Congs Daniel! Well done! (and be sure we will ask you to present your project at the LUG any of these days :-) )
-- rgds, Reinier Battenberg Director Mountbatten Ltd. +256 758 801 749 www.mountbatten.net On Tuesday 23 March 2010 13:15:03 Okalany Daniel wrote: > 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.h > tml?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. --------------------------------------- > > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > -=-=-=-Filtered-With-Copfilter: Version 0.84beta4 (ProxSMTP 1.8) > Copfilter-Filtered-With: SpamAssassin 3.2.5 > by Markus Madlener @ http://www.copfilter.org > _______________________________________________ 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. ---------------------------------------
