated to be around $430 million in 2007 and India’s share is expected to be about 70 per cent at about $300 million by 2010,’’ says Mohit Thukral, senior VP, Genpact. According to Sanjiv Kapur, Senior VP Head, Patni BPO, ‘‘Various sources of market research predict the KPO industry to be anywhere between $10 billion to $17 billion by the year 2010. Going by the indication and the response we are seeing from the global market, India has the potential to become actuarial back office of the world.’’ Patni BPO has almost 120 actuarial workers in India. Kapur feels, considering, APO is not driven by volumes, growing to 125 FTEs in itself is considered significant. So what is driving this market? Apart from significant cost savings and improved productivity, India provides global companies access to skilled resources. End..... Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Celtel Kenya

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Nominations Sought for Technical Women from Developing Countries - Anita Borg Change Agent Awards]
by alice 26 Apr '08

26 Apr '08

fyi Begin forwarded message: > *From: *"Richard Heeks" <richard.heeks(a)manchester.ac.uk > <mailto:richard.heeks@manchester.ac.uk>> > *Date: *April 25, 2008 4:38:57 PM EDT > *To: *"ICT-Based Enterprise for Women" <womenictenterprise(a)dgroups.org > <mailto:womenictenterprise@dgroups.org>> > *Subject: **[womenictenterprise] Nominations Sought for Technical > Women from Developing Countries - Anita Borg Change Agent Awards* > *Reply-To: *"ICT-Based Enterprise for Women" > <womenictenterprise(a)dgroups.org <mailto:womenictenterprise@dgroups.org>> > > > From: SRSterling [mailto:srsterling@gmail.com] > Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 4:37 PM > > Hello - I'm chairing the upcoming Anita Borg Change Agent Awards, to > be given at the October 2008 Grace Hopper's Conference. Could you > please pass this around your contacts and distributions lists? We are > looking for applicaitons from technical women from developing regions > who are making a difference in the lives and livelihoods of those > around them. Transportation to the event is covered; winners will be > featured on a panel and during the awards ceremony. Criteria and more > info at this link; intersted folks can contact me with any specific > quesitons. Thank you! > > http://anitaborg.org/initiatives/awards/change-agent-awards/ > > Many thanks, > Revi > srsterling(a)gmail.com > > > Dgroups is a joint initiative of Bellanet, DFID, Hivos, ICA, IICD, > OneWorld, UNAIDS > --- You are currently subscribed to womenictenterprise as: sjorge(a)att.net > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > leave-womenictenterprise-1157412F(a)dgroups.org ======================================= APC Forum is a meeting place for the APC community - people and institutions who are or have been involved in collaboration with APC, and share the APC vision - a world in which all people have easy, equal and affordable access to the creative potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve their lives and create more democratic and egalitarian societies. _______________________________________________ apc.forum mailing list apc.forum(a)lists.apc.org http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/apc.forum

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Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority?
by Leonard Mware 24 Apr '08

24 Apr '08

I agree with Monica. Perhaps change KICTB to KICTA? Then make e-gov a department of KICTA? This would be better than creating a new outfit. Expand scope of existing Board. L ----- Original Message ---- From: Monica Kerretts-Makau <mkmakau(a)yahoo.co.uk> To: mleonardo(a)yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 2:51:23 PM Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority? Waudo, While I agree that there needs to be coordination, should there not be a review of existing agencies : for scope and mandate and see if these agencies can be realigned to meet the gaps as raised rather than creating a new body? In doing so we may end up with even lesser institutions if some are merged etc? Dr. Monica Kerretts-Makau On 24/4/08 2:26 PM, "waudo siganga" <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> wrote: > Alex - actually the KEPSA proposal is not at a stage of detail. I think > the first stage is for all to determine and agree, as KEPSA has done, > that there is a problem of "coordination and coherence" with regard to > ICT and Government. We can use a forum like this one to share > experiences to determine this. For me the reality is that ICT is > cross-cutting and horizontal to the Government structure while most > Ministries appear structured to operate in a vertical format. The > Ministry of trade will tell you that OOXML (and ICT standards in > general) is their baby; so is the yet to be attended to WTO Information > Technology Act; so is signing (WTO) commitments to liberalize ICT > services sector. Finance will claim GITS; Immigration want to > unilaterally control the entry of ICT experts into the country, etc. > There is no-one stop-shop to manage or even act as an interface. In this > connection an ICT Authority is just one proposal but the flesh of it > would have to come from wider consultation and input of all > stakeholders. > > Waudo > > On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:03:05 -0700 (PDT), "Alex Gakuru" > <alex.gakuru(a)yahoo.com> said: >> >> --- Edith Adera <eadera(a)idrc.or.ke> wrote: >>> >>> Can the proposal be shared in this list? >>> >> >> I have refrained from commenting without seeing and >> understanding what the said proposal contains. >> >> Alex >> >> >> >> _____________________________________________________________________________ >> _______ >> Be a better friend, newshound, and >> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. >> http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> kictanet mailing list >> kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke >> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet >> >> This message was sent to: emailsignet(a)mailcan.com >> Unsubscribe or change your options at >> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/emailsignet%40mailcan.…>> m .............................. ³As we look ahead into the future, Leaders will be those who empower others² Bill Gates _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: mleonardo(a)yahoo.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/mleonardo%40yahoo.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

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Fwd: More on ICT Authority?
by John Walubengo 24 Apr '08

