Daniel’s Blog

Lesley Stones
Johannesburg

MTN has sent a team of engineers to China to assess cellphone handsets that can retail for about $10, which it believes is crucial if cellular services are to spread throughout Africa.

Cellphone penetration was highly dependent on cheaper equipment as well as cheaper call fees, and the reliability of the Chinese handsets was no different from the more expensive brand name models, MTN regional vice-president Tim Lowry told the AfricaCom conference in Cape Town this week.

“In markets such as Uganda and Zambia we are able to sell five to six thousand of these phones per week,” he said.

Lowry also wants to source flashier multimedia handsets for about $40 each, and said the first manufacturer to achieve that target would be the winner in Africa.

Telecoms research house Informa predicts that 485-million Africans will be cellphone subscribers by 2013, yet that will still be a penetration rate of only about 38%. Today, many countries have a penetration rate of only about 18%.

Informa’s prediction may prove too modest if operators can slash the cost of their services, the speakers at AfricaCom believe.

Technology developer Qualcomm is using its office in Johannesburg to serve an increasing number of countries in Africa and agrees that low prices are essential for spreading communications across the continent. Qualcomm’s wireless technologies transmit high-speed data and video traffic, and demand for those services is finally beginning to grow, despite about 70% of Africans still not having access to basic voice calls.

Vice-president Jing Wang said there were tremendous growth opportunities in Africa because of the dearth of fixed-line telephony, and because wireless systems were far cheaper to deploy. “We are treating Africa as a high priority.”

Qualcomm licenses its technologies for network infrastructure and handset chip sets to equipment manufacturers such as Ericsson and Alcatel, which sell to operators including MTN, Vodacom and Neotel.

James Munn, vice-president of business development for southern Africa, is now targeting Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania and also plans to tackle Ethiopia, where only 9-million of its 90-million population have access to cellular services.

Wang said: “We are going to become a more active player in this continent and add resources in the region to work more with the regulators and operators to enable them to provide consumers with better services that are better quality and more affordable.”

He said it was not unrealistic to want to take high-speed data services to rural areas not yet enjoying voice coverage, since the two went hand in hand if the right technologies were used.

“Wireless broadband connectivity is very important for Africa and it’s the most economical and quickest way to bridge the gap,” Wang said.

“We need to work with the vendors to reduce the costs of the infrastructure and handsets so consumers in developing markets can afford these devices and services.”

Michael Joseph, CEO of Kenya’s Safaricom, said: “African operators have to be more innovative and look at data as a way to pump up their revenues.
“We also need to decrease costs, and sharing our infrastructure is one way we will probably all go in the end.”
(allafrica)

Last night, my Mac Book Pro became very ill. I had put it on Sleep, then disconnected the flat screen monitor attached to it, moved it to another room, opened it up but nothing appeared on the screen. I could hear the hard drive. I pressed the on/off button and heard it shut down, pressed it again several minutes later to restart it. I heard it restart but nothing appeared on the screen. So I took it to the Apple Store. They performed a few diagnostic tests, then told me they’d have to send it to the repair center. I asked where this repair center was located and the Apple Store guy told me it was in Houston, Texas. Seems like an odd place for a laptop to get repaired. I mean, aren’t there enough people in northern California who can fix a Mac? He claimed a lot of computer repair centers are in the South and Midwest where the humidity is high. Dry air creates a lot of static which is not good when you are repairing electric devices.

So posting will be light this week. I miss my Mac Book Pro and I am writing this on an ancient Dell.

(rosecantine)

The first draft of a portrait that depicted Emeagwali as a supercomputer wizard driving a carriage powered by thousands of chickens (a metaphor for his 65,000 weak processors that performed the world’s fastest computation). The “Negro Emeagwali” (shown in this illustration) was rejected and replaced with a “Caucasian Emeagwali” (shown below).

According to history books, gun-wielding European slave traders kidnapped one in five Africans and transported them across the oceans to the Americas.

A less visible, but no means less drastic technological tool of suppression, is the compass, a device used worldwide for navigation. In the same way that Britain used its maritime knowledge and the US harnessed its intellectual capital to rule the world, the early slave traders used the simple compass to wreak havoc on civilization.

It is a sad fact that the innocuous navigation tool originated during and was fuelled by the Atlantic slave trade. The technological development of the innocent compass, invented in China for religious divination 2,000 years ago, allowed Africa to be ravaged in unspeakable ways.

