In Pharoah's land

I spent the third week of November in a land that is very popular for ancient civilization and stuff like that. Don't tell Greece. Anyway I was in Cairo, Egypt for a Telecentre Leaders Forum for Middle East and North Africa at the invitation of telecentre.org.
For starters, Egypt i think is a land of many surprises. From the architecture. I wondered how the brief invasion by Napoleon could have such a huge effect on them.
It feels so out of Africa yet of course it is apart of Africa. They have very good road network but the motorists remind you that they are truly African. Old cars are used for taxis and everyone seems to be in a hurry changing lanes at the slightest opportunity!
But of course their services are far much better than expected.
While here I was staying in the upper class side of Cairo, but I got a chance to visit the down town side as well. Well old ramscackledbuildings with somepeoplesleeping in incpomplete houses and stff like that. This especially on the highway that talkesyou to the pyramids at Giza.
Talking about Giza, there is one ancient wonder that stands in this ancient town. the Pyramids.
I thought i would have handed myself a raw deal if I visited pharoahjs land and didn't the so calledwonders of theanciet world.
But what a wonder they are! How didthose grandfatehrs of ours carry those huge stones to put up such a structuteabout 35m tall?
How did they do so with bare hands when in this day and age we need all the technology we can have to make a tunnel infrom of a hut?
If it is true that these structures are over 4000 years old, then they may well satnd for more than 4000 years to come and yet look as strong as they did when they were first erected!
Nowonder they are wonders of the ancient world.
I had read about allthese things in history, seen the pictures in the history books but seeing them face to face brings a new reality that you can never get in a history class. No wonder millions pay money to comeand marvel in the name of tourism. and in millions they come.
On the day I was there, tehre were probabbly 10.000 of us from everywhere including Egypt.
And Egyptians are sosmart at making money. They have tourism police in palce to direct visitors. How brilliant!

Telecentre Leaders forum - MENA 7 days to go

The telecentre movement in the Middle East and Northern Africa is steadily growing. From the 19th – 20th November 2008, over 40 telecentre leaders from Egypt, Sudan and Yemen will meet at Air Defense House and Hotel, Nozha Street, Heliopolis Cairo, Egypt to discuss ways of strengthening the telecentre movement in the region. This Telecentre Leaders Forum is organized by Egypt ICT Trust Fund in partnership with UNDP –Egypt and telecentre.org as part of the project Empowering Communities through telecentre networking. The objectives of the TLF Include:
o To bring together leading telecentre practitioners as a strategy to build relationships for addressing challenges telecentres face

o To share opportunities that telecentres can use to increase efficiency and sustainability

o To discuss ways of improving networking and knowledge sharing within telecentre practitioners in Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and across the MENA region

Networking and knowledge sharing are central to the growth of any ecosystem and the telecentre movement is no exception.

I will join participants and the knowledge sharing team at the Egypt ICT Trust Fund to share experiences on how the telecentre.org portal, mailing list and Telecentre Times can be used to strengthen the telecentre movement in MENA. Thanks to telecentre.org.
But just before we meet at the TLF, I would love to read how best you think such knowledge sharing platforms can be used to strengthen the telecentre movement in MENA region.

Hard to Say Good Bye

A fairly sized baby faced girl walked to my desk one warm afternoon in 2004 and asked if I could read through the story she had on her diskette. I was society editor then and she was a budding features writer fresh from University. I took a few hours before reading through her story. All that time she simply watched me as I click the mouse, cut, copied and pasted as all editors do on a daily basis.
After taking my page to bed, I got the time to look through her work and boy it was a well written piece. That’s when I asked for her name and she politely informed me that she is Maryian Alowo.
Fast forward two years later, we all moved to different workplaces and as chance was to have it, we became friends. We enjoyed tea together with other girl friends every Friday at a small swanky restaurant in Kampala. Soon the tea parties became home visits and I can’t explain how we became the best of friends.
I loved Maryian’s indefatigable nature. Little wonder she quickly rose through the ranks at the New Vision newspaper.
Today she left for Sweden for an MA in Global Journalism. As all girlfriends do, I had to drop her off at the airport. I never understood why people wiped away tears when they bid farewell to loved ones even if it was for a few months. I always thought they shouldn’t cry because though they are not like the Terminator, THEY WILL BE BACK!
Maryian will be gone for years. Though I didn’t shed a tear, my heart was breaking and bleeding with lots of unshed tears and pain as I gave her the last hug, peck and watched her role her bags into the check in area. I felt this emptiness as I drove back to Kampala. I will surely miss the tea parties, the hug and above all her cute smile.
But there is nothing better in life than improving on your status, educational level etc. For Maryian, that time has come. Being the bright girl that I know she is, she will make the most of her time in Olebro, Sweden. We are glad to have a blue print to follow.
Anyway that is too much for my girl friend. I recently landed on a nice book How to stop worrying and start living. Let me see if I can pick it from a bookstore here. Am not such a fun of self help books but It seems a nice book to read. I will tell you about it soon. It could help under the circumstances am in. What do you think?

