Hive Colab Announced in Uganda!: Re-Posted

Earlier in the day we announced Apps < 4> Africa, a competition for app developers across Africa. Also, today in Uganda, Appfrica Labs in partnership with Project Diaspora, UConnect, and Node Six are also announcing the Hive collaborative workspace in Uganda! 

"Hive Colab is a collaborative, community owned, open work environment for young tech entrepreneurs looking to focus on projects, to access the computing resources and bandwidth, have a quiet professional environment to develop their ideas in, and to generally collaborate with each other. Something very similar to what our friends are doing with the outstanding iHub in Nairobi.

It will be a space for nascent application developers to register as freelancers, if they are looking for paying projects..." 

Read the rest of it here at Appfrica.net

Nokia reaching out to developers in Uganda; Part 1 of a loaded story.

Yesterday, in a room packed full of journalists and the able members of the Kampala blogsphere, the able, beautiful Dorthy Ooko presented and unveiled Nokia's latest product; NOKIA OVI; for publishers.

Journalists being who they are sat quietly  through her talk but the bloggers and techies were clearly in a state. The guy from the Google Technology User Group Uganda [who looks like Matt Damon but is actually called Kyle] was wondering about licensing and technology compatibility while Revence was worried about control, content and how long a developer's application takes to go through the verification, certification and validation processes in order to star earning his developer's cash!

The journalists wondered whether this was not going to trigger another war in a market where Nokia is a dominant player and neither Apple nor Google have the set up structures to compete in User generated content management and application development. The latter two have made hundreds of developers worldwide wealthy by providing platforms on which they could develop applications for their different products and be remunerated by royalties paid from usage/purchase or downloads. 

This in many markets has meant that applications virtually for everything have been developed to assist users in their day to day lives; from the ovulation calendar to shazam; an app that will tell you the name, album, artiste, year  and number of any song  just by listening to the beats in that song. Obviously creating millionaires out of the truly brilliant designers. 

Another truth is that a lot of these products were either not designed for the African market [now often referred to as the Middle East and Africa market], therefore resulting in:

a) A lot of African designers not being able to design the apps they need to find  bags, shoes, cheap beer, and cheap affordable food  or housing for the communities in which they live.

b) They have inadvertently missed out on the billions  of shillings that are there to be made from worldwide consumption of their applications.

And in the new world of marketing  where you flex  your muscles where it hurts Nokia has flexed its biceps. Every day, more than 1.2 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. you imagine that kind of power, usage subscription and loyalty and you tell me its not going to hurt. the naysayers will argue that people in Africa don't have the money to sustain the Apple and Google market sizes but these guys at Makerere will say different, or the guys at Appfrica, or the guys at Node Six.

Their argument is that if you continue to go where the money is, you miss the bigger "share of heart" that stands to be gained from the masses. this is mainly because these masses, eat, they work, they clothe, they dream and live; therefore they communicate; which is why new market analysis will tell you that the people are where you go, not the money.

Whether this is Nokia's objective or not is yet to be ascertained but one thing is for sure, the support that Nokia has now committed to offer developers is an almost unprecedented first; offering the OVI platform as a place for all consumers to be able to get their email, music,  share work, games, mapping and navigation capabilities. This will undoubtedly lead to an increase in the amount of local content online; the god of which i have discussed before in previous posts here. check it more out here.

And of course open up the possibility of having the first Ugandan billionaire software developer whose software will probably be published and sold online.

Download the statement/ news release here

How Much Smarter? IBM’s Strategy for a Smarter Planet?

“What is the sound of the planet talking? A century ago, the answer was simple: people conversing in person or over wired networks. Today, it’s not just everyone, but also everything talking to every other thing, in constant motion.”

Last year, at the Digital Africa Summit, I sat down with the Chief Technical Officer at IBM Sub-Sahara, Clifford Forster and, in what would be an eye-opening conversation; he explained what IBM was thinking.


A smarter planet; something he called “the internet of things.” The idea behind what was thought to be the next stage in innovation and technological advancement. The idea that all the main areas of our lives were connected and that at no time in history than today were we able to allow all these things to “talk”. Energy, infrastructure, traffic, food, banking, telecommunications, intelligence, cities, etc; all these functions and elements today are connected and monitored and IBM is looking at ways of making a smart planet: enabling sustainable businesses and systems for a sustainable planet.