It was the compass that created the Atlantic slave trade, enabling the early colonial navigators - and their blood merchants - to chart an accurate course from Goree Island, off the coast of Senegal, to Brazil; paving the way for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which began on August 8, 1444. This trade in human merchandise covered four continents and lasted four centuries, and serves as a shameful beacon for the depravity of human greed and conquest.

The compass became the de facto weapon of mass destruction, which led to the de-capitalization and decapitation of Africa.

It created the African Diaspora with one in five people taken out of the motherland. It was the largest and most brutal displacement of human beings in human history.

Today, it is hard to imagine that such destruction and the wholesale abduction of a race could result from a tool as common as the compass. Yet, as a people who survived the slave trade, we must draw our strength from lessons learned from the past and draw our energy from the power of the future. And the power of the future lies in “controlling” technology and harnessing it for the benefit of mankind, not for his destruction.

The people of Africa must take note that the Internet is our modern-day compass, and within it resides our own clay of wisdom.

As we prepare for our great journey into the cyberspace of the future, with its technological promise - its clay of wisdom - we must understand the strategic value and potential of this all-important tool. Our image of the future inspires the present and the present serves to create the future.

Africa’s lack of substantial technological knowledge of the Internet and its potential may lead it to be assaulted or manipulated in unexpected ways, just as it was devastated generations ago for the lack of a simple compass. We didn’t recognize the power of the compass then; the danger is that we don’t recognize the power of technology today. While Africa merely contemplates the future, the West, the quickest off the mark to wield technology’s weapons, actually makes the future.

This fact, and how the power of technology can be wielded against the poor, was brought home to me clearly when I received the following email recently:

“About a year ago, I hired a developer in Africa to do my job. I am paying him $12,000 a year to do my job, for which I am paid $67,000 a year,” the sender wrote. “He’s happy to have the work and I’m happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day. Now I’m considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.”

Technology in the hands of others has been used to exploit Africa for centuries. But now it’s time for Africa to grasp technology and finally embrace the modern age’s clay of wisdom and advancement. Africa has the chance to show the world how technology can be used for good, not evil. And the people of Africa can use today’s technology, not to mimic their own exploitation, but to right the wrongs of the past and empower themselves with the same tool that has been used to oppress them in the past. Africa can provide a shining example for the world in using technology for its own upliftment and the benefit of mankind. This time, it is our choice.

Excerpted from a keynote speech delivered by Philip Emeagwali at the African Diaspora Conference in Tucson, Arizona.

*Nigerian-born Emeagwali won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, the Nobel Prize of supercomputing. He has been called “a father of the Internet” by CNN and TIME;extolled as “one of the great minds of the InformationAge” by former US president Bill Clinton; and voted history’s greatest scientist of African descent by New African.

(allAfrica)

Emeagwali won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, which has been called “supercomputing’s Nobel Prize,” for inventing a formula that allows computers to perform their fastest computations - a discovery that inspired the reinvention of supercomputers. He was extolled by then U.S. President Bill Clinton as “one of the great minds of the Information Age” and described by CNN as “a Father of the Internet;” and is the most searched-for scientist on the Internet.

Isaac Asimov, the most prolific science writer, acknowledges that mathematics, science and technology are the gift of ancient Africans to our modern world.

The first draft of a portrait that depicted Emeagwali as a supercomputer wizard driving a carriage powered by thousands of chickens (a metaphor for his 65,000 weak processors that performed the world’s fastest computation). The “Negro Emeagwali” (shown in this illustration) was rejected and replaced with a “Caucasian Emeagwali” (shown below).

A “whitened” Caucasian portrait of Emeagwali was acceptable and widely published. One illustrator argued that Emeagwali has a trace of Caucasian blood and said that he could see the “Caucasian look” in his face.

Jefferson wrote in his book “Notes on Virginia” that Africans are intellectually inferior and cannot understand mathematics.

This false portrait of Euclid as a white male reinforced Jefferson’s views that mathematics could only be comprehended by whites. Since there is no proof that Euclid ever travelled outside Africa it makes sense to assume that he is full-blooded Negro.

(www.emeagwali.com)

Efem Nkanga
Lagos

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Ernest Ndukwe, has disclosed that Nigeria records 1.2 million new subscriptions each month to its growing subscriber base which has crossed 54 million active connections.