24 Apr '08

Something I couldnt help floating on the list...ofcourse with permission... walu. --- amugambi(a)jambo.co.ke further wrote: I have been following the ongoing online melodrama debate of the ICT Authority with keen interest. Here are my thoughts.. It is important to note that the issue of centralised ICT services provision to GOK has not been addressed or fully understood as this has been handled from time to time on project by project basis (e.g. the Metronet) or subject (e.g. e-Gov)depending on the flavor of the month. You see E-gov, GITS, GCCN, CCK, ICT Board, KCCT, KEPSA et al, they are all behemoths, but we should look in totality at GOK ICT Operation and Strategy Implementation within the wider context of the GOK 'ICT Management Strategy'. This would ensure that going forward and for ever that interests are managed and people only lobby those they need to. Look at this Scenario - u want to sell software/hardware to GOK ...,1. Visit CCK for authority to sell... 2. Move to ICT board for strategy and selling / budgets et al ... 3. Go to Govt GITS for implementation. It is lenghty and chaotic... No wonder nothing really gets done!! The only way you will have a clear helicopter view of the sector and be able to draw on synergies such as combined trunks, data centres, fail over and disaster recovery strategy, is to have an implementation company run and manage vendors as well as shortlist/blacklist vendors for all Governmet ICT services. And this is exactly what the ICT Authority would be doing amongst others! --- amugambi(a)jambo.co.ke further wrote: Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:28:41 +0300 (EAT) Subject: More on ICT Authority? From: amugambi(a)jambo.co.ke To: "John Walubengo" <jwalu(a)yahoo.com> Walu, Further to my mail this morning, i wish to add the following. There is need for a body to manage and coordinate the management and Maintainance ICT aspects of govt (the non-exciting and zero-money stuff) as vendors have interest in all the money minting aspects above anything else. Others are being driven by the potential of creating monster projects that can be funded by the WorldBank as well as other bilateral and multilateral partners. Each player (GITS, Egov, ICT Board, CCK et al) seems to have all components of a complete self contained ICT business/market by themselves. They can and do buy, fund, implement, and use ICT products and services, so to them their systems and ICT use encompasses all aspects from design, funding, procurement,implementation, management and Maintainance with the last 2 as most neglected. The two most neglected items (ICT Management and Maintenace) could be addressed if we could take the approach where the Policy Maker becomes a Rejigged CCK (technology), ICT Board does the commercial/environment), KEBS(Standards), and Implementer could be a New Entity or Rejigged GITS (same name or a different monster and could comprise of E-gov, et al) The User would be the Government of Kenya with a Usergroup Board made of other ICT players including major GOK CITOs Other grey areas can be run by committees ... Easier to constitute, don't have to be employees of GOK and can be funded by MOIC. What do you think?? Kinoti Mugambi > > By the way I have no objection to an ICT Authority....I > think such an > > agency (RITA) has done wonders for Rwanda, founded by > none other than Dr. > > J Oketch the current boss at eGovt. But such a body > must come in to play > > an over-arching role over the others rather than focus > on a sub-theme as > > it were...maybe i will take a look at the KEPSA > proposal. > > > > walu. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > > From: "MEldon(a)symphony.co.ke" <MEldon(a)symphony.co.ke> > > To: jwalu(a)yahoo.com > > Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions > <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke>; > > > kictanet-bounces+meldon=symphony.co.ke(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 9:13:04 AM > > Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority? > > > > First, it's a shame that e-Gov and GITS have not > merged. They should, and > > in a 'neutral' ministry like OP. > > > > Then, as far as the coordination need is concerned I > see a number of > > options: > > - have one of the bodies convene the others to handle > issues where more > > than one is involved > > - expand the mandate of one of the existing ones to > cover the need > > identified by Waudo > > - the option mooted by Waudo > > > > Mike Eldon > > > > > > > > From: "waudo siganga" <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> > > > > To: meldon(a)symphony.co.ke > > > > Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions > > <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> > > > > Date: 04/22/2008 05:56 PM > > > > Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I would not see any overlap Walu as the bodies you have > mentioned have > > their specific mandates which are not encompassing the > ICT universe. > > Roughly I think ICT Board is for marketing (Min. of > INFOCOM), GITS to > > run Gov. ICT services (Min. of Finance) and the > e-Secretariat to > > implement the e-Gov. strategy (Office of Pres.). I am > always open to > > correction but meantime I am endorsing the KEPSA > proposal. > > Waudo > > > > On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:23:50 -0700 (PDT), "John > Walubengo" > > <jwalu(a)yahoo.com> said: > >> Waudo, > >> > >> jst wondering if we dont already have enough overlaps > >> between ICT Board, eGovt Secretariate, Government > >> Info-Technology Services (GITS) and now you (KEPSA?) > want > >> to add on an ICT authority? > >> > >> walu. > >> > >> --- waudo siganga <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> wrote: > >> All this ultimately suggests the necessity for the > >> establishment of an oversight statutory > >> ICT Authority as is being proposed by KEPSA to the > ongoing > >> Government harmonization Committee. > >> > >> > >> > >> --- waudo siganga <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> wrote: > >> > >> > Actually the Government never voted and was never > called > >> > upon to > >> > vote on this issue. The Government only facilitated > the > >> > stakeholder committee at KEBS and national voting > was > >> > done by > >> > members of that committee. The overall issue however > >> > reiterates > >> > what I see as a persistent problem regarding ICT and > >> > Government: > >> > ICT is wide and diverse, as well as being horizontal > to > >> > the > >> > Governm > >> ent structure. This sometimes leads to matters > >> > that are > >> > considered "ICT" not revolving around a central > spoke in > >> > the > >> > Governemnt structure. So for example KEBS (and by > >> > extension > >> > issues of ICT standards) falls under the Ministry of > >> > trade. In > >> > the committee that handled OOXML there was no > >> > representative from > >> > the Ministry of Info and Comm., which was a mistake > >> > because the > >> > Government was a Stakeholder. All this ultimately > >> > suggests the > >> > necessity for the establishment of an oversight > statutory > >> > ICT > >> > Authority as is being proposed by KEPSA to the > ongoing > >> > Government > >> > harmonization Committee. > >> > > >> > Waudo > >> > > >> > > >> > On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:14:43 -0700 (PDT), "Rebecca > >> > Wanjiku" <rebeccawanji > >> > ku(a)yahoo.com> said: > >> > > >> > Microsoft denies threatening to withdraw > >> > funding > >> > > >> > Microsoft East Africa has dismissed allegations that > it > >> > threatened to withdraw funding to Kenya if the > government > >> > did not > >> > vote "yes" on OOXML. > >> > > >> > Louis Otieno, Microsoft general manager in East and > >> > Southern > >> > Africa denied the allegations, saying that Microsoft > EA > >> > acted > >> > appropriately. > >> > > >> > "We've acted appropriately in all instances. And we > are > >> > grateful > >> > that the National Body members engaged in this > process > >> > collaboratively and constructively," Otieno said. > >> > > >> > > >> > http://computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/21/microsoft-denies-t > >> > hreatening-withdraw-funding > >> > > >> > Tel. 254 720 318 925 > >> > blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/ > >> > > >> > > _________________________________________________________ > >> > > >> > Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all > with > >> > Yahoo! > >> > Mobile. [1]Try it now. > >> > > >> > References > >> > > >> > 1. > >> > > >> > > > http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8… > > > >> > -- > >> > waudo siganga > >> > emailsignet(a)mailcan.com > >> > > >> > > _______________________________________________ > >> > kictanet mailing list > >> > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > >> > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > >> > > >> > This message was sent to: jwalu(a)yahoo.com > >> > Unsubscribe or change your options at > >> > > >> > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com > >> > > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > > > >> Be a better friend, newshound, and > >> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. > >> > http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ > > -- > > waudo siganga > > emailsignet(a)mailcan.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > kictanet mailing list > > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > > > > This message was sent to: meldon(a)symphony.co.ke > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/meldon%40symphony.co.ke > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > kictanet mailing list > > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > > > > This message was sent to: jwalu(a)yahoo.com > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > > Be a better friend, newshound, and > > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. > > > http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > kictanet mailing list > > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > > > > This message was sent to: amugambi(a)jambo.co.ke > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/amugambi%40jambo.co.ke > > > > ---------------------------------------------- > > This message has been scanned for viruses and > > dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is > > believed to be clean. > > --------------------------------------------- > > "easy access to the world" > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. > --------------------------------------------- > "easy access to the world" > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

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Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority?
by John Walubengo 24 Apr '08