This year in his presentation, Walter Mhlongo, took this conversation to the next level with “Smarter Telecommunications”. Africa has only about 1% of its information online and so has to download about 99% of its information from the rest of the world. Challenged by language barriers despite inter-connectivity and facing similar problems, he explained that IBM’s commitment to a smarter planet had led it to develop “spokenweb” (IBM’s leading automated translation technologies) in areas like health care, trade and travel bringing to life real-time automated translation solutions all available on the internet.


It is estimated 2 billion people will be on the Web by 2011 – and they’ll be doing more than talking. Video on demand, IP television and internet TV will account for nearly 90% of consumer IP traffic by 2012. When people talk, it will be to many more people – via social networking sites, whose memberships will top 500 million in the next three years. Figures that are not only indicative of the future, but also of the countless opportunities that will arise for companies to innovate, collaborate and to feed into and re-define their world in order to continue delivering top notch services to their clients.


As I wandered across the conference corridors, I ran into Walter’s colleague, Dr. Shiyghan Narti, IBM’s Strategy and Marketing Executive. He reaffirmed IBM’s commitment to the continent, indicating that the company was investing over $100 million in expanding its presence in Sub-Saharan Africa. With this investment, IBM is better placed to enable its’ clients to take advantage of the opportunities presented by gaining new insights in ways previously not possible.


“Over the next few years, you will see IBM playing a critical role as an innovator, providing inspired solutions to local issues and creating high valued products that matter to the communities and clients it serves”, he confidently states. “We will continue to leverage industry leading forums like the Digital Africa Summit to engage in meaningful conversation with our clients and partners across Africa.”


In just three years, IP traffic is expected to total more than half a Zettabyte (a Zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes or – 1 followed by 21 zeros). The need for this information to reach the last half of Africa, triggering access to massive amounts of information and thus allowing informed decision making, better sustainable practices and an interconnected system of performance to deliver our planet to the next level has never been greater.

A Chalk Free Class

Mrs. Kandigoma Jean has been teaching Mathematics to for over 25 years. I knew her when I was but a child. She has taught, consulted, coached, examined and is at a point where the Math is where she lives and abides.

Recently I walked over to see Auntie Jean’s son; an age old friend, when I found her relaxing I asked him, a recent graduate what he was up to and he replied quite simply.

“She wants me to type all her work into the laptop”

What? I asked, being curiously tickled.

Then he gave me her card. On it was written:

Jean Kandigoma

School Content Specialist

E-Learnig Software Development

In the years that had passed since I had seen her she had transformed from being a major league examiner and math teacher extraordinaire to a content specialist? I mean what do those people do even do?

And so I asked her.

Her answer blew me away.

She works with the Cyber School Technology Solutions Project which has currently enrolled 100 schools and is planning to recruit another 200 this year into a program that allows access to digitized curriculum content. They have her write out the syllabus and then digitize the whole thing. Then it is voiced for effect and instructions.

And so in a look of amazement I asked her what the future of the classroom would look like and she said from when the next term begun she would just walk into class with a projector and her laptop and start teaching. She teaches across the O’ Level section.

And so where is the project going with its plans to recruit another 200 schools?

Well the plan is to hopefully partner with enough schools to increase the learning capacity for science and demonstrative subjects, and since notes don’t all have to be written in chalk, the course coverage is faster allowing for more teacher-student time and not to mention the aesthetic value it all brings to a chalk-dust-free class.

So now I ask, as the world moves towards faster and better modernization of sectors, technology and information transfer,

Are we on the cusp of another age of technology leapfrog?

For those who find it strange, I have been fondling his theory and I have heard it expressed out loud but mostly expressed in the future Africa will leapfrog and into the next technology era. My theory is that Uganda is one of those strange countries and is a classic microcosm of Africa’s strides in technology adaptation. We jumped literally from the mailbox to the cell phone. As the rest of the world endured the mailbox and what it stood for, and then moved from there to the landline home phone. In Uganda the number of landlines is probably one tenth of the cell phones.

