Fellow Ugandans,

As a creative consultant, it is not often that I get to work on a project that both pays me and also contributes to the development and well-being of Uganda. I would like to introduce you to such a project.

I met Pratheepan “Deep” Gulasekaram in DC at the Clinton Global Diaspora Forum. He, along with a crew of determined colleagues put their skills together in the wake of the Asian tsunami and built a fully functioning hospital in Sri Lanka. They successfully negotiated a public-private partnership with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health to complete and ensure the long-term success of the newly constructed Matara Children’s Hospital.

After the completion and hand over of the project that was recognized by Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr., they have set out to build a children’s hospital in Uganda. “Project Heart: Uganda” has already broken ground. The walls and roof are already up and completion is in sight.

After a long talk with Deep last month, I agreed to assist their efforts to connect to members of the East African Diaspora that would bring value to their initiative. Not because they are my clients, but because it is a much needed initiative that will bring value to Uganda’s medical system. Additionally, I wanted to share this project with you as a plea for all of us to help support this initiative to make sure it is successfully launched with as much of our buy-in as possible. After all, it will be our family members that will benefit in the long run. The above video of one such child who was helped by these very same doctors to repair her heart

Here is a project that is reaching out directly for us to be part of its success and the re-invention of Uganda’s medical services & facilities. For once, it is not another aid project that FAILS to request to partner with us. It is a project that we all know could save the life of one of our family members.

On Sept. 24th, “Project Heart: Uganda” is having a fund-raising event in Los Angeles. If you are in California and are interested in meeting Deep and his inspiring colleagues, I am sure they won’t fail to inspire you with the vision that they have for the hospital.

Here are some things you can do to help this project:

I look forward to seeing us all rise to the occasion for this initiative. Even if all you do is  donate $1.00 (though I secretly hope it is more than that, nearly $3 billion in remittances is sent to East Africa annually-let’s put some of it towards a sustainability initiative). If you’d like more information, I’d be happy to put you in touch with Deep and his team. A new web site with more information is in the works that will keep all of you updated on the project.

Why You Should Vote for Africa, Tech & Women SXSW Panel

I decided to write this blog post as a way to help prospective voters and supporters to understand the thinking and passion behind our Africa, Tech & Women: The New Faces of Development SXSW panel submission.  We believe this panel will help to change the conversation on Africa, about whom most people have a limited negative perception; its women, who are often depicted as helpless, uneducated and unproductive; and dispel the myth that there isn’t much technological development taking place in Africa.

When TMS Ruge and I embarked upon this SXSW journey together, we decided we would create a panel building upon his successful SXSW 2009 presentation, Africa 3.0.  We knew that with the 2012 panel, we wanted to add a new dimension and feature multiple voices.  After a lot of research and brainstorming, we discovered that the African Union declared 2010-2020: The African Woman Decade and decided it would be a source of inspiration for us.  Additionally, we’re both very passionate about gender rights issues, publicizing the greatness of Africa and its Diaspora and are tech enthusiasts — and as such, we decided on the title: Africa, Tech & Women.

The subtitle: The New Faces of Development came about after lots of trial and error.  We finally agreed to it, given that it encompasses the areas we want to cover and from a new perspective: (1) Economic, (2) Technological, (3) Philanthropic, and (4) Community.

We then decided we should showcase the different ways in which a cross-section of African women based in the Diaspora and on the continent are impacting Africa’s development through technology.  We were able to identify three incredible African women who leverage use technology in very significant ways to affect change on the continent and beyond.  They also helped us to flesh out the panel topics, so that the description you read below is representative of what we all want to share, in the limited time available on a panel.  Additionally,

Africa, Tech & Women SXSW Panelists

1. Isis Nyong’o – InMobi (Kenya)

Isis joined InMobi in February 2011 to lead business expansion in Africa. With over nine years of business development, marketing and sales experience, Isis is responsible for the overall growth on the continent.  Isis joins InMobi from Google where she led the company’s business development efforts in Africa. She specialized in mobile partnerships and developed Google’s content strategy to bring more African content online. She brings extensive media and tech experience to InMobi and drove the launch of MTV Networks in Africa where she was responsible for commercial relationships including distribution and sales. She developed the marketing strategy for Kenya’s first online recruitment service, MyJobsEye and holds degrees from Stanford University and Harvard Business School where she was president of the Africa Business Club. Isis has been named by Forbes as one of The 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa, is one of the ‘Top 40 Women under 40″ in Kenya, and is frequently featured by the Africa media including, Al Jazeera, BBC, Nation Newspaper, NTV, Standard Newspaper and UP Magazine, among others.