24 Apr '08

By the way I have no objection to an ICT Authority....I think such an agency (RITA) has done wonders for Rwanda, founded by none other than Dr. J Oketch the current boss at eGovt. But such a body must come in to play an over-arching role over the others rather than focus on a sub-theme as it were...maybe i will take a look at the KEPSA proposal. walu. ----- Original Message ---- From: "MEldon(a)symphony.co.ke" <MEldon(a)symphony.co.ke> To: jwalu(a)yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke>; kictanet-bounces+meldon=symphony.co.ke(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 9:13:04 AM Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority? First, it's a shame that e-Gov and GITS have not merged. They should, and in a 'neutral' ministry like OP. Then, as far as the coordination need is concerned I see a number of options: - have one of the bodies convene the others to handle issues where more than one is involved - expand the mandate of one of the existing ones to cover the need identified by Waudo - the option mooted by Waudo Mike Eldon From: "waudo siganga" <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> To: meldon(a)symphony.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: 04/22/2008 05:56 PM Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority? I would not see any overlap Walu as the bodies you have mentioned have their specific mandates which are not encompassing the ICT universe. Roughly I think ICT Board is for marketing (Min. of INFOCOM), GITS to run Gov. ICT services (Min. of Finance) and the e-Secretariat to implement the e-Gov. strategy (Office of Pres.). I am always open to correction but meantime I am endorsing the KEPSA proposal. Waudo On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:23:50 -0700 (PDT), "John Walubengo" <jwalu(a)yahoo.com> said: > Waudo, > > jst wondering if we dont already have enough overlaps > between ICT Board, eGovt Secretariate, Government > Info-Technology Services (GITS) and now you (KEPSA?) want > to add on an ICT authority? > > walu. > > --- waudo siganga <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> wrote: > All this ultimately suggests the necessity for the > establishment of an oversight statutory > ICT Authority as is being proposed by KEPSA to the ongoing > Government harmonization Committee. > > > > --- waudo siganga <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> wrote: > > > Actually the Government never voted and was never called > > upon to > > vote on this issue. The Government only facilitated the > > stakeholder committee at KEBS and national voting was > > done by > > members of that committee. The overall issue however > > reiterates > > what I see as a persistent problem regarding ICT and > > Government: > > ICT is wide and diverse, as well as being horizontal to > > the > > Governm > ent structure. This sometimes leads to matters > > that are > > considered "ICT" not revolving around a central spoke in > > the > > Governemnt structure. So for example KEBS (and by > > extension > > issues of ICT standards) falls under the Ministry of > > trade. In > > the committee that handled OOXML there was no > > representative from > > the Ministry of Info and Comm., which was a mistake > > because the > > Government was a Stakeholder. All this ultimately > > suggests the > > necessity for the establishment of an oversight statutory > > ICT > > Authority as is being proposed by KEPSA to the ongoing > > Government > > harmonization Committee. > > > > Waudo > > > > > > On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:14:43 -0700 (PDT), "Rebecca > > Wanjiku" <rebeccawanji > > ku(a)yahoo.com> said: > > > > Microsoft denies threatening to withdraw > > funding > > > > Microsoft East Africa has dismissed allegations that it > > threatened to withdraw funding to Kenya if the government > > did not > > vote "yes" on OOXML. > > > > Louis Otieno, Microsoft general manager in East and > > Southern > > Africa denied the allegations, saying that Microsoft EA > > acted > > appropriately. > > > > "We've acted appropriately in all instances. And we are > > grateful > > that the National Body members engaged in this process > > collaboratively and constructively," Otieno said. > > > > > http://computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/21/microsoft-denies-t > > hreatening-withdraw-funding > > > > Tel. 254 720 318 925 > > blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/ > > > > _________________________________________________________ > > > > Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with > > Yahoo! > > Mobile. [1]Try it now. > > > > References > > > > 1. > > > http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8… > > -- > > waudo siganga > > emailsignet(a)mailcan.com > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > kictanet mailing list > > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > > > > This message was sent to: jwalu(a)yahoo.com > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > > > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Be a better friend, newshound, and > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. > http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ -- waudo siganga emailsignet(a)mailcan.com _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: meldon(a)symphony.co.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/meldon%40symphony.co.ke _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: jwalu(a)yahoo.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

5 5

Chocolate.com -- this is fun and yummy]
by alice 24 Apr '08

24 Apr '08

Technology start-ups Chocolate.com Apr 17th 2008 | SAN FRANCISCO From /The Economist/ print edition A start-up innovates in an unexpected field TCHO, a small company based in a warehouse in San Francisco, sounds like a typical high-tech start-up. The brainchild of an engineer who previously worked on computer-vision systems for the space shuttle, the firm is developing "beta" versions of its new product. Volunteer testers are invited to submit feedback via the web. Louis Rossetto, the co-founder of /Wired/, a technology magazine, is on board as chief executive. All the employees have stock options. But Tcho is not about to launch a new website or mobile device; it is a technology firm that makes chocolate. Its founders believe there is vast scope for innovation in the way chocolate is made and sold. Most cocoa farmers have never tasted chocolate, and produce cocoa beans without any idea of how they will be used, says Timothy Childs, Tcho's founder. The resulting chocolate is classified and sold in a very unsophisticated way, labelled at best by country of origin and percentage cocoa solids. (It is rather like labelling a wine "France, 13% alcohol".) So Mr Childs wants to put things on a more technical footing—just as Americans formalised techniques for winemaking in the 1970s. He has developed ways to analyse and grade beans, and a six-segment "flavour wheel" to map out their natural aromas. Using a variety of jury-rigged spice grinders, heaters and temperature sensors, he has worked out how to get cocoa beans to reveal their complex flavours and to get chocolate to solidify evenly. Tcho is also working with cocoa growers, in conjunction with two research groups it has equipped with satellite-internet connections, to help them improve the quality and consistency of their beans. Tcho hopes that the most effective techniques will then spread in an "open source" fashion to other growers. Beans will be turned into chocolate on Tcho's elaborate production line, which is being used as a test-bed for remote video-monitoring of industrial processes by researchers at Fuji Xerox in Palo Alto. The firm will sell much of its chocolate to other food companies, for use in other products. Such customers, says Mr Rossetto, like the idea of buying chocolate based on a consistent flavour profile; Tcho's flavour wheel could become a de facto industry standard, he suggests, as IBM's PC did in the computer industry. Tcho will also sell chocolate using its website <http://www.tcho.com/>, and through a shop and visitors' centre due to open in the summer. San Francisco, a capital of food culture as well as technology, is the logical place to produce a high-tech chocolate. John Kehoe, Tcho's sourcing director, says chocolate is going down the trail blazed by speciality coffee, as consumers become more discerning. Chocolate today, he says, is where coffee was five years ago. Having been ahead of the curve with /Wired/, which launched just as the web was emerging, Mr Rossetto seems to have spotted another trend. _______________________________________________ AfrICANN mailing list AfrICANN(a)afrinic.net https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/africann

1 0

Competition could lower mobile-phone costs in Kenya
by Rebecca Wanjiku 24 Apr '08

24 Apr '08

Competition could lower mobile-phone costs in Kenya Kenyan mobile-phone users are hoping the entry of a new company, Econet Wireless, and consolidation of services by Telkom Kenya will offer competition and decreased prices for phone calls. The current GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) service providers, Safaricom and Celtel, are demonstrating duopolistic tendencies, with each refusing to lower cross-network call charges. Calls within the networks remain relatively cheap compared to calls from one network to the other. http://computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/23/competition-could-lower-mobi… Tel. 254 720 318 925 blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

1 0

Uganda Deal for Up to 300, 000 Laptops to Aid Civil Services
by Dorcas Muthoni 24 Apr '08

24 Apr '08

.........Learning from our neighbors ??? Uganda Deal for Up to 300,000 Laptops to Aid Civil Services By Edris Kisambira April 23, 2008 — IDG News Service — An agreement with an international joint venture to supply up to 300,000 laptops mainly to civil-service employees will help the Ugandan government make its workers more efficient and facilitate the delivery of services, officials say. The venture, Tropix/Founder Computer Co., has supplied a first batch of 3,000 laptops to the Civil and Corporate Employees Computer Ownership Programme (CICOCO), a US$106 million project intended to help the government jump-start its e-government program. The thinking behind the laptop project, according to government officials, is to get the civil service as competitive in the delivery of services as private sector. The adoption of ICT is expected to change the way government officials handle public affairs and speed service delivery. "I think the civil service will be improved greatly now that we will be able to continue with our work even when we are not in the formal office environment," said David Arinaitwe, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "I think that on a larger scale, it is going to change the way the civil service works government will work better, more transparent, and [it] reduces cost providing services," Arinaitwe said. Tropix/Founder is a joint venture involving investors from the U.S., Australia and China, with the laptops themselves manufactured in China. Uganda's ICT Ministry is monitoring the project, which is funded by the Chinese government through grants from a Chinese development bank, Exim. Each laptop will cost $699 through a loan scheme from a local bank, Stanbic Bank. The bank will offer loans for the purchase of the laptops in repayment packages over 12 months, 24 months or 36 months. A special 48-month package will be reserved exclusively for civil servants who hold accounts with Stanbic Bank. The computers come with a 120G-byte SATA hard disk; 1G byte of RAM; a 14.1-inch WXGA LCD screen; and a 1.6GHz Pentium dual-core T2330 processor. They also come with a DVD writer, USB ports, integrated graphics, wireless Internet card, independent web camera, a TV card and the home edition of Windows XP operating system, among other specifications. Civil servants' children can also purchase the computers under the same arrangements, but need approval from their parents. The government also plans to pursue a computer scheme for students in the next phase of its e-government program. Such a scheme will be aimed at covering the needs of students from secondary school-level to university. The laptops are part of a public-sector reform program created to improve delivery of services, according to Nicholas Sunday Olwor, the senior assistant secretary to the minister of state for ICT. --- End forwarded message --- __

