Samsung Launches the Galaxy Note in Style

It could have been set anywhere in the world, the Kampala Serena poolside and of course the Silk Events lighting always make any function one to relish.

We were there to launch the new Samsung Galaxy Note, Samsung’s answer to the iPhone, to Nokia’s N8, to Blackberry’s Storm. It is large, and I mean large with a really wide screen. It is super fast and of course with a clarity to match them all. That’s because of its HD super AMOLED HD display.

As we watched the minister for ICT Hon. Nyombi Thembo unveiled a work such as my years in tech-dom have not allowed me to encounter.

 

 This device came across as what you would get if your tablet fornicated with your cell phone and they had a baby. With the speed of the second latest android technology (yes, they used Gingerbread not IceCream Sandwich), and the sweet deliciousness that you find in next generation devices, one has to say that this device is quite the gadget on the block. Complete with a stylus, you can doodle, write, take notes, during phone calls which says something about the phone’s ability to multi task and not hang which is more than I can about some of our more prominent devices in our market these days.

Some have argued that this device is suspiciously similar to the Galaxy S II – and have been replied to that in fact both phones are made by Samsung and so indeed would carry the best features of the Galaxy S II. Able to support high speed internet, up to 16GB of inbuilt memory and of course the sleek 8 megapixel camera that makes all your photo and video experience a whole different shade of interesting.

 Anyway, they served us nice treats (as if the Serena can do any less), and then unleashed on us the finest surprise of the evening: Barbed Wire Thong. The boys in that band are on something extra rich. Rudeboy Devoh who used to sing for Afrigo and Samuel Nabwiiso as lead vocalists just took the night away and hit for 6!!

Hanging out with cool advertising girls

Samsung might not have done well to retail the Galaxy Note at UGX2.4 Million (about $USD1,000) especially since Orange was launching the iPhone 4S the same night at the same price but the band more than made up for that. But with expandable memory and its sleek bezel finishing, I think that the tide in the market might have changed. Finally Samsung has arrived to the party.

10 things/ apps/ ideas I think will redefine the future in Uganda as we know it

It’s that time of the year again when you have to take stock, to be thankful and most of all to be hopeful.  Has it been an amazing year? Yes!! Does it leave any doubt in my mind that the future is bright where we are going? NO. Not so much with all the things happening around us. I have however had the privilege to write about the people, ideas and projects I personally came into contact with this year that I think have what it takes to make this country and even the world a better place. Sometime we think that we know  what will make it through the next decade, and they don’t. But other times we actually don’t see them coming. I think these ideas point a new light to where the future of technology, the start-up industry and development will be headed; convergence, or at least, ideas that will make that destination a more desirable one.

  

        CU@SKOOL: Last year I wrote here about an OpenXdata solution that was being tested for trial in rural primary schools as part of a pilot to see if school absenteeism would reduce if school attendance was digitized. The pilot was in 100 schools in Kiboga and Mbale. The trials were completed the application was being prepared for national roll out to 16,000 schools. I think this app could reduce the numbers of absent teachers and students. First there are a few problems to solve: 

a) The $18 Million in aid which was pulled last week because of the level of corruption in government and the lip service that was being given to the Netherlands government. Another case involved the chairman of the board of the National Information Technology Authority NITA, Ken Lubega, acquiring an UGX 11 Billion contract to supply e-learning software for both private and government aided schools through his company, CyberSchool Technology solutions here. Some heads need to roll.

b) Rolling out the application in more than 50% of all schools at primary level. At that scale one can measure efficiency or the lack of it. 

c) At that scale the application can be channeled to query for more specific delivery, attendance and progress metrics. 

The application is built to run on low end devices and will allow the headmaster to send the District Education Officer a weekly report on attendance. It also automatically shares the results with members of the community and/or the PTA. If we can get the foundations of the education system right, then we can give the younger children a fighting chance against the monster that is USE.