2. Ebele Okobi-Harris – Yahoo! (USA)

Ebele Okobi-Harris is Director of Yahoo!’s Business and Human Rights Program, leading Yahoo!’s efforts to promote privacy and free expression on the Internet. Before joining Yahoo!, Ebele was a corporate securities and mergers & acquisitions attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, Paris and London, an attorney fellow at Consumers Union (a consumer rights advocacy non-profit) in San Francisco, a director of Advisory Services at Catalyst (a non-profit with the mission of advancing women in business) in San Jose and Amsterdam and at Nike’s EMEA headquarters as an MDP focused on marketing and business development in Africa.

Ms. Okobi-Harris earned a BA in Psychology from the University of Southern California, a JD from Columbia Law School and an MBA Certificat des Études from Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris.

3. Milly Businge – Kikuube Village Council (Uganda)

Milly Businge is a respected village elder and mother of eight children in the small village of Kikuube. She serves as the Local Chairperson (LC1) of her village, representing a population of nearly 1000 residents. She has been unanimously re-elected to this position by the residents of Kikuube because her work representing them at the government level. She has often wanted to retire and refused to stand for the position during elections, but the villagers always rally and vote for her anyway. That’s the mark of a great leader.  Mrs. Businge was also recently officially ordained as a minister and serves as the pastor of the small but growing community church.

In November 2010, Mrs. Businge delivered the keynote speech during the “Villages in Action” conference that was hosted in Kikuube.  The conference was broadcast live over the internet and proved to be a very successful initiative — giving the poor an opportunity to be heard in the global conversation about the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

When she is not managing domestic disputes, land wrangles, and community health awareness campaigns in her community, she spends her time reading. She is also an enthusiastic user of mobile technologies as they help her connect with her constituency and connect globally to her son (TMS Ruge) in America.

4. Liz Ngonzi – New York University Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising (USA)

Born in Uganda and “raised” at the United Nations, Liz Ngonzi is an international educator, speaker and consultant, who has since 2009, been on Adjunct Faculty at New York University’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy & Fundraising – for which she has developed and taught courses on online and mobile fundraising, and where she is one of four noted social media experts.

Liz is a recognized authority on ICT for development, the African Diaspora market, hospitality / service management, women in business, and social entrepreneurship.  She’s a frequent conference speaker, including as a panelist during the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration, in the spring of 2007; as a featured international speaker at the May 2011 Southern Africa Institute of Fundraising’s 10th Biennial Convention in South Africa; and as a panelist for New York University’s Philanthropy 3.0 Speaker Series: Mobile in Advocacy The Next Frontier.  In September, she will speak in the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 41^st Annual Legislative Conference and will chair the 2^nd Annual ICT Women Empowerment Africa Summit in South Africa.

A committed volunteer, Liz has held several board positions, including currently serving as a member of the President’s Council of Cornell Women (for which she is a Vice Chair of its Communications Committee); the Advisory Board to the Cornell University Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship; and the United Nations International School’s Council for Alumni Affairs.

Media outlets in which Liz has been featured, include: CBS’ The Early Show, Crain’s New York Business, New Jersey Jewish News, Successful Meetings Magazine, The New York Times, The Nonprofit Times and ZambiaBlogTalkRadio.

Liz founded and runs Amazing Taste, LLC., a values-led boutique consulting firm that connects NGOs with philanthropists and corporations, to achieve strategic objectives through fundraising events, marketing campaigns, along with educational activities.   Amazing Taste has worked with or advised domestic and international educational institutions, gender rights organizations, healthcare foundations, political campaigns, and youth development organizations.

Liz spent her 10-year corporate career in marketing, sales and business consulting at Digital Equipment Corporation, MICROS Systems, Inc. and Arthur Andersen, respectively.  She obtained her Master of Management in Hospitality degree from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems degree (with a concentration in Telecommunications Systems) from Syracuse University.  Additionally, she graduated from the United Nations International School.

5. TMS Ruge (moderator and “token male”) – Project Diaspora (USA)

TMS Ruge was born in Masindi, Uganda and grew up in Uganda, Kenya and the United States. Capitalizing on his understanding of different cultures and markets, Ruge has become a successful global social entrepreneur.

In 2007 he co-founded Project Diaspora — to motivate, engage and mobilize the African Diaspora to take an active role in Africa’s development. Following his passion to engage the continent, he has invested his time and money in a number of development initiatives including Uganda Medicinal Plants Grower’s ltd. – an indigenous farmers’ business specializing in the export of value-added medicinal plants, and Women of Kireka – a women’s jewelry making cooperative.

A technology enthusiast, Ruge writes and speaks extensively on Africa’s current renaissance driven by technology, youth and the Diaspora. He is a frequent contributor to several online publications including CNN, PopTech, The Globe and Mail, and The Guardian, and the Project Diaspora blog. He is also the host of The Digital Continent Podcast, a weekly technology podcast for people who believe that Africa is full of innovation and opportunity. Ruge is also a founding board member of Hive Colab – an open, collaborative, community-owned, work environment for young Ugandan tech entrepreneurs to focus on projects..