1 0

[Fwd: can the cellphone end poverty article]]
by alice 23 Apr '08

23 Apr '08

Hi all, and another article that makes the case for mobile phone's. Thank you Amy alice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Mobile the 7th Mass Media is to internet like TV is to radio* http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/02/mobile_the_7th_.html _________________________________ Amy Mahan, LIRNE.NET Coordinator Montevideo, Uruguay Tel: +598.2.410 2979 Fax: +44.870.759 8283 Skype ID: amahan (GMT -3) Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies *www.LIRNE.net* Comunica *www.comunica.org * ________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ secretariat mailing list secretariat(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/secretariat This message was sent to: alice(a)apc.org Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/secretariat/alice%40apc.org

1 0

Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?
by alice 23 Apr '08

23 Apr '08

* * *Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?* By SARA CORBETT. If you need to reach Jan Chipchase, the best, and sometimes only, way to get him is on his cellphone. The first time I spoke to him last fall, he was at home in his apartment in Tokyo. The next time, he was in Accra, the capital of Ghana, in West Africa. Several weeks after that, he was in Uzbekistan, by way of Tajikistan and China, and in short order he and his phone visited Helsinki, London and Los Angeles. If you decide not to call Jan Chipchase but rather to send e-mail, the odds are fairly good that you'll get an ''out of office'' reply redirecting you back to his cellphone, with a notation about his current time zone -- ''GMT +9'' or ''GMT -8'' -- so that when you do call, you may do so at a courteous hour. Keep in mind, though, that Jan Chipchase will probably be too busy with his job to talk much anyway. He could be bowling in Tupelo, Miss., or he could be rummaging through a woman's purse in Shanghai. He might be busy examining the advertisements for prostitutes stuck up in a Sao Paulo phone booth, or maybe getting his ear hairs razored off at a barber shop in Vietnam. It really depends on the moment. Chipchase is 38, a rangy native of Britain whose broad forehead and high-slung brows combine to give him the air of someone who is quick to be amazed, which in his line of work is something of an asset. For the last seven years, he has worked for the Finnish cellphone company Nokia as a ''human-behavior researcher.'' He's also sometimes referred to as a ''user anthropologist.'' To an outsider, the job can seem decidedly oblique. His mission, broadly defined, is to peer into the lives of other people, accumulating as much knowledge as possible about human behavior so that he can feed helpful bits of information back to the company -- to the squads of designers and technologists and marketing people who may never have set foot in a Vietnamese barbershop but who would appreciate it greatly if that barber someday were to buy a Nokia. What amazes Chipchase is not the standard stuff that amazes big multinational corporations looking to turn an ever-bigger profit. Pretty much wherever he goes, he lugs a big-bodied digital Nikon camera with a couple of soup-can-size lenses so that he can take pictures of things that might be even remotely instructive back in Finland or at any of Nokia's nine design studios around the world. Almost always, some explanation is necessary. A Mississippi bowling alley, he will say, is a social hub, a place rife with nuggets of information about how people communicate. A photograph of the contents of a woman's handbag is more than that; it's a window on her identity, what she considers essential, the weight she is willing to bear. The prostitute ads in the Brazilian phone booth? Those are just names, probably fake names, coupled with real cellphone numbers -- lending to Chipchase's theory that in an increasingly transitory world, the cellphone is becoming the one fixed piece of our identity. Last summer, Chipchase sat through a monsoon-season downpour inside the one-room home of a shoe salesman and his family, who live in the sprawling Dharavi slum of Mumbai. Using an interpreter who spoke Tamil, he quizzed them about the food they ate, the money they had, where they got their water and their power and whom they kept in touch with and why. He was particularly interested in the fact that the family owned a cellphone, purchased several months earlier so that the father, who made the equivalent of $88 a month, could run errands more efficiently for his boss at the shoe shop. The father also occasionally called his wife, ringing her at a pay phone that sat 15 yards from their house. Chipchase noted that not only did the father carry his phone inside a plastic bag to keep it safe in the pummeling seasonal rains but that they also had to hang their belongings on the wall in part because of a lack of floor space and to protect them from the monsoon water and raw sewage that sometimes got tracked inside. He took some 800 photographs of the salesman and his family over about eight hours and later, back at his hotel, dumped them all onto a hard drive for use back inside the corporate mother ship. Maybe the family's next cellphone, he mused, should have some sort of hook as an accessory so it, like everything else in the home, could be suspended above the floor. This sort of on-the-ground intelligence-gathering is central to what's known as human-centered design, a business-world niche that has become especially important to ultracompetitive high-tech companies trying to figure out how to write software, design laptops or build cellphones that people find useful and unintimidating and will thus spend money on. Several companies, including Intel, Motorola and Microsoft, employ trained anthropologists to study potential customers, while Nokia's researchers, including Chipchase, more often have degrees in design. Rather than sending someone like Chipchase to Vietnam or India as an emissary for the company -- loaded with products and pitch lines, as a marketer might be -- the idea is to reverse it, to have Chipchase, a patently good listener, act as an emissary for people like the barber or the shoe-shop owner's wife, enlightening the company through written reports and PowerPoint presentations on how they live and what they're likely to need from a cellphone, allowing that to inform its design. The premise of the work is simple -- get to know your potential customers as well as possible before you make a product for them. But when those customers live, say, in a mud hut in Zambia or in a tin-roofed hutong dwelling in China, when you are trying -- as Nokia and just about every one of its competitors is -- to design a cellphone that will sell to essentially the only people left on earth who don't yet have one, which is to say people who are illiterate, making $4 per day or less and have no easy access to electricity, the challenges are considerable. One morning last fall, I arranged to meet Chipchase in a neighborhood in Accra where he and a few other Nokia people were doing research. At his suggestion, I took a taxi to the general area and then called him on his cellphone. This part of the city, called Nima, was a jumble of narrow alleyways hemmed in by a few major thoroughfares and anchored by a teeming marketplace. The homes in Nima were small, low-roofed and usually one or two rooms made from concrete or crumbling mud bricks, often set back behind a homegrown business -- someone's peanut stand or a shack selling dust-coated secondhand stereos and television sets. The streets around the market were swollen with a slow-moving river of people. On their heads, Ghanaian women toted pyramids of pomegranates, bagged loaves of fresh bread, baskets of live chickens. Trucks belched diesel exhaust; men pushed carts full of sugar cane and fat, purplish bulbs of garlic. From an unseen distance, Chipchase used his phone to pilot me through the unfamiliar chaos, allowing us to have what he calls a ''just in time'' moment. ''Just in time'' is a manufacturing concept that was popularized by the Japanese carmaker Toyota when, beginning in the late 1930s, it radically revamped its production system, virtually eliminating warehouses stocked with big loads of car parts and instead encouraging its assembly plants to order parts directly from the factory only as they were needed. The process became less centralized, more incremental. Car parts were manufactured swiftly and in small batches, which helped to cut waste, improve efficiency and more easily correct manufacturing defects. As Toyota became, in essence, lighter on its feet, the company's productivity rose, and so did its profits. There are a growing number of economists who maintain that cellphones can restructure developing countries in a similar way. Cellphones, after all, have an economizing effect. My ''just in time'' meeting with Chipchase required little in the way of advance planning and was more efficient than the oft-imperfect practice of designating a specific time and a place to rendezvous. He didn't have to leave his work until he knew I was in the vicinity. Knowing that he wasn't waiting for me, I didn't fret about the extra 15 minutes my taxi driver sat blaring his horn in Accra's unpredictable traffic. And now, on foot, if I moved in the wrong direction, it could be quickly corrected. Using mobile phones, we were able to coordinate incrementally. ''Do you see the