Tottering at an astounding 9 million subscribers today, Uganda finds itself at a time where its 75% population that is under 30 needs constantly to be talking and because of the new age of information where there is just too much information make heads or tails of, there point is to just keep talking. These young people need communication solutions that answer that question everyday.

Only about 15 % of the total population currently resides in urban areas. The rest live in rural areas, where chances of access to electricity, power are very low. Today Telecom companies in Uganda seem to be heading in the right direction: Uganda Telecom’s free face book platform; MTN’s partnership with the Grameen Foundation to produce a farmers’ trade tool that is SMS enabled; Warid Telecom’s “Pakalast” tariff profile which has literally reorganized the Telcom landscape, Orange Telecom which has capitalized on providing fast, unlimited internet access on its dongo; an unrivaled facility by any in the country.

All these innovations by the industry to grab more market share continue to drive prices down in a very price-sensitive market but still do nothing to make innovations in the education sector, or health or housing or food sector substantially relevant to Ugandans. Parliament is in talks to establish a National IT Authority; an industry regulator because clearly the Uganda Communications Commission which is funded by a 1% remission by the Telcos is, and has been bullied by industry leaders into some really un-nationalist positions and decisions.

Yet the star still glimmers in this twilight zone. Maybe we’ll skip the cell phone phase and just move to the i-phone phase? 

Most likely not, but whichever way things go, they can only go up.

Makerere CIT Trains 150 Women in ICT

As the global race to bridge the digital divide between the North and the South is given impetus and incentive by the growth of southern economies, today this need is nowhere greater than in the emerging sub-Saharan markets. Seemingly trapped by illiteracy, overpopulation, breakdown in infrastructure, lack of access and soaring internet costs, the challenge to harness technology to aid Africa leap frog the divide seems even more daunting. Uganda serves as a microcosm for this African dilemma.

Another part of this complex conundrum is the fact that although women are substantially part of the business environment today, most of them know little or nothing about ICT and its potential to alter/or exponentially increase their access, use and leveraging of information technologies to help their businesses.

The Makerere University Faculty of Computing & IT (CIT) under its Community Outreach program has just finished training 150 women in basic ICT skills. The women are engaged in different business and entrepreneurship ventures but mostly consist of teachers.

The training included skills in use of Microsoft Word, Spreadsheets, Email, Introduction to computers and Power point Presentations.

CIT has done other trainings in the past for the Uganda Police Force, Uganda People's Defence Force, Makerere University Teaching and Non-teaching staff and will continue to train members of the public and private sectors as part of its commitment to increase ICT literacy in Uganda. Currently, 400 staff from Mulago Hospital is under ICT training at the faculty.

My big question is; Is it enough? Is it enough to train our women, and pump them with IT skills when they are still struggling under bad marriages and sexual harassment? As I ponder these thoughts what keeps coming to me is a phrase from a book I love deeply: Jane Eyre; where Rochester as he looks at the plain and yet deeply moving Jane says to himself and almost to God "It will atone." What will atone? The new life blood in this new young girl who he feels deeply about will atone for the trickery that led him to marry a woman with hereditary madness who he now keeps locked up in one of the rooms of his huge mansion. Can all those years of putting our women down be erased by giving them special treatment and advantages? I don't know anything for a fact but this I know: it will ATONE.

WHO IS THIS MAN?

His Motto:

Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth. Archimedes (287-212 B.C.)

His Profile:

He is a Professor of Computer Science and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and is currently serving as Dean, Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, (CIT) Makerere University. He is a member of Makerere University Senate and Council. Continuously demonstrating competence as a leader driven by the need to serve, respect and strengthen those he serves. He believes in building and strengthening institutions.

Under his leadership, the Institute of Computer Science at Makerere University transformed from a small unit with one academic programme, 28 students and an annual budget of USD $15,000 to a Faculty of Computing and Information Technology with over 22 academic programmes, over 5,000 students undertaking degree programmes and an annual budget of over USD $7 million by September 2005 (within a period of four years only). Today the Faculty of Computing and IT budget is over USD $10 million.

At the national and regional level, he coordinates (multi- million dollar) projects and research programs aimed at building specialized computing and ICT Human Resource Capacity in Africa; its universities and other tertiary institutions plus the private and public sectors

He is a consultant in ICT research, training, advisory services and policy and a recognised expert on e-governance.

