Yes, this is an inspiring talk by an articulate US educated Indian politician from Kerala. One of my good friends is from Kerala where the literacy rate is over 90%. In a sense, besides its huge population, India is just like us. Their politicians are some of the most corrupt. They have severe social divisions (baby girls are frequently killed as they are considered a burden, then there is that caste business and actually widespread killings were a common feature in their general elections). 2/3 of their population is still poor. I think their redeeming value, that has created the IT industry, is their competitive nature. Being number 1 is very important for Indians. My friend frequently reminded us of how she was 1st in the entire country when she did her MSc. She cried for 3 days non stop, without leaving her room, when she failed to get into the World Bank's Young Professionals' programme - she made it to the final list of 6 from tens of thousands of applicants. The lessons: (a) Those doing good things should just keep at it - the bad/corrupt guys will continue being bad and the country must succeed inspite of them. (b) We need to keep the competitive culture of our public ed system (with ofcourse relevant curriculum). The notion, in private schools here, that ranking students is bad is strongly disproved by the India ed and IT success. Wamuyu Quoting robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk>:
Picked this from Sam Gichuru's post and would like to recommend that you all listen to this powerful presentation, it will help us stop being a nation of cry babies
http://www.samgichuru.com/you-soft-power-and-the-internet/
Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya
Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696
________________________________ From: Sam Gichuru <gichuru@gmail.com> To: robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Tue, 24 May, 2011 6:24:31 Subject: [kictanet] Some Soft Power for Kenya please...
Am I building soft power for Kenya?
The action that will be taken against Okemo & Gichuru, will decide what pigeon hole the world puts us in, if we complain about being dis-respected its because of the actions we take on a day to day basis. This decisions will be made on round tables by people like me and you, I read the news of Samuel Wanjiru with allot of sadness, knowing that whatever the case is we scored some more bad points globally, losing all credit and more on soft power he had earned the country.
Another thing is we cannot generalise this country and say the police are corrupt or Government is corrupt, no, its time to start letting everyone carry their burden, lets say its Sgt "Njoroge or wanjiru", its Chris Okemo or Samuel Gichuru who is corrupt and prosecute this people as individuals then we send a clear message both locally and globally.
Forward thinking means we don't just think globally, we think galactically and act galactically.
This video was a big inspiration to me last year. - by Shashi Tharoor, a man who will win your heart and provoke you any day, Muraya your question on tribalism might be answered here.
-- Warm Regards, ------------------------ Sam Gichuru
twitter: | @samgichuru Blog: | www.samgichuru.com Facebook: | Sam.gichuru Skype: Sam.gichuru Cellphone: | +254-722-730565
Co-founder/ Director /Nailab Incubation Location: | Nairobi Website: | www.nailab.co.ke twitter: | @thenailab