Garage 48: Out of a town called Tanill in Estonia hails a group of 6 people who started something called Garage 48 where developers, coders, IT enthusiasts, and designers sit for 48 hours, are divided into teams and work to turn ideas into working prototypes. They have events that help foster startup communities across the world. Uganda had her first Garage48 event this September. One of the 11 complete apps that came out of there was Mafutago – an application that uses the GPS location of your phone to tell you the cheapest and nearest fuelling station near you. Would I like that? Yes!! Would a boda boda rider like that? Definitely! The truth still remains that with low access, and a price ceiling for internet accessible devices, the application will remain a preserve of the middle class. And yet, the stats show rising mobile internet usage and access every day. So there is reason to hope not just because of one app but because of what the spirit of start-ups represents; the "Silicon Valleyism" if you want. Code-a-thons, Techfests, Hackathons, its all just people who want to contribute and need to be given a chance. We’ll just have to start here.

3.   Crimex: Crimex: Speaking of geo-spatial mapping brings to mind a discussion I had with a friend of mine. @jkaizzi who escorted the Makerere University team to the regional Microsoft Imagine Challenge Cup (Microsoft’s own search for talent) where he himself has been going since 2008, when I first met him. Anyway, as a mentor he was taking his team to present an interesting application they called “Crimex”. Their argument was peace, stability, and rule of law were essential to the achievement of the MDGs. On a capricious, vastly volatile continent, they seemed to have found the link between keeping the peace, and making the piece. The application is built on a vast amount of data collected and inputted on maps which allows law enforcement to chart out trouble spots, plan resource distribution, map out recurrence, and anticipate future offenses. The challenges here lie in:

a) the massive amount of data collection

b) Resource training and analysis

c) Political will to see this through

d) With predictive intelligence as @JonGos said here, the positive disruptive potential is so huge that we would see a shift in the way crime fighting and approaches are done.

Will the face of crime fighting change? We don’t know, but what I know is that being able to map out where the prevalence of child molesters or domestic violence hot spots will give our mothers and sisters a better chance at justice.

Fundi Bots' Nigel-5

4.     Fundi Bots: When I first met him, he was the calm and collected half of the now famous blogger duo: Two weak dudes: a witty, slightly satirized look at society. When I got to know him, I found him to be a technology enthusiast, a lover of robots, an ethical businessman with the work ethic of a beaver. Solomon King Benge, is the Resident Fundi at Fundi Bots, a collective that is going around secondary schools in Uganda both rural and urban teaching young people about robots and robotics, starting robotics clubs, and generating interest in the topic. The fascinating thing about this story is that everything he knows, he self taught from tutorials on the internet. But what blows your mind and I guess every kid’s mind, is his story. He was told it was a dream he was never to pursue, never to chase, never to dream. He refused to stop. He pressed on. And when the time came, he dreamed again. Today, he is testament that those amongst us who continue to dream will be the ones we will choose to lead us.   I think that Fundi Bots deserves its spot here because of the spirited and inspirational stories behind the team who all volunteer their time to design, make, and speak on robots across the country. Gathering stories, teaching young minds, planting seeds of desire. For to get great technology, there must great inspiration.

Solomon King on a Fundi Bots tour at Kiira SS

5.     SatNav East Africa: Last week on BBC Click, they were talking about the trends that are emerging to take over the future and Tom said “ There are the devices that are going to shape the future are going to be Mobile. Location. Social.” SatNav, a company that is into location based devices is perhaps for me one of the closest places we have come to answering the question of where are you? The company that installs TomToms or location devices has just completed a mapping system where they have mapped out the whole of Kampala on a grid map and will be expanding out to the rest of the country over the next year, giving precise GPS addresses to places, locations and sites. For small fee, members of the public can get their own address which becomes their address where mail, deliveries, messages can be physically delivered. Now most people might ask what is strange about people delivering things to your address until you understand that you no longer have to have the conversation about “turn right at the mango tree, take a left, and keep going until you reach the trading centre and then stop at the Grey gate” Four years ago I wrote here that Uganda had leap frogged from the postal service to the mobile phone. Without the physical infrastructure of the landline of which the west had over 100 years, the idea of location and DSL internet connection at home as and still remains a largely unknown element. Skipping from the mailbox to the mobile phone was a coup for development and indeed the technocrats congratulate Africa and have called the Mobile the Panacea of all our evils. But the  universe must have balance. What would this mean you ask?