He is the Chairman and Managing Director of ICT Consults Ltd, a prestigious ICT consultancy firm in Africa.

He is currently the Executive President of Connect Uganda Foundation, a non profit making organization incorporated in Uganda in 2003 with the overall objective of stimulating new firms and creating jobs in the knowledge-intensive sector, by linking entrepreneurs and innovators with research and development, service providers, venture capitalists and partners.

He is the Executive President of Uganda National Academy of Computing and Internet Technologies, an association that brings together all computing/ ICT faculties/ institutes in all public and private universities to address common objectives and challenges.

A member of the Presidential Investors Roundtable- B.P.O. working group and was also a member of the ICT working committee of the 1^st Presidential Investors Roundtable.

His Education:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Bergen, Norway 2000
  
• Post Graduate Certificate in Public Relations, University of Minnesota, Minnesota 1999
  
• Post Graduate Certificate in Administration, University of Bergen, Norway 1999
  
• Post Graduate Certificate in Business Management, Sofia University, Bulgaria 1998
  
• Postgraduate Diploma in Mathematical Modelling, University of Trondheim, Norway 1998
  
• Post Graduate Diploma in Economic Modelling, University of Trondheim, Norway 1997
  
• M.Sc. in Computer Science, University of Bergen, Norway 1996
  
• M.Sc. (Mathematics)-Coursework, Makerere University, Uganda 1995
  
• B.Sc. (Mathematics), Makerere University, Uganda 1994
  

  
  

His Expertise:

A distinguished academic, researcher, leader and manager, he lectures courses in Computer Science, Networks, Information Systems and Software Engineering at all levels including Doctoral levels.

He has supervised over 50 masters' students and over 80 postgraduate diploma students to completion and is currently supervising several graduate students both at Masters and PhD level.

As Dean, CIT he has accumulated experience in staff training and retention in an African University setting. He manages today over 200 staff and a student population of over 5000 on degree programmes in Computing and ICT disciplines.

With over sixteen years of teaching experience under his belt, a peerless educator and in many ways the man of his time.

His Awards:

Between Himself, His Company; ICT Consults Ltd., and CIT his most prestigious awards are:

1. In January 2009, Prof. Baryamureeba was considered for inclusion in the ''2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21^st Century'' by the International Biographical Centre, which is scheduled for publication in early 2010.
   
2. The '2008 HP Technology for Teaching Higher Education Grant'' was awarded to CIT the 'in appreciation for its commitment for student success and for seeking innovative ways to transform teaching and learning through the effective use of technology.
   
3. Appointed an honorary member of the International Association of IT Governance Standards (ITGOVS), in November 2008. Honorary Membership to ITGOVS is by invitation only and is extended to the top professionals in this area, both from the corporate world as well as the academic world.
   
4. 2^nd Runner-up, Presidential Science Awards, Science and Technology Excellence Award in September 2008, in recognition of his innovative approach to institutional and human capacity development in computer science by the President of the Republic of Uganda.
   
5. ICT Consults Ltd received 10^th Platinum Technology Award for Quality and Best Trade Name, July 2008.
   
6. 'Top ICT Educator/ Academic' Award in Africa for 2007 under the theme "Making the African Century a Reality", at the 9th Annual African ICT Achievers Awards.
   
7. IBM made a gift in his honor to the United Nations (UN) Foundation in support of Nothing but Nets, a grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria in December 2007.
   
8. "The International Star Award for Quality in the Diamond category" - April 2006 in Paris, France. (http://www.bid-star.com/) The award was in recognition of Excellence in Leadership and Business Management; Quality and Excellence; and Technological Innovations and Expansion.
9. Professional of the Year 2005 – British Council Award. An award mainly for achievers, mentors and inspirational managers who have contributed immensely to the management of their organizations as well as International communities.
10. The 2005 Presidential Science Award Cycle: He was also recognized for his efforts in spearheading ICT training, research and consultancy services in sub-Saharan Africa.
11. International Arch of Europe Award for Quality and Technology in the Diamond Category- February 2005, Frankfurt, Germany.
12. The ICT Quality Summit International Award- New York, USA on 21^st June 2004.
13. The 2003-Century International Quality Era Award- May 2003, Geneva, Switzerland.