Engr Ndukwe, who disclosed this at an interactive session with newsmen in Lagos at the weekend stated that the GSM revolution has transformed communications in the nation and has added to the economic growth of the nation which according to him is growing by 6% per annum.
He stated that the growth of mobile technology which will be seven years old this August has been so phenomenal that it has become a reference point for other countries.

“Since January this year, the telecom network has witnessed steady growth which currently outstrips 1.2 million lines every month, which indicates the fact that the growth rate is still not abetted. This also shows that Nigeria has witnessed economic growth because there is a linkage between acquisition of telecom services and economic improvement”, he said.
Commenting on the challenge of quality of service in the sector, Ndukwe stated that measures taken by the commission in the last few months has achieved notable improvements across the networks.

He stated that the commission had been active in following up with operators to find a permanent solution to issues of service quality.

One of the measures taken by the commission according to him is the issue of compensation which he described as the first in the country in which the NCC compelled operators to pay subscribers a token as compensation for poor services rendered. Other measures according to him taken by the commission include the acquisition of new systems for monitoring quality of service as well as stopping operators from further promos until they improve capacity etc.

On the registration of SIM cards being proposed by the commission and other stakeholders, Ndukwe stated that the commission decided on this course of action because of several reports from security agencies on increased criminal activities perpetrated through the use of mobile phones in the country.

He added that NCC was collaborating with the Nigerian security and intelligence agencies, and major telecom operators to ensure that henceforth all existing and prospective prepaid mobile phone services are registered in the country.

Ndukwe, who expressed optimism that the registration of sims will bring in sanity said that modalities were being worked out for immediate implementation of the scheme. He reiterated that identity registration is very important and called for a credible data base in the country that can be referred to curtail identity theft.

On the slow growth of fixed lines infrastructure in the country compared to mobile, Ndukwe stressed that fixed lines have never been known to grow as fast as mobile globally. He reiterated that though fixed line had good prospects and will grow in the future, it will not be like mobile’

He said that most of the land line infrastructures across the world today were built in the 1980s and the 1990s, which he said was the time that Nigeria missed the opportunity and that up to 2000, rather than progress, NITEL’s infrastructure has retrogressed.
He noted that with the fibre optics projects going on with some operators like Globacom focusing also on the fixed, their may be some hope. While agreeing that the cabling infrastructure is best for high bandwidth traffic, he however said some wireless systems are now carrying as huge bandwidth which is the reason why some of the operators have embraced it.

(ALLAFRICA)

Edris Kisambira
Kampala

A two-day translation marathon has resulted in a version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser Firefox in Luganda, Uganda’s most widely spoken language.

The software will be made available by Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (CIT) with the aim of giving non-English speakers a browsing tool.

Software experts from Translate.org.za, a South African company that develops translation software, guided and trained 300 students from CIT as well as Luganda linguists from the Institute of Languages at Makerere in the translation exercise.

During the two days, experts from Rhodes University and Translate.org.za introduced participants to localization practices to speed the process.

A CD that contains a translated Firefox interface will now be distributed by CIT for a small fee to cover administrative costs while an electronic version will be placed on the CIT Web site for interested users to download. Friedel Wolff from Translate.org.za said that work remains to be done on the browser.

“There is now a Firefox browser that is 80 percent Luganda but the local community with help from CIT needs to continue to work on it to do some improvements before it is disseminated,” Wolff said.

In 2004, seven volunteers spent a year and half translating the older version of Firefox but the application was upgraded before they could distribute the translation.

Africa’s academic community has emphasized the importance of supporting local content and languages online in order to reach the rural population, given that the continent is home to hundreds of languages.

Professor Venansius Baryamureeba, the head of the CIT faculty, said there is now a need to develop online content in Luganda, and that the software development department at CIT is interested in continuing with the translation work.

“We have got the skills and are now in a position to be able to translate Firefox and other software into other indigenous languages,” Baryamureeba said. “And we will do this because we want to contribute to narrowing the so-called digital divide.”

Lorenzo Dalvit, a lecturer from the department of ICT at Rhodes University, said it was a great experience but also a lot of work for the team that did the translations.

At Rhodes, the university administration and Translate.org.za have initiated a project that is helping translate software in use within the university into non-English languages

(ALLAFRICA)

According to Rupert Hoogewerf, China has more billionaires than any country except one. Which one ? United States of America you will say and you are not wrong.