a) your mail would come to your place directly

b) in case of emergencies, police ambulances and rescue services would know exactly where to help you out from with improved rescue times

c)if you needed  health care, you’d know the nearest clinic/hospital/health centre

d) real estate brokerage would all go online as available house would simply just showed with pictures and viewing times 

SATNAV helping you find your way home

 e) sending loved one gifts parcels and love would be personal.

f) ordering pizza to your doorstep

g) the flourishing of a whole new service sector and attendant jobs as delivery companies start to set up shop

h) philandering will now have an address.

i) cabs will know exactly where to pick you up from

j) visiting your in-laws will be much easier.

k)”There was jam” and “I got lost” will no longer be a valid excuse for late coming. All in all, I think that by pioneering this service SatNav has a real shot at steering a future with real options for Uganda.

These solutions are not going to answer Uganda’s electricity or pothole problems (the answer to that is by adopting a pothole as the Urban legend guys suggest here) but represent the glimmer of hope of efforts and of people who are around us making a difference every day. These advancements possess the immense ability to prepare us to catapult to the next stage but also carry the grave warning that all technology does; one that can be abused to hurt a great many people. Either way, we have to make a choice and act now because the time to sit on the fence no longer exists.

The Kony Question: Is it War, Oil, or Water?

I haven’t been here in a while but now it seems like I am back. A lot of things have gone down which did not allow me to pay attention to this blog. Hopefully this time it will last.  

A couple of weeks back, an article surfaced in Uganda’s newspapers that The president of the United States of America H.E. Barack Hussein Obama had sent 100 special forces troops to Uganda to help in the elimination of the LRA (The Lord’s Resistance Army) as part of the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. One, I didn’t know this Act even existed. Two, upon finding out, I couldn’t but help asking myself: “I know the Americans are strong and all but really?! Fighting rebels in the North of Uganda? ” As I read through the rest of the article is when I dawned on me that if you looked at it that way, it did not make sense, it would never makes sense as Jackee Batanda wrote in her article this morning; a country fraught with in-fighting in the ruling party, government officials under indictment for corruption, a nascent oil industry, and a war that’s gone on for way too long.

However if you like the Big Bang Theory episode (The Zazzy Substitution) where Amy Farrah Fowler and Sheldon Cooper are playing a game called Counterfactuals – a game in which by postulating a fundamental change in one fact, how the world would then look like. The discussion asks if rhinos had become domesticated pets who would win World War II? And the answer, well you’ve just go t to read it yourself:

Amy (reads from a card): In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the second world war?

(Leonard is in the kitchen making a sandwich and suddenly looks on, curious and confused.)

Sheldon (after a short thought): Uganda.

Amy: Defend.

Sheldon: Kenya rises to power on the export of rhinoceroses, a Central African Power block is formed, colonising North Africa and Europe. When war, breaks out, no one can afford the luxury of a rhino; Kenya withers, Uganda triumphs.

The syllogistic thinking is quite impressive on the surface of it but I got to thinking and digging. 

 And this is a post of what I postulate what all this is about:

1. 100 Special Forces troops come to Kampala, Uganda to train and work with local efforts to curb the LRA incursion. Even though the LRA haven’t struck within the border in over a year (some people at the state department feel otherwise). I don’t mean they shouldn’t be made to pay for their crimes but the involvement of the US now is suspicious, a bit late, and therefore appears rather sinister. Others have argued that the forces are even a reward for Uganda’s efforts to fight the Al-Shabab in the horn of Africa.
2. The troops move into DRC to attack Kony with our country’s new jet fighters and army tanks with our finest commandos led by the first son. However as the incursion progresses, the attacking forces encounter enemy hostiles who threaten the peace those forces are trying to bring to the region. They must be eliminated. The “insurgents” (probably belonging to a local militia) are reported by local intelligence to have their base and supply channels based in Darfur. At this point Kony has been killed like the rebel dog that he is, and the remnants are soon to follow.
3. They move to Darfur to neutralize the insurgents who are perpetrating terror on the people of northern Uganda. This is already over 1,000 miles. South Sudan will naturally give them safe passage through its territories because they are happy with someone fighting their war for them. In Darfur, in a bed-ragged, shabby, moth-eaten tent, they find that they were actually fighting a splinter group of about 50 or so rebels, now decimated to within 10 members. One of the 10 is found with a torn uniform of the Sudan army. He is asked, and he says, well he is a deserter. Is he? After water boarding the guy with waragi, he relents and signs a confession that he is actually a terrorist for the North and that they have been supplying the insurgents with arms. 
4. On to Khartoum then to depose the despotic regime there, calling them funders of terrorism, and oppressors of all their neighbours. The Ethiopians are happy to see it go, the Egyptians are too busy picking up the pieces of their country, Eritrea will not raise a finger, and Chad is dealing with famine, drought, and its own instabilities.



