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.

Blog Action Day 2007: Let us combat Desertification

Today, bloggers around the web are uniting to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. And as expected, I would like to join fellow bloggers from the rest of the world on this important issue. Last week, as I was searching for information on Darfur in preparation for the Stop the violence in Darfur post, I discovered that drought, desertification and overpopulation are some of the causes of the armed conflict.It is easy to see that the first two are purely environmental in nature. It has been reported that the conflict started when the Baggara nomads searching for water have to take their livestock further south, to a land mainly occupied by non-Arab farming communities. I think the government of Sudan saw this conflict coming. As a responsible government, it should have started looking for solutions to the environmental problems of Darfur from an early stage. And when the conflict finally broke out, it is very sad to see that the Sudanese government aggravating the situation by taking sides with the janjaweed against the non-Baggara people as if to suggest that the Baggara are better citizens.

The Darfur situation gives us an example of things to come if we do not combat desertification. A recent UN report noted that around 50 million people will be at risk of displacement due to severe desertification over the next 10 years, causing an "environmental crisis of global proportions". These risks threaten not just unstable regions, but also countries that are likely to experience the spillover of large-scale migration from areas directly impacted by a changing climate. Therefore, I would like to call upon different nations to join the United Nations in combating desertification. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) encourages member nations to develop both offensive stategems as well as defensive manoeuvres against desertification. In her summary, Heidi Strebel points out that the programmes implemented under the aegis of the Convention include reforestation projects, managed grazing methods, sustainable farming techniques, such as crop rotation, and efficient irrigation schemes.

Let me wind up this post by asking the different countries to invest in biofuels i.e. Jatropha for biodisel and Ethanol for petrol driven vehicles which are more environment friendly compared to traditional fossil fuels.