But if you have been following the international news these days, especially more about politics than economy, you are likely to say Zimbabwe. Yes the country of Mugabe is now the home of world 90% billionaires at least if you don’t mind about currency. In Zimbabwe now, if u are a not billionaire, you won’t even get a bread. If you’ve been dreaming becoming billionaire, take your flight to Zimbabwe and exchange your few notes of USA dollars with local currency and that’s it.

The number of Chinese (China mainland only: China excluding : Taiwan , Hong kong and Macau SARs) worth $1 billion or more jumped to 108, from 15 last year, Hoogewerf said in his 2007 “rich list,” which ranks the 800 wealthiest individuals in the Chinese mainland.

Daniel

Let’s talk again about the beautiful country, the mountainous green villages in the heart of Africa, the country of Rugamba Rutaganzwa, Runyonga et Samandari, the home of Gustave and world most beautiful girls ever: Burundi.

This time about internet. According to the world internet statistics, Burundi is one of the countries still far behind in scene about internet usage. Do You know what internet have changed in the world? If you’ve heard about that monster called ” Globalization ” or maybe you may have head it in french “Mondialisation”, that is eating all the poor guys on this planet and making the already rich even richer ,I want to tell you that internet is its feet and mouth.

Listen, see what could happen if people from Mugamba in Bururi were computer guru. With internet, I mean a computer connected to the internet in those small bamboo trues and a brain able to handle it, they could work at Tokyo from there and earn within a month more than their annual income.

An other example if you think it’s dream thinking that Mugamba people will work once in Tokyo and sleep in Rugo of Bamboo.

A guy started a networking website in 2005 and now his website is worth 15billions USA dollars. That’s the budget of more than 30 years for Burundi to give you an idea. I m not going to tell you his website, because he didn’t pay me for advertisement but if you want to know him, make a search of the the youngest billionaire in the world. That was 101% impossible 20 years ago.

What that mean ? With globalization, the world is going, if it has not already ,to be a single city you can cross within a minute or two or even less, the time will depend not on the BOIENG you are flying with but the connection speed of your Internet. Having minerals and oil in a country is going to be less profitable than having well educated people. Starting a company now means thinking from the beginning going global or you are bound to failure when tomorrow those big international monsters will get in.

Let’s come back to our topic, I m not the right person to discuss globalization with. It’s a big and difficult to understand concept and there are those big, tall, fat and smart economists you can ask out there ,but make sure you learn something about it if u want to survive in coming days.

Internet usage in Burundi: Burundi according to the world statistics has 60.000 internet users, that’s 0,7% of the population. “That’s not bad if you remember that we just came from a civil war (hopefully it’s over) which affected all the sectors of our economy. ” you are going to say and that’s an excuse.

Let me compare Burundi to two other African countries : Congo (RDC) and Rwanda. From 2000 to march 2008, Burundi, Rwanda and Congo went respectively from 3000 users -60.000 users, 5000-150.000 users, 500 users - 230.000 users, , that is a growth of 1900%, 2900% and 45.980% respectively.

Yes it’s obvious that the country of the smartest guy Samandari is the last on the list. Where is he by the way? Where did he go ?. Does anyone know?

Who shall we blame for that ? Burundian government for sure you will say and it’s reasonable. But in this article I don’t want to talk about that. I won’t to demonstrate that, we burundians , I mean burundians who are not decision makers have also not played well our role in internet usage growth in our country.

How and why? You are going to ask. But tell me first, because if you are reading my article, you are most probably reading it from my blog (www.gakiza.com or daniel.rugamba.com) or somewhere else it has been posted and that’s mean u are on internet. Tell me then, why are you on internet.

If u are like me maybe, u have that 24hours 200Mbps connection at home, and at the work u are always connected and reading some stuff from here and there, about that and this , and surfing internet is a good way to keel your time. Yes that’s a good answer, and bye bye. I now want to ask to that guy who is paying 20 fbu /min for the connection.

Why are you here guy ? Maybe she has got a Boyfriend in Europe or wants to write or read an email from that old schoolmate. It’s good reason too. Remember, humans, in our nature are always looking for profit. Yes profit. Don’t tell me about the so called non-profit organizations. Even when u give money to a bagger in the street, you do it because you learn it is a good charitable gesture and that gives you peace and it’s the profit, if I don’t mention the promised haven we all want to join. If you pass around him/her, your conscience accuses you and feel guilty.