Ruge also serves as an advisor for ?OpenAction.org – an online platform that allows development organizations to richly engage their online audience.

He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Design from the University of North Texas.

Description of the Proposed SXSW Africa, Tech Women: The New Faces of Development Panel:

This panel provides a rare glimpse into the multitude of ways African women are applying technology to advance Africa’s development. The panel aims to dispel the myths about African women as breeders and victims — incapable of participating in their own continent’s development, by: (1) showcasing contributions they are making in the technology field – through entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and community leadership; and (2) providing insights into how they are using technology to raise awareness about, mobilize campaigns against and address human rights violations.

The panel will specifically explore how African women are using technology to make an impact through: – Digital advocacy to protect people’s rights – Social media to help grassroots organizations engage new supporters worldwide – Mobile advertising to enable small businesses to access new markets – Internet connectivity to integrate the often unheard community voices into the global conversation on development

Throughout the discussion, panelists will provide anecdotes on how the resulting increased access to information, is altering the role of women in African society.

Questions our panel aims to answer are:

1. What is the role of women in Africa’s fast emerging digital landscape and what types of contributions are they making?
2. How is technology improving the everyday lives of women on the continent?
3. What is the negative impact of increased access to information, on the role of the African woman in her society?
4. What are the opportunities and connections technology is facilitating between women in the Diaspora and on the continent?
5. Given the increased adoption of mobile phones in Africa and the rise of its middle class, what opportunities exist for marketers interested in targeting African women?

Please help us to amplify the voices of African women in the global discussion on development.

Vote for Africa, Tech & Women: The New Faces of Development and tell your friends to do the same.

Thank you

Follow us on Twitter: Liz Ngonzi @LizNgonzi | Isis  Nyongy’o @Inyongyo | TMS Ruge @TMSruge

My dear sister, I have started this letter only about a million times. And a million times I have crumbled it up and thrown it away. As the years have passed the pile of words and paragraphs have sat in the hollow chambers of my heart; collecting layers of regret and sorrow. I have tried to make keys and lock them away in darkness, but the doors never seem to lock. The letters unfinished beckon incessantly to be put to their final purpose, haunting me with your face alight with that smile so seared in my memory. It’s all I had and it is all I have now. But the memory of you is a weight I can no longer carry. Life, my dear sister, it marches on you see. I fear I must heed its calling, lest my days in the sun pass me by. And so this I must say to you. This I must reveal to you. This I must unchain from my soul. This I must retire to the depth our past. These words to you my dear, on this most auspicious of times, must be set to light on this brand new day.

How do I even pretend to imagine your pain, your hurt, your loneliness? How do I erase it all away with words that come a little too late? Time I can not reverse, but the future awaits me to shape her. I must not wallow in my own regret. Even you wouldn’t have me drown in the shallows of what I cannot change.

You have waited for me I know, to say something, to say anything. I have tried so many times to come and failed. I have known the way and yet I continue to hesitate. At the fork, I stare down the meandering road until it disappeared in the distance. For these many years, I have been turning left for home, wishing I had had the strength to do otherwise. For these many years, you have waited to no avail. For this I am truly sorry.

You see, mother has been afraid of me leaving. She thinks I won’t come back either. She too misses you terribly. It is a sort of sadness written on her soul. No prayer goes without a wish that the truth wasn’t the truth; that there was still chance; that this cruelty of fate wasn’t woven in the fabric of our lives. I sat once in the garden with her, seeing if she would change her mind about letting me come. A few billowing clouds wafted across a plate of glassy blue sky. The wind was ushering in the season’s daily rains. The flowers she tended to so lovingly seemed to bow in resignation, as she looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“You must not go,” she said, “she’s no longer there.”

I remember thinking of this truth, and wanting to fight it once more, shove it back with the words unsent and the memories lost. I wanted the news that I received almost three years earlier not to be true. You were no longer there but yet I knew I had to come and do something. What, I did not know.

You see, the day we separated in Nairobi — you heading to see grandmother in Juba and me going to see grandfather in Masindi — almost felt like it was normal. I was never supposed to lose you for good. Perhaps I should have cried or protested more to stop it. I wish I had known more at the age of four. Or maybe you should have done something since you were older.

Oh, how I have lamented the sorrow you must have felt from not knowing where I was. I was told a terrible war waged the minute you reached grandmother. I waited for you to come, not understanding why you wouldn’t leave and just come, not understanding what war was. I wrote letters that never seemed to come back. I prayed prayers that never seemed to reach you. The seasons passed and the winds blew and the stars shimmered and the sun rose and set and the moon glowed and our reality became clear. You were not coming for me, nor would I ever reach you in time.

