EU sets aside 9.1 Billion Euros for Euro-Africa ICT Partnership!

Pambazuka reports that the European Union(EU) has set aside a total sum of 9.1 billion Euros for funding of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based research in Africa through the EuroAfrica-ICT Strategic Partnership. The partnership, which is part of the Seventh EU Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7), is a project that would last till 2010 and is driven by activities of the European Commission, Directorate General of Information Society and Media and is aimed at exploring the potential for a deeper and broader Science and Technology (S&T) cooperation on ICT between EU and the sub-Saharan Africa region.

A look at the EuroAfrica-ICT Strategic Partnership site indicates that this project is being implemented by a consortium led by Sigma Consultants, specialized - through its Orionis division - in support services devoted to S&T international cooperation in the ICT field. This consortium includes two key African institutes specializing in the ICT field, the Meraka Institute of the CSIR (South Africa) and the Panos Institute West Africa (Senegal) through its CIPACO initiative. They are now facilitating contacts between European and sub-Saharan African organizations interested in the development of cooperation projects in the ICT field. You can register online if you are interested in taking part in this program.


MY OBSERVATIONS!

1. It is good to see that the Senegalese and the South Africans are involved. But I am of the view that the implementation consortium should have included institutes from at least three more countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to ensure fairness. Sub-Saharan Africa is a huge region with diverse ICT needs. Our interests cannot be fairly represented by the two institutes. Some top ICT researchers and academicians from across the continent should also be included in the consortium in order to represent the interests of their countries and regions. My fear is that at the end of the day, the poorest countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa, which, in my view, are supposed to be the major beneficiaries of this initiative, will be left empty handed. This will create a digital divide within a digital divide (digital divide 2.0)!
2. My second observation relates to the timing of the project. Why should the project last till 2010? Are there any plans beyond 2010? Why is the life of this project coinciding with the FIFA World Cup which will be hosted by South Africa, one of the two African key players in the implementation consortium, in 2010?Unless the European Union gives us a proper explanation, the timing of the project creates an impression that the EU is interested in Africa just because of the FIFA World Cup. After that, this EuroAfrica-ICT initiative will no longer be useful because the EU will have accomplished their goal:(

One-Laptop-Per-Child project: Rwanda seizes the initiative!

Rwanda News Agency reports that Rwandese President Paul Kagame has indicated to the One-Laptop-Per-Child project that his government will buy laptops from the new sales promotion scheme 'Give 1 and Get 1' (GIGI). The One Laptop Per Child Project is a brain-child of American Prof. Nicholas Negroponte. This Project will be offering a 'Give 1 and Get 1' (G1G1) promotion. For US$399, a person in a developed country will be purchasing two XO laptops. One that will be sent to a child in a developing nation and one that will be sent to their child at home. It is planned that by the end of this year, five million of the laptops will be delivered to developing countries, in one of the most ambitious educational exercises ever undertaken.

It has been reported that the Rwandan government has promised that it will buy a second laptop for every laptop that will be brought to Rwanda. This means that there will be two laptops coming to Rwanda on every single consignment. John Visser from Nortel Networks - one of the major companies sponsoring the One-Laptop-Per-Child project (OLPC), said

President Paul Kagame has indicated that his government will in fact convert this (G1G1) for Rwanda to a 'Give 2 and Get 1' because for everyone that is purchased for Rwanda, government will buy another to make 2

President Kagame apparently made the commitment at a meeting in New York with Prof. Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of the OLPC group. Kagame was there for the UN General Assembly.

I salute President Kagame and his crew. That's the way to go! He was busy hatching out such a great deal while other African leaders were busy enjoying themselves.Let other African leaders learn from President Kagame. To me, this does not come as a surprise. Unlike most countries in Sub Sahara Africa, the Rwandese government is making a deliberate effort to become the ICT hub of the region. It is good business decisions like these that will help Rwanda to achieve that goal. Does anyone know what other African countries are doing concerning the One Laptop Per Child Project? Is there any capacity building, civic education or preparatory action taking place?Remember that this project starts on 12 November, 2007. Our colleagues out there are very serious. They want to help us.Let us not let them down.

My US fan base is exploding!!!!

