---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Frederick Noronha (FN) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Jan 15, 2006 10:21 AM Subject: <incom> Speed-geeking: Your date with development To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
YOUR DATE WITH DEVELOPMENT, SPEED-GEEKING Like speed-dating, these are introductions-in-a-hurry. Some 11 interesting projects got a chance to introduce themselves to participants of Africa Source, during the week-long event in Kalangala, on an island in Lake Victoria, Uganda. You have just four minutes to hear all about them, before having to compulsorily move on. Dorcas Muthoni of Kenya represented LinuxChix. Despite its light-hearted sounding name, the group is working on the serious job of improving women's participation levels in Free/Libre and Open Source Software. "We're a pan-Africa organisation, very focussed on African women. We are creating a programme to mentor young women to get into computing. We encourage chapters for local activity (in various parts of Africa) and share best practices across our mailing lists," she said. See africalinuxchix.org for more details. There are also other initiatives across the globe. Sulamita Garcia from Brazil visited Bangalore, India and inspired women there to make their voice heard in the world of FLOSS. Africa's group was launched in February 2005, and currently has some 90 members. "We do work mainly online, and want to see how we can work on the ground. We're looking for funding partners too," Dorcas adds. They have lists discussing their issue in both English and French, in a continent where the language of the colonial ruler is still, well, the lingua franca. LinuxChix Africa plans roadshows soon. ArabDev.org's Manal of Egypt introduces us to how their group installed FLOSS in schools in Upper Egypt, some three-and-half hours from Cairo. They have a computer lab that offers FLOSS, and a telecentre. Each child gets 4-6 hours of computer time a week. And there are five children per PC. Given their background, the geeks supporting the project, including this young Arab lady who is threatening to teach belly-dancing to members of the camp, find no problems in supporting the project. "As techies, we not as used to the Arabic interface (for computing)," she adds, honestly. David comes from Fantsaum Foundation, a group in Nigeria that focuses on ICT (information and communication technologies) and micro-finance. They're working on the 'solo' computer, which will consume just 85 watts of power in a resource-poor continent laden with untapped-talent. In addition, it will have no moving parts, and use flash-memory. Fantsaum acts as an "infomediary" and shares useful agri-based information available from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Computer Aid International, meanwhile, ships in once-used PCs for schools and non-profits, and re-uses a vital resource in a tech field where obsolescence (and planned obsolescence!) can otherwise result in a huge waste of computers and mountains of perfectly-working but discarded computers. Meanwhile, kubatana.net is a Zimbabwean network that helps civil society to communicate with the rest of the world. It has an online directory of 270 online organisations currently, and works hard to keep its information updated and useful. A critical job in continents like Africa and Asia, where people tend to be enthusiastic verbal communicators, but reluctant to deploy the written word to share their ideas. Kubatana finds that human rights defenders tend to be the most articulate contributors. Those in the development community appear the worst. They get about 2500 visitors a day. "FLOSS has not really played a part (in our activities) to date. But our organisations are undermined all the time by viruses," says Kubatana's technical director Brenda Burrell (admin at kubatana.org.zw). Rudy from South Africa gives a speedy intro to eRiding. He's from ungana-afrika.org and points out that other non-profits badly need tech help that comes from an NGO background. One that understands them. "What we do is not tech support -- or attending calls to deal with, for example, a broken printer -- but technology planning. This is very important," says he. _______________________________________________ incom-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/incom-l -- Fabianne Balvedi Linux User #286985 "Vida é mutirão de todos, por todos remexida e temperada." Guimarães Rosa _______________________________________________ Linuxchix mailing list [email protected] http://listas.linuxchix.org.br/mailman/listinfo/linuxchix