The call shook me from a deep night’s slumber. It was Uncle Joshua.

“I have news, are you awake?” he asked.

You had passed away a year before I started looking for you. I was at university and hoping to find you before I graduated so you could attend. I know you would have been proud of me. Mother came to watch me give the graduation speech. Father made a big meal for our party. I felt empty and guilty. I remember spending that summer so gutted, hollowed and haunted. I slept in fathers bed crying for days. I’d never been closer to him.

I have been so gutted in my soul for over a decade now. I think it is time I forgave myself. What do you think? Can I truly forgive myself if I don’t know if you forgave me? I will never know if you did or not. So I must make this choice to do so, because at the very least you would have wanted me to be OK. You always tried to make sure I was ok. So on this day I vow to make the best me that I can be, because of you. On this day I vow not to be sad but optimistic and hopeful that a new future is possible.

Wherever you may lay, know that on this very morning, a new kind of day is dawning. One that I think you and so many of us paid the ultimate price for. Please tell whoever is laying next to you that today a nation is born. The winds sway the tall grasses above you, shaking the morning’s dew from their sinewy leaves as they reach for the new morning sun. Today we awake to a new future full of possibilities, full of promise and hope. I hope you can see us celebrate, I hope you can hear the drums in the distance. I hope you can feel the stomping feet. I hope you can feel the joyous sound. I hope you can see our new flag shimmering in the morning sun. And I hope that you know, I wish you were here to celebrate with me.

Happy birthday Lucy, this is our day in the sun.

Helen, Jennifer and Grace at the Stone Cold movie screening. Read more here!

It’s that time of the year again – marathon training time! I started training for the Marathon de Montréal 2011 in May just as my first year law exams began. For the rest of the summer, I will be training in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where I am working with LICADHO, a human rights organization. Eventually, I will make my way back to Montreal for September and a final month of running around Mont-Royal.

Last year, a number of you helped donate to Women of Kireka’s School Fundraiser. We have since phased out that program as the women are increasingly able to make ends meet through Women of Kireka’s jewelry sales. We are now hoping to start combining new materials in our jewelry and we are looking for two kinds of generous support: either a donation through ChipIn, which will go directly into buying new jewelry-making tools or materials OR a purchase from the Women of Kireka shop.

Thank-you again to everyone who helped us out last year!

Britain’s Brainiest Family is Black and Has 9-Year-Old High School-Bound Twins — what a catchy title for a compelling story about the British-based offspring of Nigerian immigrants — Chris and Ann Imafidon — blessed with what is seen as extraordinary brains.  I discovered this and another related compelling article, during my routine search for blog post content and was quite inspired, given that the last time I had conducted such a search, I had come across many dis-empowering images of Africa and its people, sparking my piece entitled: Rebranding Africa: Let’s Simply Start by Connecting the Dots for a Kid in Podunk! The basic premise of that piece was that Africans and those in the diaspora need to work towards helping shape a full picture of who we are — beyond images of “primitive” and helpless people — through the sharing of the plethora of existing success stories of those in the diaspora who are making their marks on their respective spheres and who consequently serve as ambassadors for a more inclusive dialogue about the African continent.

Paula & Peter Imafidon (Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2553538/Twins-youngest-to-sit-A-level-maths.html)

One of the compelling articles I cite above, penned by Jack Malvern in The UK Times on March 1, 2010, characterizes the Imafidon children as prodigies, including the main subjects of the piece, Paula and Peter, who at the time of its printing, the author noted as nine-year-old “Wonder Twins” bound for high school.  This family included the oldest sibling, Anne-Marie — at the time 20 — and who at the time held “the world record for being  the youngest girl to pass A-level computing, at 13,” while at the same age, she won a British government scholarship to pursue undergraduate studies at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in the United States; the next sibling, Christiana (who at the time of the article was 17), at the age of 11, became the youngest student to pursue an undergraduate education in any British University; and Samantha (at the time 12), who at the age of six, passed two rigorous high school–level mathematics and statistics exams, and whose feat was further emulated by her “Wonder Twin” siblings, Paula and Peter.

While I sincerely applaud Mr. Malvern and other journalists who  took it upon themselves to spotlight the Imafidon children, the undertones I read are that the family members are a collective anomaly – a notion which their father dispelled in an interview with Black Voices’ blogger, Ruth Manuel-Logan, in which he attributed their success not to any innate super powers, but simply to an Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city youth, in which they had all participated and as I inferred – active parenting and great genes.  He  stated further that “Every child is a genius…Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit,”  citing examples such as Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters, whose talents he believes were also nurtured.