Of late, I have observed a huge increase in the number of visits from US residents to this blog. Last year, when I had just started this blog, UK residents were having an upper hand, particularly because a good number of my Malawian friends have moved to the UK (I guess it is is easier to move to UK than to USA for most Malawians). These UK based friends have been visiting my blog on a regular basis for the past one year.I just hope that they will continue doing so and even introduce this blog to their colleagues. Now, the great news is that after some SEO tweaking, my US fan base is exploding! Most of the US visitors land on my blog organically through search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Ask etc. I have also received some good traffic from US based friends at BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog. Some of them have eventually become regular visitors. My Statcounter limit is 500 and, as of today, 190 of the 500 visits are from USA while 74 are from UK. This trend is so exciting considering that I am based in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Paypal still sidelining Africa

While I was in Windhoek,Namibia, Paypal announced that users in 26 countries can now withdraw their funds to their credit, debit or prepaid cards - so long the cards are branded Mastercard or Visa. The list of the happy countries is as follows: Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Cyprus, Estonia, Gibraltar, Iceland, Indonesia, India, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Philippines, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, UAE, and Uruguay.

Very sad to see that Africa is still not in the interests of Paypal:(

Back from IEEE Africon Conference

I am back from Windhoek, Namibia where I presented a paper and co-chaired one of the technical sessions. I arrived in Windhoek at about 10:00hrs on 27 September, 2007 after a few hassles with traveling arrangements and connections.I managed to co-chair a session in the afternoon of the same day. The Chair was Mr Vinaye Armoogum from University of Technology Mauritius. He has become a great buddy already. I was, however, late for my presentation which I was supposed to have done a day earlier. I had to see the Program chair who asked me to present my paper in one of the remaining sessions on the closing day of the conference. Coincidentally, the session chair for the session was Professor Fambirai Takawira, my former head of School at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Vinaye, the guy with whom I chaired a session was also presenting in the same session. Being the last day of the conference, the attendance for this session was not good. My presentation was alright but not much better than the SATNAC 2006 one. Maybe, I am saying this because in my SATNAC 2006 presentation, I had a bigger audience and better feedback. In Windhoek, most people were just listening! After the conference, I spent a few days in South Africa and then came back to Malawi two days ago.

One great thing about the Africon conference is that, unlike SATNAC, it attracted a good number of participants from other continents.In my few days at the conference, I had seen a Mexico based professor, who presented his paper in the same session with me. I had also interacted and forged potential friendships with some guys from Slovenia, Europe. It was also great for me to chat with Dr John Ryan from Mzuzu University. We had lunch together.This gave me an opportunity to learn more about the MSc program in Information Theory, that he is coordinating at Mzuzu University. I will review this program on this blog in the coming weeks.

In conclusion, let me congratulate the IEEE Africon organizing committee for staging such an eventful conference. I hope the guys organizing the IEEE Africon 2009 conference, which will take place in Kenya, will make it even better. Let me also call upon all those African electrical, electronics and computer engineers, who have not yet joined IEEE , to join this institute and actively take part in its events. Africa misses out a great deal by your lack of participation in IEEE activities.

On technology and its use in the fight against poverty

Having looked at the trend in my posts for the past one year, I have concluded that the best theme for this bog is On technology and its use in the fight against poverty. Therefore, from today onwards, this blog will be identified by this theme. Africa, being the world's poorest continent, will continue to feature prominently in my posts. Posts on the customization of leading edge technologies for application in the developing world will also be a common feature on this blog.I think this is the best direction as I continue to gain my own share of the blogosphere.

Why does Paypal restrict African countries to the Send Only account?

With over 150 Million accounts as of today, paypal is a top online payment system in the world. I signed up for a paypal account a few months ago after observing that my online interests are expanding at a fast rate.

I am, however, not happy with the paypal service in Africa because it is very limited. If you take a careful look at this site, you will find that African countries are limited to the Send only account facility. Even South Africa, the continent's biggest economy is in this category.Can someone in the know please enlighten me as to why paypal treats African countries like this? I really like the paypal initiative. If they can allow African countries to send money to other countries out there, then they should equally allow these other countries to send money to African paypal account holders.As it is, it is mother Africa who is losing out.What do you think?