1. 1. The Key Milestones of his career:

• In 1996 he finished a two year M.Sc. in Computer Science in a record time of 8 months;
  
• In 2000 he graduated with a PhD and had the best PhD dissertation that year at the University of Bergen;
  
• In 2000 discovered the Barya function;
  
• In 2000 at the age of 30 he was the youngest PhD holder at Makerere University;
  
• In 2000 he became the 1^st Ugandan to obtain a PhD in Computer Science;
  
• In 2001 at the age of 31 he was appointed Director of the Institute of Computer Science and became the youngest Director in the History of Makerere University;
  
• In 2005 at the age of 36 he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Computing and IT and became the youngest Dean in the history of Makerere University;
  
• In 2005, he spearheaded the construction of the largest computing building in Africa with 12,500 sq metres of space worth over USD$ 20 million and was funded from internally generated funds in the Faculty of Computing and IT. Previously he had spearheaded the construction of the Faculty of Computing and IT Building (Block A) worth 2500 sq metres.
  
• In 2006 he was appointed a full Professor at the age of 37 making him the 1^st Professor of Computer Science in Uganda and the youngest Professor in sub-Saharan Africa;
  
• In 2006 he raised from the rank of Associate Professor to Professor in a record time of less than three (3) months;
  
• In 2007 he received the 'Top ICT Educator/ Academic' Award in Africa for 2007;
  
• In November 2008 he was included in the 2009 Edition of Who's Who in the World; a global distribution relied upon by business leaders, journalists, academics, and other professionals for its accuracy and currency of information.
  

The Man:

Professor Venansius Baryamureeba.

Dean, Faculty of Computing and IT, Makerere University.

Website: www.cit.mak.ac.ug

Truly a look at the future.

Cheers!

40 Days: Episode I

Today is my fortieth day in the desert. I have survived 40 days in the desert and I have come out unscathed. Its strange that no matter what you do, after a while you always seem to have a certain resilience and develop certain immunity.

Speaking of developing, its been quite awhile since I posted anything; that is not to say that nothing exciting has been happening in my life. Its just that things have had a way with me such that I could not pen down what I thought without feeling like a worthless tweet.

But I digress, forty days at my very first 8-6 job, which sounds like a 10 hour job but in reality is 12 hours! It was in the fine print of the contract, I guess no one ever reads that huh?!

Anyway, I was very impressed when I learnt that over 300 students had turned up to attend a free session in which they were to translate the Mozilla Firefox browser into Luganda. For all of 2 days, the students worked feverishly, to ascribe commonly known Luganda definitions to the browser’s, vast array of functions.

At the end, they all gleefully clapped when the Dean of Makerere’s Faculty of Computing and IT joked about how the achievement should be pushed to the Buganda government and how this would make the kabaka very happy.

It kept coming to mind how the recently belegeaured king was at a point where he could actually use some help, what with all the king’s men being accosted, detained, released and then re-arrested! All without reason!! Oh Uganda!!

It portends good things if a web browser can be translated into a local language because that means that local writers can be encouraged to write more in their local languages, and this in turn has great potential for increasing literacy and uptake of internet products. The day, then, is not far when we will be able to log on surf, download, and even upload material entirely in a different language complete with the ever elusive ”ng” Luganda sound!

However there still remain infrastructural questions, access concerns and literacy as big impediments the realization of this dream. The even greater threat from within the industry is that the ICT mammoths like Microsoft, IBM, DELL all want more control of the econ-share and have taken great steps to approach “the last frontier”; Africa.

Moreover, the fast changing tech-world means that such achievements are only hot and worth selling when they are still fresh, so the challenge to patent, market, brand and sell is and almost sounds gargantuan!! But they will do it. How do I know? Because when they set out to build Africa's largest computing facility, the world laughed but today its is a marvel all across Africa. With 700 computers in a lab; and the lab replicated on six levels; with lecture rooms with system sound surround and equipped with the tech aids to make learning a digital experience, there is nothing that will stop them from making this project fly.

And that is one of the most amazing things I have had the opportunity to witness in my first 40 days as a working professional.

….and now back to normal programming.