Given the aforementioned and many other examples I have personally witnessed of highly intelligent and accomplished Africans, achieving great success in all spheres around the world (some of whom I included in my earlier cited piece) — I wonder why Africans still accept to be depicted as” (1) people who are seemingly too inept to effectively participate in their own development, (2) have low levels of education attainment, (3) need to be constantly saved by others, and (3) presumably have contributed nothing to this world, beyond breeding too many children who drain the globe’s resources.  The overwhelming majority of images I see in the media about the continent, are those of Africa’s natural resources that are fodder for the picking and its animals and landscape that are the source of enjoyment for tourists.

I was further compelled to write this piece, based on a heart wrenching Twitter message I received in response to my earlier cited piece on the need to re-brand Africa from the nonprofit group Youth Advocacy Network (YAN), which teaches kids in Buea, Cameroon, about video production, social media and computer literacy, as a means to share their stories with the world.   The message was: “Our students researched Africa & the flood of neg stats/media was hard to take in. Esp 4 kids using the web for the 1st time…” – which I interpreted as: their children were negatively affected by the negative images they found in the search results for Africa, most likely because the images failed to reflect the reality they see on a daily basis and the aspirations they each have.  It is for them, and other future leaders of the African continent and other parts of the world, that I plead that we seriously consider changing the image of Africa.  I fear that if we fail to provide an inclusive depiction of Africa, we fail those current and future generations that could potentially benefit fully from all that Africa has to offer.

For a more balanced picture, I refer to my own personal experiences.  In the early 1990’s, I was fortunate to meet a young Cameroonian, Dr. Acha Leke (a native francophone), while he was an undergraduate electrical engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States — from which he eventually graduated at the age of 21 as its first black valedictorian — enrolled in a five-year program from which other would have graduated at the age of 23.  He eventually went on to obtain his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University; became a partner at the prestigious management consulting firm, McKinsey and Company; was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; and in his very valuable spare time, co-founded the inpiring African Leadership Academy – an institution aimed at developing the next generation of ethical and well-trained African leaders.

African Leadership Academy Crest

Dr. Leke is but one of many highly intelligent and committed Africans I have been privileged to meet along my journey.  Other examples include the visionary students with whom I had an opportunity to work during the early 1990’s, as a volunteer publicist for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-based, African Technology Forum (ATF) — a journal chronicling scientific and technological advances within and without Africa — furthering the continent’s development.  Most of these students had at the time, moved from Africa to attain degrees from top universities in the United States, including:

1. Karanja Gakio, ATF co-founder who went on to co-found Africa Online with fellow Kenyan and MIT classmate Ayisi Makatiani (named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum) – the continent’s first Internet Service Provider– which was eventually sold to Prodigy Services Corporation.
2. Mawuli Tse, a Ghanaian national, who at the time was an MIT student and ATF co-founder, who has since become the Director of International Sales for iBasis, a global leader in international voice, mobile data and prepaid services that turns the challenges of international telecommunications into new opportunities.
3. Dr. John Ofori-Tenkorang (born to forward-thinking illiterate Ghanaian parents), who conducted his MIT doctoral research on a hybrid engine for a leading American automobile manufacturer.
4. Nigerian-born, Dayo Ogunyemi, at the time an undergraduate MIT student (and fellow UNIS alumnus), who subsequently went on to attain his JD/MBA degrees from Columbia University, and following two decades as an entrepreneur, financier, strategy consultant and attorney is now the CEO of 234 Media — a firm that makes principal investments in the media, entertainment and technology sectors in Africa.
5. Fellow Ugandan, Dr. Khaitsa Wasiyo, who at the time was an undergraduate student at Tufts University — eventually going on to complete her Ed.D at Columbia University’s famed Teachers College, and subsequently founded Elgon Project Management – “a turnkey, one-stop solution for building open source interactive websites for learning, collaboration, and performance.”

So given all of the aforementioned, what’s my point?  The “Wonder Twins” and their siblings are not an anomaly — they are but examples (as stated by their own father) of what dedicated parenting, focus, and enrichment programs aimed at developing youth…can accomplish.

The examples of some of the very intelligent and accomplished Africans I have been blessed to meet along my journey should help to solidify the notion that Africa has highly intelligent people who have made and continue to make contributions worthy of note, on the continent and beyond.  They also are also helping to move the continent toward Africa3.0.

Note: I also recently learned about 15-year-old American teenager, Saheela Ibraheem — born to Nigerian immigrants — admitted into 13 prestigious American universities, from which she has just accepted an offer from Harvard University to pursue studies in neuroscience and neurobiology.

Please feel free to connect with me: About.me || Twitter

I’ve spent the last week thinking about what to write for “A Day Without Dignity”. Lately, I’ve been getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of uninformed people and organizations, both large and small, who continue to show zero restraint in effort to demonstrate how socially aware they are. The Smart Aid crew of bloggers has done a commendable job of late of rising to challenge these individuals and organizations.