footbridge?'' Chipchase was saying over the phone. ''No? O.K., do you see the giant green sign that says 'Believe in God'? Yes? I'm down to the left of that.'' To someone who has spent years using a mobile phone, these moments are common enough to feel banal, but for people living in a shantytown like Nima -- and by extension in similar places across Africa and beyond -- the possibilities afforded by a proliferation of cellphones are potentially revolutionary. Today, there are more than 3.3 billion mobile-phone subscriptions worldwide, which means that there are at least three billion people who don't own cellphones, the bulk of them to be found in Africa and Asia. Even the smallest improvements in efficiency, amplified across those additional three billion people, could reshape the global economy in ways that we are just beginning to understand. This is part of what Chipchase was eager to show me, if only I could spot him. ''I'm by the hair-salon stall,'' he was saying into his phone. ''Next to that goat. Do you see it? See me? Ah, yes,'' he said brightly, ''there you are.'' And then, face to face and sweating in the climbing equatorial sun, we hung up. To get a sense of how rapidly cellphones are penetrating the global marketplace, you need only to look at the sales figures. According to statistics from the market database Wireless Intelligence, it took about 20 years for the first billion mobile phones to sell worldwide. The second billion sold in four years, and the third billion sold in two. Eighty percent of the world's population now lives within range of a cellular network, which is double the level in 2000. And figures from the International Telecommunications Union show that by the end of 2006, 68 percent of the world's mobile subscriptions were in developing countries. As more and more countries abandon government-run telecom systems, offering cellular network licenses to the highest-bidding private investors and without the burden of navigating pre-established bureaucratic chains, new towers are going up at a furious pace. Unlike fixed-line phone networks, which are expensive to build and maintain and require customers to have both a permanent address and the ability to pay a monthly bill, or personal computers, which are not just costly but demand literacy as well, the cellphone is more egalitarian, at least to a point. ''You don't even need to own a cellphone to benefit from one,'' says Paul Polak, author of ''Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail'' and former president of International Development Enterprises, a nonprofit company specializing in training and technology for small-plot farmers in developing countries. Part of I.D.E.'s work included setting up farm cooperatives in Nepal, where farmers would bring their vegetables to a local person with a mobile phone, who then acted as a commissioned sales agent, using the phone to check market prices and arranging for the most profitable sale. ''People making a dollar a day can't afford a cellphone, but if they start making more profit in their farming, you can bet they'll buy a phone as a next step,'' Polak says. Last year, the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based environmental research group, published a report with the International Finance Corporation entitled ''The Next Four Billion,'' an economic study that looked at, among other things, how poor people living in developing countries spent their money. One of the most remarkable findings was that even very poor families invested a significant amount of money in the I.C.T. category -- information-communication technology, which, according to Al Hammond, the study's principal author, can include money spent on computers or land-line phones, but in this segment of the population that's almost never the case. What they're buying, he says, are cellphones and airtime, usually in the form of prepaid cards. Even more telling is the finding that as a family's income grows -- from $1 per day to $4, for example -- their spending on I.C.T. increases faster than spending in any other category, including health, education and housing. ''It's really quite striking,'' Hammond says. ''What people are voting for with their pocketbooks, as soon as they have more money and even before their basic needs are met, is telecommunications.'' There are clear reasons for this, but understanding them requires forgetting for a moment about your own love-hate relationship with your cellphone, or iPhone, or BlackBerry. Something that's mostly a convenience booster for those of us with a full complement of technology at our disposal -- land-lines, Internet connections, TVs, cars -- can be a life-saver to someone with fewer ways to access information. A ''just in time'' moment afforded by a cellphone looks a lot different to a mother in Uganda who needs to carry a child with malaria three hours to visit the nearest doctor but who would like to know first whether that doctor is even in town. It looks different, too, to the rural Ugandan doctor who, faced with an emergency, is able to request information via text message from a hospital in Kampala. Jan Chipchase and his user-research colleagues at Nokia can rattle off example upon example of the cellphone's ability to increase people's productivity and well-being, mostly because of the simple fact that they can be reached. There's the live-in housekeeper in China who was more or less an indentured servant until she got a cellphone so that new customers could call and book her services. Or the porter who spent his days hanging around outside of department stores and construction sites hoping to be hired to carry other people's loads but now, with a cellphone, can go only where the jobs are. Having a call-back number, Chipchase likes to say, is having a fixed identity point, which, inside of populations that are constantly on the move -- displaced by war, floods, drought or faltering economies -- can be immensely valuable both as a means of keeping in touch with home communities and as a business tool. Over several years, his research team has spoken to rickshaw drivers, prostitutes, shopkeepers, day laborers and farmers, and all of them say more or less the same thing: their income gets a big boost when they have access to a cellphone. It may sound like corporate jingoism, but this sort of economic promise has also caught the eye of development specialists and business scholars around the world. Robert Jensen, an economics professor at Harvard University, tracked fishermen off the coast of Kerala in southern India, finding that when they invested in cellphones and started using them to call around to prospective buyers before they'd even got their catch to shore, their profits went up by an average of 8 percent while consumer prices in the local marketplace went down by 4 percent. A 2005 London Business School study extrapolated the effect even further, concluding that for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people, a country's G.D.P. rises 0.5 percent. Text messaging, or S.M.S. (short message service), turns out to be a particularly cost-effective way to connect with otherwise unreachable people privately and across great distances. Public health workers in South Africa now send text messages to tuberculosis patients with reminders to take their medication. In Kenya, people can use S.M.S. to ask anonymous questions about culturally taboo subjects like AIDS, breast cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, receiving prompt answers from health experts for no charge. Some of the mobile phone's biggest boosters are those who believe that pumping international aid money into poor countries is less effective than encouraging economic growth through commerce, also called ''inclusive capitalism.'' A cellphone in the hands of an Indian fisherman who uses it to grow his business -- which presumably gives him more resources to feed, clothe, educate and safeguard his family -- represents a textbook case of bottom-up economic development, a way of empowering individuals by encouraging entrepreneurship as opposed to more traditional top-down approaches in which aid money must filter through a bureaucratic chain before reaching its beneficiaries, who by virtue of the process are rendered passive recipients. For this reason, the cellphone has become a darling of the microfinance movement. After Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel-winning founder of Grameen Bank, began making microloans to women in poor countries so that they could buy revenue-producing assets like cows and goats, he was approached by a Bangladeshi expat living in the U.S. named Iqbal Quadir. Quadir posed a simple question to Yunus -- If a woman can invest in a cow, why can't she invest in a phone? -- that led to the 1996 creation of Grameen Phone Ltd. and has since started the careers of more than 250,000 ''phone ladies'' in Bangladesh, which is considered one of the world's poorest countries. Women use microcredit to buy specially designed cellphone kits costing about $150, each equipped with a long-lasting battery. They then set up shop as their village phone operator, charging a small commission for people to make and receive calls. The endeavor has not only revolutionized communications in Bangladesh but also has proved to be wildly profitable: Grameen Phone is now Bangladesh's largest telecom provider, with annual revenues of about $1 billion. Similar village-phone programs have sprung up in Rwanda, Uganda, Cameroon and Indonesia, among