Hi All, I think this was mainly lack of information: few people actually knew of the code jam in Uganda. Though we have low internet penetration, we still have thousands of developers. Only 2 Ugandans, did the qualification round. Only I qualified. (unless I didn't look through well).
Also, Allow me to blame the education system, just for a second. I'll rant about Computer Science at MUK because I think that’s where we'd have most logic programmers from. I love the theory very much, but if it's not geared towards solving real life problems, it's not going to help much, The problems presented at the code jam were problems requiring application of some mathematical principles taught at our good University, but at the time I was studying Gaussian elimination (Last semester, I think), I thought it was just some drill we had to go through, the lecturer didn’t make it any better by giving us application problems, but rather typical matrix problems, mainly reduction to echelon form. I think more emphasis should be put on Maths, Data & programming structures classes, as opposed to every Computer Science semester having atleast one art like (Research Methodology). And not every semester has a Maths or Data structures class. Programming is also quite lightly taught, not going into depth by sticking to the "Java in 21days" syllabus. Not sure what the Egyptians or south Africans teach their Kids, or if they learn on their own, but in a country where most people learn from class, the syllabus better teach them how to solve some real life problems. Also I think we spend too little time in class: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704207504575130073852829574.html?KEYWORDS=chester+e+finn Three hours a day at MUK? That's less than 20% of the time most students are awake. And that doesn't include weekends. So students spend less than 15% of their time at campus in class. And that's not considering the classes they inevitably miss. Damn, this has been lengthy! Well, maybe this is just my small minded observation so I'll ask to be corrected. Here's google's analysis: http://code.google.com/codejam/contest/dashboard?c=438101#s=a&a=4 Daniel. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jan Oscar Holbo Rasmussen Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 11:53 AM To: Linux Users Group Uganda Subject: Re: [LUG] Egypt, South Africa And Nigeria Account For More Than 80% Of Google Code Jam Africa Qualifying Contestants Hi all! On Tue, 2010-03-23 at 11:01 +0300, McTim wrote: > On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:53 AM, Richard Ngamita <[email protected]> > wrote: > Why in your opinion we have only 3 countries accounting for > more than 80% of the qualifying contestants? > 3 biggest Internet markets in Africa probably. Makes perfect sense > that the larger markets have the best coders. I don't understand all > this nationalism re: the Internt in Africa. It's a transnational > thing, let's not navel gaze this too much. I completely agree that it is a transnational thing and that nationalism is not the way forward. However, it might be an indicator, that countries like Kenya, Uganda, etc, that should have the connectivity available lag behind in interest and/or skills. The lack of interest in itself may not be a negative marker (apart from the FOSS community) but the lack of skills could be. Skilled/trained labour was what lifted India and the IT/Tech industry there. It has created a local economy from international business (by increased local income spent at local markets, shops, etc, creating secondary and tertiary jobs). If Uganda and the rest of (East) Africa falls short on education, it will always be "the poor brother". While not being a instant one-size-fits-all solution to Africa's problems, education leads to opportunities, which leads to positive prosperity (one that reflects positively on the surrounding community instead of negative prosperity created from theft, corruption, etc). I went for a one-day conference on development aid in Africa. One of the points raised was, that Asian and African countries had the same average income and growth rates in the 1960's. I like the Watoto motto: "Rescue a Child - Raise a Leader - Rebuild a Nation". Education, but formally and informally is the better part of the 2 last sentences. Jan -- Jan Rasmussen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Email: [email protected] Blogs: http://janholbo.blogspot.com Web: http://www.kaddu.dk http://janholbodk.blogspot.com Twitter: @JanHolbo http://kaddulinux.blogspot.com (http://twitter.com/JanHolbo) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Views expressed are my own and can not be attributed to anyone else _______________________________________________ LUG mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. --------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ LUG mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