As repetitive as the exercise has become, I think that is is important that our voices continue to rise against any and all acts of “dumbassery” in the field of international development. I especially welcome those voices from developing countries – so often the target of ill-informed campaigns meant to rescue them from their supposed underprivileged lives.

I spent this past weekend with my mum in her village of Kikuube in Western Uganda. It’d been number of years since I’d spent my birthday with her. I started my birthday with a long run through the winding slopping hills in the early morning mist. The cool breeze felt like heaven as my Nike-clad feet crunched the gravel on the country road. Danger, our scrappy family dog, ran along side me, jutting in and out of the bushes like a dart.

My morning jogs through the village had ceased to be a source of amusement for the villagers. They knew me by now, and greeted me with smiles and waves. I couldn’t help but take note of everyone’s feet as I passed them, keeping a small mental list of how many wore shoes and how many didn’t. Good thing it was early morning on a Sunday, there were few feet to count and many were already in the gardens barefoot and tilling mother nature for the season’s planting.

After breakfast, I took the motorcycle through the winding pathway to the local church. My mother is usually the preacher, but she was ill this morning, down with a chronic asthma flare up. I’d changed her medication a few weeks earlier, the side effects of the transition had left her energy-spent and weak. The view along the way to church has always been my favorite things about Sunday morning in Kikuube Village: endless rolling terrain of sugarcane plantations. The bustling forests of yesteryear were slowly being replaced by subsistence farmers transitioning to cash crops. Mother nature was loosing as the community continued to develop.

Hi heels on a dusty mud floor at Kihoole Church in Kikuube village

I arrived amid songs of praise with but a handful of people. Church always started this way. The deacons would arrive to setup the sanctuary by sweeping the dusty mud floors, cleaning off the array of drums and stringing flowers. There were no windows or doors to open and the roof was missing one shingle. Even then, the sanctuary had come a long way in the last three years. I had claimed the responsibility of paying for the floor to be put in, as my way of giving back. The jubilant choir kicking up dust as the songs of praise hit their spiritual climax served as a gentle reminder that I hadn’t fulfilled my promise. The women clapped and danced up a storm. At one point they kicked off their high heels and sandals and let the spirit ride. As the voices got higher, the hands clapped louder, the sweat dripped, and the hips swayed to the hypnotic rhythm of the traditional drummers. The songs subsided into prayer as we prayed for continued peace, the blessed rains, the health of our children and family members, school fees, our leaders, our markets, our friends and our enemies. We prayed for those we knew and those we did not. We gave thanks for what we had and what we didn’t have. As I rode home, my mind played back the dancing feet kicking up balls of dust as the children played in the corner, some with shoes and some without, and the odd thought that, no one prayed for shoes.

Barefoot children on their way home from school

Why has it become so easy for people to start feel-good campaigns that no one asked for? There are a thousand things this village needs and nowhere on the list are t-shirts and shoes. Or used bras, socks, underwear or whatever the latest SWEDOW item du jour. We can safely say that it has nothing to do with the intended communities. The whole exercise is about making someone feel good. Unfortunately, that someone is never the recipient. It is never the people in this and many other villages that are purported as poor and thus in need of XYZ. It is probably easier to go a day without wearing shoes and feel good about “doing something.” Yes you are doing something, but do you know that what you are doing is the dumbest, most ineffectual act of dumbassery you could do. Yes you are doing something, but tell me how going a day without shoes is going to magically pay for the badly-needed school fees in this village. How is that act of self-sacrifice going to bring development and jobs? Yes, you raised awareness. But it was awareness of your own guilty pleasures and a life of excess. So you send a pair of TOMS shoes to the kids I passed on their way to school Monday morning, how is that going to make their badly-equipped classrooms better? Or train the teachers? Or pay them better. Let’s not mention the cobbler in the town center you just put out of business. Unless of course, your argument is that when the pair of cheap TOMS shoes — which were never designed for this environment — break down, he can fix them. Nice one.

Is it really that hard NOT to do something no one asked for?

I took another extended ride on Monday, spending time in the trading center to just observe the day in the life of Kikuube Village. I stopped by Gabriel’s shop. A 76-year old retired teacher with 4 sons he still worried about. None had adequate jobs and were grossly under-paid. He was wearing a dusty black pair of shoes that looked like they’d been brought back to life by a talented cobbler. He was lamenting about taking out a loan from the bank at 25% interest to help his youngest son start a small business. His own shop was sparse but frequently visited. He has never let me leave without taking a soda. What would this man do with a pair of TOMS shoes? Probably sell them. He worried less about himself and his feet and more about the future of his sons. And shoes were the last thing on his mind.