Nominate your favourite blogs for the Best of Blogs Awards 2007

I have just read an interesting post by Ethan Zukerman, in which he expresses his disappointment after he found out that very few African blogs have featured on the Best of Blogs (BOBs) map of nominated blogs so far.


This is happening because most people in Africa lack information on things like these. In my case, Ethan's post gave me an opportunity to learn about the BOBs awards for the very first time and I am sure most of my African brothers and sisters do not know anything about these awards as yet. Many thanks to Ethan for letting me know about these awards. I hope that many other people will get to know about these awards through this post. I have since nominated one African blog. I will nominate some more African blogs in the coming days. I strongly encourage fellow Africans and everyone with a heart for Africa to nominate their favorite African blogs. Let us put Africa on the map! Nominations are open up to the end of the month. You can even commit yourself to nominating one African blog per day just like Ethan and other folks are doing.If you want to find out more about great African blogs, blogafrica and afrigator will help you do that.

Watch African movies online!

For those of you who want to Watch African Movies online, I would like suggest that you visit Izogn Movies. These guys allow customers from across the world to watch the latest Nollywood, Nigerian and African movies online. If you like the likes of Nkem Owoh, then this is the place for you. Having watched these movies before, I can confirm that these movies are no slouch at all. They will give you an opportunity to learn more about the African culture. When you sign up for Izogn Movies, you will have the opportunity to watch the first movie for free. For Africans in diaspora, these movies will remind you the African tradition values.

It is also encouraging to see that Izogn Movies has been nominated for a Black Web Award for the Best Black Movie Site!

Balancing Act News: Tech news in Africa

Recently, a friend forwarded an article on Balancing Act's News Update to me. I really enjoyed reading its contents. Unlike other news sources (no need of linking them here) which enjoy publishing negative stories about Africa, the Balancing Act seeks to be the primary source for information on the telecoms, Internet and audio-visual media industries in Africa.

If you want to learn about some recent tech news over the continent, I recommend that you subscribe to the Balancing Act's News Update. Their news items are in French and English.

The Access to Learning Award

During one of my aimless web browing sessions after a very busy day, I stumbled upon a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation web page.This site announces that the foundation's Global Libraries initiative invites applications from libraries and similar organizations outside the United States that have created new ways to offer these key services:

1. Free public access to computers and the Internet
2. Public training to assist users in accessing online information that can help improve their lives
3. Technology training for library staff
4. Outreach to underserved communities

The award recipient will receive $1 million. You can get more details and the application guidelines from the web site itself.If you know any library or organization that is eligible for this award, please refer them here.They might end up winning this prestigious award. Specifically, I would like to encourage African libraries and similar organizations, not to miss out on this one. On my part, I wish all the African applicants, all the best :)

Upcoming Conferences in IEEE Region 8

Septmeber 2007 will be an eventful month for IEEE members in Region 8.During this month, two major IEEE conferences will take place in the region.The first one will be the IEEE Region 8 EUROCON 2007 which will take place in Warsaw, Poland from September 9 to September 12. The submission deadline for this conference has been changed several times.The original deadline was 31 Januray 2007. Then it was shifted to 15 February, then 28 February and yesterday as I was preparing to upload my manuscript, I discovered that the deadline has been shifted to 10 March.Personally, I like submitting my manuscripts right on the deadline (don't ask me why). With this development, I will not upload my paper until the final day (10 March).Who knows, maybe the submission deadline will be extended again.Deadline extensions aside, I am quite excited about EUROCON 2007 because of two reasons. The first one is because all accepted papers will be included in the IEEE Xplore and the EI Compendex, the most comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering databases in the world. The second one is because the best papers will be recommended for publication in the IEEE Transactions, Electrotechnical Review, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Electronics and Telecommunications Quarterly and in the Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

While Poland will be hosting EUROCON, Namibia's capital Windhoek will host the IEEE AFRICON 2007 from 26 to 28 September. All conference proceedings will appear in IEEE Explore.Although the official submission deadline is 3rd March, the organisers have assured us that they will accept papers until Monday, 5 March.Therefore, they should expect my manuscript on that final day.