What the Check Mate in 5 moves looks like

5. With a “people’s” government now in place, the construction of the oil pipeline starts connecting the South Sudan oil fields to the Mediterranean Sea through Egypt and without the 20% levy Bashir wanted to put on the pipelines going through Khartoum. Once the pipeline hits the Med. it is plugged into the world’s energy pipeline, the dependency on Russia, the Balkans, and Ukraine is broken, and the result is relaxed prices and pressure on Europe.

Am I wrong? Most likely. But then again, these are my speculations. From a strategic point of view, a chess player would view that as the most likely way to go about securing the economic and political interests of a country that is in massive need of energy and resources but without the wherewithal to just grab it; literally the iron fist in the velvet glove.

The China Question:

Whilst the tiger of the east has slumbered long and hard, its aggressive and renewed interest in the last resource frontier [read Africa] would give some cause for worry. Why? Because as many have argued, China will take the resources without a worry about the politics of a country. For them, it will matter less about who rules the country, and whether they are in the business of good politics. Good news for dictators, bad news for the west. With China funding the construction of a railway line South Sudan down through Kenya, the inevitability of a clash for resources looms over South Sudan.

All this seems a little too much ado about nothing for just a few million barrels of oil, one would ask. After all, with the moratorium on US off shore drilling soon to be lifted, and a renewed sense of urgency in the search for green energy, an uncomfortable yet solid relationship with Venezuela, things don’t look so bad for the US. Which then raises the question, is it more than just oil?

I think it is more than just oil. I think that that world’s next big resources are water and just like in Afganistan, there is more to it than meets the eye. More than 80% of Afghanistan’s water supply is from the Hindu Kush mountain range, from melting snow formed in the winter which melts in the summer. Another coincidence is that the Blue Nile flows from Ethiopia into Sudan before heading out to Egypt. Controlling natural resources is critical to controlling stability in a region. If you take over the Panama Canal, then you protect “strategic interests”.

According to the National defense magazine, “A US Defense Department study shows the cost of delivering bottled water to troops in Afghanistan to be $4.69 per gallon. With a daily water demand of 5.2 gallons per marine per day (the amount for all uses), just supplying water to approximately 20,000 troops costs nearly $500,000 a day.” Which brings all the water drank by army, foreign government officials, and aid workers’ annual consumption of bottled water at a staggering $100 million a year!! On just water.

So, the world’s largest economies are not just looking for who will power the world’s next 7 wonders, they are looking for who will quench the world’s next big thirst. With melting ice caps, the battle will not be won by the strong and brave but the bold and strategic. 

Someone else will argue that it is a bit simplistic for a country to go war over water as a resource. It is frivolous and a nuisance to even debate. It is, I agree. But how well does that argument hold up against the war of Troy, the Falklands war, the wars of Europe throughout the 19^th century, the LRA war, the fight for Arian supremacy, or even the NRM liberation movement? It’s always something that will be frivolous when juxtaposed with the greater good of the community it is purporting to liberate, even though it will be masked in grande and illustrious intentions. 

I am open to a different opinion on the geo-politics of the interlacustrine region but I doubt that the story will very much change from where its already at, and what seems like small action might have far greater repercussions than were ever imagined. Some might even say, one big splash.