other places. ''Poor countries are poor because they are wasting their resources,'' says Quadir, who is now the director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at M.I.T. ''One resource is time, another is opportunity. Let's say you can walk over to five people who live in your immediate vicinity, that's one thing. But if you're connected to one million people, your possibilities are endless.'' During a 2006 field study in Uganda, Chipchase and his colleagues stumbled upon an innovative use of the shared village phone, a practice called sente. Ugandans are using prepaid airtime as a way of transferring money from place to place, something that's especially important to those who do not use banks. Someone working in Kampala, for instance, who wishes to send the equivalent of $5 back to his mother in a village will buy a $5 prepaid airtime card, but rather than entering the code into his own phone, he will call the village phone operator (''phone ladies'' often run their businesses from small kiosks) and read the code to her. She then uses the airtime for her phone and completes the transaction by giving the man's mother the money, minus a small commission. ''It's a rather ingenious practice,'' Chipchase says, ''an example of grass-roots innovation, in which people create new uses for technology based on need.'' It's also the precursor to a potentially widespread formalized system of mobile banking. Already companies like Wizzit, in South Africa, and GCash, in the Philippines, have started programs that allow customers to use their phones to store cash credits transferred from another phone or purchased through a post office, phone-kiosk operator or other licensed operator. With their phones, they can then make purchases and payments or withdraw cash as needed. Hammond of the World Resources Institute predicts that mobile banking will bring huge numbers of previously excluded people into the formal economy quickly, simply because the latent demand for such services is so great, especially among the rural poor. This bodes well for cellphone companies, he says, since owning a phone will suddenly have more value than sharing a village phone. ''If you're in Hanoi after midnight,'' Hammond says, ''the streets are absolutely clogged with motorbikes piled with produce. They give their produce to the guy who runs a vegetable stall, and they go home. How do they get paid? They get paid the next time they come to town, which could be a month or two later. You have to hope you can find the stall guy again and that he remembers what he sold. But what if you could get paid the next day on your mobile phone? Would you care what that mobile costs? I don't think so.'' In February of last year, when Vodafone rolled out its M-Pesa mobile-banking program in Kenya, it aimed to add 200,000 new customers in the first year but got them within a month. One year later, M-Pesa has 1.6 million subscribers, and Vodafone is now set to open mobile-banking enterprises in a number of other countries, including Tanzania and India. ''Look, microfinance is great; Yunus deserves his sainthood,'' Hammond says. ''But after 30 years, there are only 90 million microfinance customers. I'm predicting that mobile-phone banking will add a billion banking customers to the system in five years. That's how big it is.'' When he is not doing his field work, Jan Chipchase goes to a lot of design conferences, where he gives talks with titles like ''Connecting the Unconnected.'' He also writes a popular blog called Future Perfect, on which he posts photographs of some of the things that amaze him along with a little bit of explanatory text. ''Pushing technologies on society without thinking through their consequences is at least naive, at worst dangerous . . . and IMHO the people that do it are just boring,'' he writes on his blog's description page. ''Future Perfect is a pause for reflection in our planet's seemingly headlong rush to churn out more, faster, smaller and cheaper.'' Clearly, though, Chipchase's work puts him smack in the middle of this rush, and no company churns out phones like Nokia, which manufactures 1.3 million products daily. Forty percent of the mobile phones sold last year were made by Nokia, and the company's $8.4 billion profit in 2007 reflects as much. Chipchase seems distinctly uncomfortable talking about his part as a corporate rainmaker, preferring to see himself as a mostly dispassionate ethnographer, albeit one with Nokia stock options. The only time I saw him get even slightly prickly -- or indeed behave like anything but a mild-mannered guy who is wholly absorbed by the small, arcane things that serve as clues to bigger patterns of communication -- was when I happened to muse that maybe there were still places in the world where technology might not be so vital. We were sitting under a slow-revolving ceiling fan in a small restaurant in Accra, eating bowls of piquant Ghanaian peanut-and-chicken stew. Chipchase told a story about meeting some monk disciples at a temple in Ulan Bator, when he vacationed in Mongolia a few Decembers ago. (Most of Chipchase's vacation stories, it turns out, take place in less-developed countries, often in forbidding weather and frequently relating back to cellphone use.) Despite their red robes and shaved heads and the fact they were spending their days in a giant monastery at the top of a windy hill where they were meant to be in dialogue with God, some of the 15 monk disciples had cellphones -- Nokia cellphones -- and most were fancier models than the one Chipchase was carrying. One of the disciples asked to look at Chipchase's phone. ''So he's got my phone and his phone,'' Chipchase told me. ''And as we're talking, he's switching on the Bluetooth. And he then data-mines my phone for all its content, all my photographs and so on, which is absolutely fine, but it's kind of a scene where you think, I'm here, I'm so away from everything and yet they're so technically literate. . . . '' This is when I voiced a careless thought about whether there might be something negative about the lightning spread of technology, whether its convenience was somehow supplanting traditional values or practices. Chipchase raised his eyebrows and laid down his spoon. He sighed, making it clear that responding to me was going to require patience. ''People can think, yeah, monks with cellphones, and tsk, tsk, and what is the world coming to?'' he said. ''But if you wanted to take phones away from anybody in this world who has them, they'd probably say: 'You're going to have to fight me for it. Are you going to take my sewer and water away too?' And maybe you can't put communication on the same level as running water, but some people would. And I think in some contexts, it's quite viable as a fundamental right.'' He paused a beat to let this sink in, then added, with just a touch of edge, ''People once believed that people in other cultures might not benefit from having books either.'' For the last year, Chipchase has been working on a project he calls Future Urban, the goal of which is to explore what the cities of tomorrow will be like. Which is why one afternoon in Ghana he provided me with minute-to-minute cellphone instructions (''Do you see the sewing stall? O.K., now look to the right'') for finding him at the outskirts of Buduburam, a densely populated refugee settlement about an hour's drive west of Accra. For the previous 11 days, Chipchase, two of his female colleagues from Tokyo -- Indri Tulusan and Younghee Jung -- and a small group of hired Ghanaians had been running what they called an ''open design studio'' in the heart of Buduburam, which is home to approximately 40,000 people, most of whom had fled from the civil wars in neighboring Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. Nokia's temporary design studio sat in a rented two-room concrete hut at the intersection of two busy dirt lanes, across from a woman selling chunks of watermelon and peeled lemons and next to a large water tank labeled ''Church of God.'' There was a sheet of fabric strung up in front, with neat painted lettering that read: ''Your Dream Phone. Share it with the world.'' It went on to describe how the community was invited to come share ideas and drawings for the ideal mobile phone. Prizes were offered. So far, 140 people had shown up to sketch their dream phone. ''For the first time, there are more people living in urban centers than in rural settings,'' Chipchase explained as we sat in the shade outside the studio. ''And in the next years, millions more will move to these places.'' At current rates of migration, the United Nations Human Settlements Program has projected that one-quarter of the earth's population will live in so-called slums by the year 2020. Slums, by sheer virtue of the numbers, are going to start mattering more and more, Chipchase postulated. In the name of preparing Nokia for this shift, he, Jung and Tulusan, along with a small group of others, spent several weeks in various shantytowns -- in Mumbai, in Rio, in western China and now here in Ghana. People in the mobile-handset business talk about adding customers not by the millions but by the billions, if only they could get the details right. How do you make a phone that can be repaired by a streetside repairman who may not have access to new parts? How do you build a phone that won't die a quick death in a monsoon or by falling off the back of a motorbike on a dusty road? Or a phone that picks up distant signals in a rural place, holds