Are we safe on the Internet?

When a malicious person or person (s) got into my mail and solicited 1200 pounds from my contacts, I sent a warning message to all my friends telling them about the ‘hacker’. But Peter a good friend of mine corrected me saying that is a ‘cracker’ and not a ‘hacker’. Anyway I got to understand the two words just the way am learning how to keep my email more secure.
Just recently an organisation I was doing some work for got the whole website cracked into and erased or something like that. What I know is when we tried to log on there was nothing except empty pages.
Through my status updates on Skype and Facebook, a friend notified me that it is the age of hackers and crackers.
But just how secure can we be on the internet. A lot of my friends from around the world wrote or called to find out where exactly I am. That means most of the people I know are Smart in today’s speak. I have been doing some research on the internet to find out how we can increase our internet security. I got 99 tips that I think can be helpful to everyone. If you have more tips on how we can increase our security on the internet, please share with us.

Citizen Journalism: Organisations benefit from user generated content

In a fairly old, semi permanent building on Hoima Road, just off Rubaga Road-Bakuli, are hundreds of manila papers with information about women empowerment and entrepreneurship pasted on the walls. There are also art pieces and pictures from trainings conducted over the last 22 years. Only one newspaper clip about one of the beneficiaries is pasted on the door.

But in these humble settings lies the story of the Ntulume Village Women's Development Association (NVIWODA ). NVIWODA aims to build the capacity, support and encourages indigenous women groups working in communities to grow.

As we sit to talk about NVIWODA, Cissy Nyarwa, the Programme Coordinator tells us one success story after another. She talks about the women’s lives that have been changed, enterprises started, skills built and confidence rejuvenated as a result of her organisation’s work.
But the where-is-all-this-information-documented look was on everyone’s face.
“Documentation is our biggest challenge,” Nyarwa explains.
But NVIWODA and so many other organisations are in the same boat. Documentation is a challenge.
But now the citizen journalism genie is out of the bottle and is the answer to the documentation challenge that organisations face.
Big media houses are taking advantage of content submitted by the lay-man who in most cases is not a trained journalist. CNN for example has the iReport whose pictures have sometimes been their only source of information in some situations.
The value of user generated content is undeniable. A lot of information is lying idle in annual reports, notice boards and files all stacked in the organsiation resource centres. Very few people have access to this valuable information.
This poses a risk of reinventing the wheel, duplicating and wasting resources.
For this reason, Citizen Journalism Africa (CJA) is giving organisations a chance to take advantage of citizen journalism and the benefits Web 2.0 can provide.
“If people can be encouraged to share more about who they are and what they do, they will become more visible and will not be misunderstood” explains CJA’s Noma Ronghana.
Noma is in the country to oversee the program ahead of the citizen journalism workshop in September.
CJA is partnering with the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) and Busoga Rural Open Source Initiative (BROSDI ) as the focal points for the programme in Uganda. 15 other organisations are expected to participate.
The program is covering six countries including Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The training will focus on among other issues the basics of journalism, interviewing, photo journalism, digital storytelling and writing press releases.
“Part of the training will focus on how you can use Web 2.0 tools to enhance the work of your organisation,” Noma explains.
This is bound to change the knowledge sharing in many organisations.