Believe it or not, I m not going to argue about that, what I mean is that, unless people can get a profit from internet, they are not going to pay money or spend time on it. May it be friendship, services or cash, Burundians need the money they spend in those internet cyber-cafe back in their pockets. It doesn’t matter how expensive it is, what matters is to get back more than they gave. Yes they need it back or they will stop going there. That’s a true truth.

Back to our statistics: I may tell you one thing , witch is no longer available at the world statistics page : Just last year, in 2007, the same statistics showed Burundi and Rwanda at the same Rank with 60.000 users each. After one year, Burundi remained at 60.000 users and Rwanda added 90.000 users making 150.000 users in all. Yes you gonna tell me that Rwanda government have been investing a lot in ICT infrastructures and promoting internet.

That’s true, I know that ICT for Kagame is what Football and Choir are for Nkurunziza. However that’s not where I want to go. Wait a bit and look at Congo.

According to the statistics, Congo internet usage is growing at nearly 49.000% ( from 2000- March 2008). I know we all heard that Rwanda invaded Congo in 1998 but I do doubt that Kagame is the one who taught Congolese, who at the time nearly knew nothing about internet (about 500 users in 2000) the benefits it can bring to them.

What the Congolese government have done, that the Burundian government didn’t do to promote internet usage among congolese. Has Congo been politically more stable than Burundi to explain that gap between 1900% and 49.000% ? . Dear friend I don’t think so. I checked on internet and found no specific policies or program in Congo about that.

So what do I want to say? It’s not the government which is going to do everything. We Burundians need to create money generating services on the internet for our country. Try to go online in all your activities and people will fallow you. How about selling your products online?, how about just telling us the services you can offer online. How about putting your car rental company or just an offer about the availability of your car or house for rental. If that was accessible, people would first compare the prices online before they decide and all those commissioners you normally find at Bujumbura central market will have to know how to use internet or will just disappear.

The truth is that, u don’t do it because Burundians don’t use internet and they will not use it before you do it. You need a ROI (Return on Investment) for your business. Putting all your services online cost money and because they won’t use it, u won’t gain from it. Try looking farther, the future is bright.

What have u done? I know you’ve been murmuring : what this guy, who is giving lessons to others have done? Shut up ! Ok , I won’t answer to that question right now and I shut up for now, give me few weeks and u will see. If u are also asking for few weeks, it’s good, praise God.

But before I leave you alone guys, let me remind you that RUGAMBA is offering free hosting for small businesses in East Africa willing to go online. write to daniel@rugamba.com or rugamba@rugamba.com for more information.

Bye Bye and see you soon.

Shanghai, Ir. Daniel Hakizimana

Hey guys,

I m very happy that many people are reading my blog. Google analytics showed me that I have received 320 visits from 29 countries within 3 days . The good news is that 69 of them are visits from Burundi; the mountainous beautiful country in the heart of Africa, the country of Rugamba Rutanganzwa, Runyonga et Samandari wa Mandaranga, the home of, Gustave and the world most famous drummers ever. Who said we don’t use internet in Burundi?  No need to mention that Burundi is also the home of world most beautiful women, that’s deserve to be an other topic.

I m very happy of that. Currently my blog domain names are www.daniel.rugamba.com, www.blog.rugamba.com

To make life easier for my audience, I have given to my blog a new domain name : www.gakiza.com

You can use it to access my blog.

Thanks for visiting my blog again

Daniel

Hello from Daniel

Thanks God, I have finally decided to lunch this blog. After years of hesitations.

This blog which is officially lunched today (5th July 2008 ) will be a place where I will be sharing every moment I m spending on this planet with you and the generations to come. I’ve had wonderful moments with friends or alone with my computer or in that adoration room at Saint Peters Church room 111. However, I’ve been keeping all of it in myself and now can’t take the risk of exploding with it any more. I’ve decided to share it with u guys.

My blog will be in English and some Kirundi maybe in case my mom would ask. No French please. I have an English key board and after six years far from french accents, writing french with my english keyboard is a nightnmare and I m not going to complicate my life because of that.

I don t also care of my english syntax, as long as u can understand what I write, it’s ok for me. This blog is not a good reference for those who want to improve their english.

My articles will be covering my daily life and my opinions about what I see here and there.

Thanks and many thanks for reading my blog