a charge off a car battery longer or that can double as a flashlight during power cuts? Influenced by Chipchase's study on the practice of sharing cellphones inside of families or neighborhoods, Nokia has started producing phones with multiple address books for as many as seven users per phone. To enhance the phone's usefulness to illiterate customers, the company has designed software that cues users with icons in addition to words. The biggest question remains one of price: Nokia's entry-level phones run about $45; Vodafone offers models that are closer to $25; and in a move that generated headlines around the world, the Indian manufacturer Spice Limited recently announced plans to sell a $20 ''people's phone.'' Even as sales continue to grow, it is yet to be seen whether the mobile phone will play a significant, sustained role in alleviating poverty in the developing world. In Africa, it's still only a relatively small percentage of the population that owns cellphones. Network towers are not particularly cost-effective in remote areas, where power is supplied by diesel fuel. ''I don't see cellphones as a magic bullet per se, though they're obviously very helpful,'' says Ken Banks, founder of kiwanja.net, a nonprofit entity that provides free text-messaging software and information-technology support to grass-roots enterprises, mostly in Africa. ''Many people in the developing world don't yet have a phone -- not because they don't want one but because there are barriers. And the only way companies are going to sell phones is to understand what those barriers are.'' He cites access to reliable electricity as a major barrier, noting that Motorola now provides free solar-powered charging kiosks to female entrepreneurs in Uganda, who use them to sell airtime. The company is also testing wind- and solar-powered base stations in Namibia, which could bring down the cost of connecting remote areas to cellular networks. ''Originally mobile-phone companies weren't interested in power because it's not their business,'' Banks says. ''But if a few hundred million people could buy their phones once they had it, they're suddenly interested in power.'' Many of the people in Buduburam who came to sketch their ideas for a perfect phone at the Nokia studio did not actually own one. The community's power grid had been down for the last month, so those who did have one had been paying to have their phones charged at a local shop with a diesel-run generator. But when I paged through the fat three-ring binders where the Nokia team was storing those sketches, it was evident that the future, or at least some vision of it, had already arrived. Some of the drawings were basic pencil sketches; others were strikingly elaborate, with arrows pointing to different dream features, which were really just a way of pointing -- I realized then -- to the dreams themselves. Jung and Tulusan said they'd found this everywhere, the phone representing what people are aspiring to. ''It's an easy way to see what's important to them, what their challenges are,'' Jung said. One Liberian refugee wanted to outfit a phone with a land-mine detector so that he could more safely return to his home village. In the Dharavi slum of Mumbai, people sketched phones that could forecast the weather since they had no access to TV or radio. Muslims wanted G.P.S. devices to orient their prayers toward Mecca. Someone else drew a phone shaped like a water bottle, explaining that it could store precious drinking water and also float on the monsoon waters. In Jacarezinho, a bustling favela in Rio, one designer drew a phone with an air-quality monitor. Several women sketched phones that would monitor cheating boyfriends and husbands. Another designed a ''peace button'' that would halt gunfire in the neighborhood with a single touch. Interestingly, the recent post-election violence in Kenya provided a remarkable case study for the cellphone as an instrument of both war and peace. After the government imposed a media blackout in late December last year, Kenyans sought news and information via S.M.S. messages on their phones and used them to track down friends and family who'd fled their homes. Many also reported receiving unsolicited text messages to take up arms. The government responded with an admonition, sent, of course, via S.M.S.: ''The Ministry of Internal Security urges you to please desist from sending or forwarding any S.M.S. that may cause public unrest. This may lead to your prosecution.'' As a joke, Chipchase sometimes pulls out his cellphone and pretends to shave his face with it, using a buzzing ring tone for comic effect. But there's a deeper truth embedded here, not just for people in places like Kenya or Buduburam but for all of us. As cellphone technology grows increasingly sophisticated, it has cannibalized -- for better or worse -- the technologies that have come before it. Carrying a full-featured cellphone lessens your needs for other things, including a watch, an alarm clock, a camera, video camera, home stereo, television, computer or, for that matter, a newspaper. With the advent of mobile banking, cellphones have begun to replace wallets as well. That a phone might someday offer a nice close shave suddenly seems not so ridiculous after all. One morning I followed Chipchase as he waded deep into the Nima market, a hodgepodge of vegetable stalls and phone-booth-size stores selling sundries like candles and palm oil. He was accompanied by a Ghanaian interpreter and two Nokia designers who had flown in from California to test the cultural waters for a phone that -- if everything played out perfectly -- could cost as little as $5. The $5 phone was still a pie-in-the-sky concept, explained Duncan Burns, one of the designers, something they were fiddling with to see if it might be possible someday probably years from now. Each time the group stopped to chat with someone, Burns pulled out several prototypes -- or ''physical sketches,'' as he called them -- for potential phones, handing them over one by one for examination. These were elegant, futuristic-looking things, just odd enough to seem as if they'd arrived not from California but from outer space. One was long and wandlike, looking something like an aluminum version of a thick vanilla bean. Another was a slimmer rendering of an everyday phone but with no keypad and no screen, just a single unmarked button. A third did not look at all like a phone but rather like a credit card. There were a couple of small digital photos of people's faces stuck to the front of the card, and it came with a small stylus that could be used, Burns said, to touch a face on the card, which would then dial that person's number -- a pictorial address book for someone who was illiterate. A fourth had a camera that took pictures and deposited them right into the phone's address book. A young man selling beans stared at each of the pretend phones uncomfortably, as if he mistrusted the devices or perhaps the small crowd of sweat-soaked foreigners suddenly leaning in close to see how he handled them. ''How would you use that?'' Chipchase asked through the interpreter, using a dialect called Twi and pointing to the wand phone. The bean seller tentatively lifted it to his ear. ''Where would you keep it?'' The young man gestured to his neck. ''On a rope?'' Chipchase said. The man, still looking bewildered, nodded yes. Moments later, we came upon an ample-bodied woman dressed in a bright gold wrapper and matching head scarf, sifting rocks and twigs out of scoopfuls of corn beneath an umbrella in a quiet corner of the market. ''Hellllloooooo,'' Chipchase said, smiling broadly. ''Helllllooooo, Brudda,'' she said back in English. ''We work for Nokia. You know Nokia?'' The woman said nothing, but reached down and from the folds of her wrapper produced a Nokia phone. ''Not good,'' she said, shaking her head disparagingly. ''You call. It switches off.'' Chipchase enlisted the interpreter to explain that her problem sounded like a network problem and not a Nokia problem. Shrugging, the woman went on to inspect the prototype phones, testing their weight in her palm, pressing them against her cheek, punching buttons. She pooh-poohed the stylus phone but said she liked the one-button model if it meant she didn't need to use a lot of numbers. ''Brudda, how do you charge it?'' she asked. From his bag, Burns pulled another still-conceptual design, this one a thin metal cylinder with a whirlybird antenna on top. He showed the corn seller how to rotate the cylinder in small circles, causing the antenna to swing, which, he explained, in 15 minutes or so would generate enough power to charge her phone battery. The woman picked up the futuristic gizmo and began to swing it; the antenna whipped around and around. She let out an enthusiastic whoop. Then a friend of hers who'd been sitting in the shadow of her umbrella started to laugh. Another woman, a spice seller perched on a stool next to small mountains of turmeric and cumin heaped on canvas cloths, began to laugh also. ''Very nice,'' the corn seller said to Burns and Chipchase, swinging the antenna like a toy. ''It's good!'' Then, after a moment, she gathered her composure and handed the charger off to her son, a heavy-lidded teenager who was lounging on a sack of corn nearby. ''Doing that,'' she said blithely as she returned to picking through her kernels of corn, ''can be his job.'' -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Fwd: NSE - Market Halt
by Bill Kagai 23 Apr '08