I came home and asked my mother (without revealing to her what I was about to write) what was the one thing, above all, she wanted me to have as I was growing up. Without hesitation and in the soft voice I’ve always known to have wisdom, she said, “an education.” Not a good pair of shoes. Not a tshirt. Not good life. But an education. As simple as that sounded, it left a resounding thump in my heart. As I went to sleep that night, I stared at the picture she gave me for my birthday. It was a black and white photo of a little boy holding his chin and smiling. I turned it over to read the inscription,

“Teddy on his 4th birthday, April 3rd.”

I was wearing a pare of gum boots. TOMS didn’t get me those, my mother did, along with my education.

I dedicate this blog posting to all the victims and survivors of natural and man-made disasters.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the horrifying news about the earthquake in Japan, which as if that wasn’t enough, was followed by a tsunami, possible radiation exposure and forecasts of another, and most likely, more devastating earthquake.  As I write this piece, I send prayers for those affected by the devastation and hope that the situation does not escalate beyond the unimaginable damage and destruction that has already occurred.

Houses swept by a tsunami smoulder near Sendai Airport in Japan. (Reuters)

At times like these, we question the value of life which can be interrupted or even destroyed without a moment’s notice — robbing us of precious opportunities to communicate for the last time with loved ones.  Case in point is the well-publicized natural devastations our planet has suffered in less than ten years, including: Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2006 tsunami in Asia, and last year’s earthquake in Haiti.  Please note that I highlight the aforementioned, recognizing that there are numerous other natural devastations, and countless man-made conflicts that have and continue to devastate our precious Earth.  Many have and will continue to say that these natural and man-made disasters are signs of disapproval from God, Mother Nature and/or our planet — about the way we increasingly mistreat one another and abuse our planet.  Whatever your belief, my opinion is that we had better put our differences aside and start learning lessons from what is happening globally, to find a safer way forward.

Personally, as I kept reading about the escalating situation in Japan and environs throughout yesterday, I was inspired to think about how those of us outside of the immediate devastation could use it to prepare to do some good for others.  From what I understand, many places in Japan have been leveled to the point where the country is effectively at par with if not below those so-called third-world countries has been disrupted if not completely destroyed, which seriously impedes search and rescue efforts.

While researching topics for an emergency and disaster preparedness forum I organized in 2005, I learned that in short- and long-term crisis situations, communication is one of the most important tools for people.   Through communication, affected people are able to determine the severity of their immediate condition, gather and share information that can help them and outside help to improve their situation and mitigate further threats.  Specifically, a woman survivor of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, needs information that will (a) enable her to understand if she was in the epicenter of the earthquake (b) if there are any aftershocks predicted (c) if there is criminal activity around her, against which she needs to safeguard her family (d) what she needs to do to signal for assistance (e) if rescue and relief are on the way.  Similarly, an African woman survivor of civil unrest living in a village that is off the communication grid, needs to communicate in the same manner as her Japanese counterpart described above.

The challenge is how will the women in the aforementioned scenarios obtain and share vital information when the communication tools that those of us in unaffected areas take for granted are not available to either one of them?

Mobile communication via SMS messaging is one viable answer.  Earlier this week, I fortuitously served on a panel organized by a colleague Marcia Stepanek, at New York University’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, entitled: Philanthropy 3.0 Speaker Series: Mobile in Advocacy The Next Frontier.  During the panel, I shared with and learned from my fellow panelists, insights about how mobile communication has and continues to be used to further causes.  We learned about the great work that FrontlineSMS is doing to increase vital information flow in various African countries, through the use instantaneous SMS two-way communication.  We also learned about the impact Ushahidi’s free and open-source, crisis mapping software has made on disaster situations, during conflicts and the tracking of political activity.  We also learned about the importance of the Twitter and Google’s Speak-2-Tweet service to information exchange –despite the Internet blackout– during the Egyptian revolution.  While all of these are incredibly enabling technologies, it is not possible to use them in situations where the vital communication grid necessary to transmit voices or even data, has been destroyed or never existed.

What would work in my view, is the use of satellite, for emergency disaster situations any where in the world and for off-the-grid areas in developing countries.  I know that satellite communication is successfully used by military personnel in conflict situations requiring off-the-grid communications and believe, we need to learn from them.  Specifically, what I propose is that governments identify vetted people in various locations including the remotest areas in their respective countries, known as connectors or influencers, to be the safe guarders of satellite phones, which in most situations should work.  Such people (with backup people for redundancy), keeping the video phones on them at all times, implanted with satellite transmitters, and trained to effectively serve as contact points responsible for communicating within and without their respective communities (aided by a support network), any vital information that would help ultimately save lives.  Should the safe guarders die, they and/or their phones could be tracked via satellite and the video switched on remotely, to record surrounding activity.  The same information would be quite useful for off the grid communities — enabling the tracking of threats, facilitating rescue missions and monitoring activity.