23 Apr '08

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: MediaCorp StockDetective <mediacorp.stockdetective(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:12 PM Subject: NSE - Market Halt To: mediacorp.research(a)mediacorp.co.ke NSE wish to inform you that a market halt has been called at 11.04 AM following a system hitch where twelve members were unable to access the ATS from remote site due to breakdown with the fiber link. The halt has been called in accordance with Trading Rule 9.4.1 (i) and (ii). The Exchange is working towards resolving the issue and trading shall resume as soon as the problem is fixed. [Signed - Chris Mwebesa - Chief Executive]

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Re: [kictanet] kictanet Digest, Vol 11, Issue 33
by Gilda Odera 23 Apr '08

23 Apr '08

I would like to agree with Harry and Waudo. There is dire need of one body to harmonise all the ICT activities being handled by the different ICT bodies. I believe KEPSA is on the right track on this one. Gilda Odera ----- Original Message ----- From: <kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> To: "Gilda Odera" <godera(a)skyweb.co.ke> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 9:13 AM Subject: kictanet Digest, Vol 11, Issue 33 > Send kictanet mailing list submissions to > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > You can reach the person managing the list at > kictanet-owner(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of kictanet digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: ICT Authority? (waudo siganga) > 2. Re: ICT Authority? (MEldon(a)symphony.co.ke) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:08:56 +0300 > From: "waudo siganga" <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority? > To: "Harry Hare" <harry(a)africanedevelopment.org> > Cc: 'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions' <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> > Message-ID: <1208887736.25105.1249288513(a)webmail.messagingengine.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > You are right Harry. All these bodies should be brought under an > umbrella Authority. Yet another function that could fall under > the Authority > would be one regulating ICT educational and training standards, > certification and professionalism. This is an area the Government > is not > taking seriously and it is not clear which Ministry to deal with > at the > moment. An ICT Authority may be better placed to actualize this > by > bringing together the stakeholders and various Ministries such as > education, Infocom, labour, > Science & Tech, etc. We need to have in mind that we have big ICT > plans for the country and these can only be achieved by having > proper and structured capacity > building and professionalism. (KEPSA is advocating for enactment > of IT Practioners > Management Act). > > If you are interested, you can become acquainted with the KEPSA > proposals by clicking [1]here. > > Waudo > On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:02:26 +0300, [2]"Harry Hare" > <harry(a)africanedevelopment.org> said: >> Dear Walu and Waudo, >> >> You may all be right in your positions, but structurally > speaking, all >> the >> agencies mentioned by Waudo ought to be under one > administrative unit for >> effective management of the sector. Here I have in mind an ICT > Authority, >> with functional boards/departments/agencies whatever we may > want to call >> them, that may include; >> >> - GITS - Government ICT Implementation and Technical Support > function >> - eGov - eGov Policy and Strategic function >> - ICT Board - Marketing and Promotion function >> - CCK - Regulatory function >> - NCS - National ICT Policy Advisory function >> >> Of course the mandate, functions and the legality of the > institutions may >> have to be revisited and probably aligned and sharpened for > effective >> operations. So the proposed authority can be used to converge > the sector >> for >> and building synergies across the said institutions for > effective >> management >> and service delivery. >> >> Regards >> Harry >> >> African eDevelopment Resource Centre >> 3rd Floor, Nelleon Place >> Raphta Road, Westlands >> PO Box 49475 00100 >> Nairobi, Kenya >> Cel +254 725 650044 >> Land +254 20 4453445 >> www.africanedevelopment.org >> My Blogg >> >> *********************************************************** >> April/May 2008 Training Opportunities >> >> GIS 16-18 April >> Records Management 28-30 April >> Web Applications Security 28-30 April >> Certified Fiber Optic Technician 6-9 May >> e-Marketing 27-30 May >> >> Book Now, Limited spaces available >> P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: > [3]kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org(a)lists.kictanet. > or.ke >> > [mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org@lists.kict > anet.or.ke] >> On Behalf Of waudo siganga >> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 3:59 PM >> To: [4]harry(a)africanedevelopment.org >> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions >> Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Authority? >> >> I would not see any overlap Walu as the bodies you have > mentioned have >> their specific mandates which are not encompassing the ICT > universe. >> Roughly I think ICT Board is for marketing (Min. of INFOCOM), > GITS to >> run Gov. ICT services (Min. of Finance) and the e-Secretariat > to >> implement the e-Gov. strategy (Office of Pres.). I am always > open to >> correction but meantime I am endorsing the KEPSA proposal. >> Waudo >> >> On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:23:50 -0700 (PDT), "John Walubengo" >> <[5]jwalu(a)yahoo.com> said: >> > Waudo, >> > >> > jst wondering if we dont already have enough overlaps >> > between ICT Board, eGovt Secretariate, Government >> > Info-Technology Services (GITS) and now you (KEPSA?) want >> > to add on an ICT authority? >> > >> > walu. >> > >> > --- waudo [6]siganga <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> wrote: >> > All this ultimately suggests the necessity for the >> > establishment of an oversight statutory >> > ICT Authority as is being proposed by KEPSA to the ongoing >> > Government harmonization Committee. >> > >> > >> > >> > --- waudo [7]siganga <emailsignet(a)mailcan.com> wrote: >> > >> > > Actually the Government never voted and was never called >> > > upon to >> > > vote on this issue. The Government only facilitated the >> > > stakeholder committee at KEBS and national voting was >> > > done by >> > > members of that committee. The overall issue however >> > > reiterates >> > > what I see as a persistent problem regarding ICT and >> > > Government: >> > > ICT is wide and diverse, as well as being horizontal to >> > > the >> > > Governm >> > ent structure. This sometimes leads to matters >> > > that are >> > > considered "ICT" not revolving around a central spoke in >> > > the >> > > Governemnt structure. So for example KEBS (and by >> > > extension >> > > issues of ICT standards) falls under the Ministry of >> > > trade. In >> > > the committee that handled OOXML there was no >> > > representative from >> > > the Ministry of Info and Comm., which was a mistake >> > > because the >> > > Government was a Stakeholder. All this ultimately >> > > suggests the >> > > necessity for the establishment of an oversight statutory >> > > ICT >> > > Authority as is being proposed by KEPSA to the ongoing >> > > Government >> > > harmonization Committee. >> > > >> > > Waudo >> > > >> > > >> > > On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:14:43 -0700 (PDT), "Rebecca >> > > Wanjiku" <rebeccawanji >> > > [8]ku(a)yahoo.com> said: >> > > >> > > Microsoft denies threatening to withdraw >> > > funding >> > > >> > > Microsoft East Africa has dismissed allegations that it >> > > threatened to withdraw funding to Kenya if the government >> > > did not >> > > vote "yes" on OOXML. >> > > >> > > Louis Otieno, Microsoft general manager in East and >> > > Southern >> > > Africa denied the allegations, saying that Microsoft EA >> > > acted >> > > appropriately. >> > > >> > > "We've acted appropriately in all instances. And we are >> > > grateful >> > > that the National Body members engaged in this process >> > > collaboratively and constructively," Otieno said. >> > > >> > > >> > [9]computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/21/microsoft-denies-t >> > > hreatening-withdraw-funding >> > > >> > > Tel. 254 720 318 925 >> > > blog:[10]beckyit.blogspot.com/ >> > > >> > > _________________________________________________________ >> > > >> > > Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with >> > > Yahoo! >> > > Mobile. [1]Try it now. >> > > >> > > References >> > > >> > > 1. >> > > >> > >> > [11]us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu0 > 6i62sR8H >> DtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ >> > > -- >> > > waudo siganga >> > > [12]emailsignet(a)mailcan.com >> > > >> > > > _______________________________________________ >> > > kictanet mailing list >> > > [13]kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke >> > > [14]lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet >> > > >> > > This message was sent to: [15]jwalu(a)yahoo.com >> > > Unsubscribe or change your options at >> > > >> > > [16]lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.c > om >> > > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > _________________________________________________________________ > ___________ >> ________ >> > Be a better friend, newshound, and >> > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. >> > [17]mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ >> -- >> waudo siganga >> [18]emailsignet(a)mailcan.com >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> kictanet mailing list >> [19]kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke >> [20]lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet >> >> This message was sent to: [21]harry(a)africanedevelopment.org >> Unsubscribe or change your options at >> > [22]lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/harry%40african > edevelop >> ment.org >> > > References > > 1. http://www.cskonline.org/downloads/kepsa_proposals.doc > 2. mailto:harry@africanedevelopment.org > 3. > mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org@lists.kictanet.or.ke > 4. mailto:harry@africanedevelopment.org > 5. mailto:jwalu@yahoo.com > 6. mailto:emailsignet@mailcan.com > 7. mailto:emailsignet@mailcan.com > 8. mailto:ku@yahoo.com > 9. > file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/21/microsoft > 10. file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/beckyit.blogspot.com/ > 11. file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http > 12. mailto:emailsignet@mailcan.com > 13. mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke > 14. > file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > 15. mailto:jwalu@yahoo.com > 16. > file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet… > 17. file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/mobile.yahoo.com/ > 18. mailto:emailsignet@mailcan.com > 19. mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke > 20. > file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > 21. mailto:harry@africanedevelopment.org > 22. > file://localhost/tmp/linkstmp/lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/harry%40africanedevelop > -- > waudo siganga > emailsignet(a)mailcan.com > >

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Africa to benefit from IDRC outsourcing study
by Rebecca Wanjiku 23 Apr '08

23 Apr '08

Africa to benefit from IDRC outsourcing study Africa is set to benefit from a comparative study on the BPO (business process outsourcing) industry. Research for the study, commissioned by the International Development Research Council (IDRC), will begin next month with the aim of bridging the gap of insufficient data and statistics on BPO in many African countries. http://computerworld.co.ke/articles/2008/04/22/africa-benefit-idrc-outsourc… Tel. 254 720 318 925 blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

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