I welcome any ideas, suggestions and  innovations that would benefit the two fictitious women I mentioned above.  So while we are unable to change what has happened, I believe we are able to take action today, to make a better future.  I really do hope that we come together as a human race to effectively address our common problems.

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My last couple of blog posts on Project Diaspora have focused on best practices to improve service delivery on the continent and mobile solutions to potentially improve visitors’ experiences when they travel to Africa.

San Bushman man from Botswana. Photo Credit: Ian Beatty from Amherst, MA, USA

As I contemplated this current blog post, I looked through my notes to find an inspiring idea. I wasn’t inspired by any of them. So I revisited a Wikipedia search for Africa, which I recently conducted.  What I found was seemingly pretty basic: history, geography, politics, etc.  What struck me, however, was that the overall entries about contemporary Africa were quite negative in general, supported by images of a San bushman from Botswana, Beja Bedouins from Northeast Africa, a rural woman from Benin and a street musician from South Africa.

Beja Bedouins from Northeast Africa. Photo Credit: I, Jpereira

While none of these photos are particularly derogatory, they fail to accurately reflect what the continent has to offer, in terms of its educated urban population and its market potential.

As a diasporan born in Uganda and raised in New York, this all stirred up negative emotions within.  I grew up in New York during a time when it wasn’t cool to be African and I struggled with my identity, despite having gone to the United Nations International School – a very inclusive and empowering academic institution — and living in a community of mostly multicultural families.  At the time, it was much easier for me to assimilate as an African American (a group with which I still very heavily identify having grown up in the US) trying to bury my “Africanness”.  It’s only when I got to Syracuse University as an undergrad and took a few Africana studies courses that I began to develop pride for my heritage and to seek out additional sources to reinforce that feeling. So while the title of this post is about the kid in Podunk, I believe that what I’m proposing below is important also for the African kid (a) living in the diaspora, (b) who is fortunate enough to access the internet in Africa and even (c) whose friend and can teach him/her about who he/she can become as a result of hearing about his/her fortunate friend’s discovery online.

I must stress that my issue in post isn’t actually with Wikipedia — “a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge.” The question then is “who should bear the responsibility for the inaccurate portrayal of Africa?”  Is it an individual, an organization or African governments?  Who stands to benefits most from a more inclusive and therefore positive branding of Africa?  You may in turn ask “why this is important?”  Well here are my two cents:

Children, the future leaders of the world, are generally quite impressionable.  So what they’re taught as children influences the decisions they make as adults.  Exposure to correct information about Africa would therefore lead them to recognize Africa and Africans are valuable partners in the global economy rather than the current perception of Africa and its people as a lost cause.

Liya Kebede, Ethiopian model, maternal health advocate, clothing designer and actress who has appeared three times on the cover of US Vogue. Photo Credit: Ed Kavishe, Fashion Wire Press

It’s imperative therefore that Africa and Africans amend the Wikipedia pages on Africa and the African Diaspora, to reflect more inclusive images of Africa and the African Diaspora, given the intrinsic value of the latter both to the continent and the countries where they reside.

Below is a very SMALL sample of diasporans of note who could potentially be spotlighted.  I used the following methodology to find them:

1. I searched Wikipedia for diasporans with whom I am familiar and then used links from their profiles to identify others. I was mindful about the need to reflect talent from the whole continent.
2. I excluded people on the continent making their mark, purely as a means to remain focused on Project Diaspora’s mission: to promote African diaspora engagement in sustainable economic activities within Africa.
3. For simplicity sake, I narrowly defined Diasporans as those who currently reside outside of Africa and who were born in or have parents from Africa.
4. I linked to the Diasporans’ existing Wikipedia pages and grouped each sample according to primary industry.
5. Finally, I used photos from diasporans whose Wikipedia pages had rights-free photographs.

African Diasporans of Note

Arts / Entertainment	Akon || Johannes Anyuru || Michael Blackson || Chiwetel Ejiofor || Idris Elba || Safi Faye || Edi Gathegi || Haile Gerima || Namugenyi Kiwanuka || Boris Kodjoe || Sal Masekela || Peter Mensah || Tom Morello || Ntare Mwine || Thandi Newton       Photo: Thandi Newton, English actress born to Zimbabwean mother and British father. Photo Credit: gdcgraphics”
Education	Ilesanmi Adesida || Kwame Anthony Appiah || Patricia McFadden
Fashion	Amsale Aberra || Ozwald Boateng || Iman || Kiara Kabukuru || Liya Kebede
Financial Services	Mo Ibrahim || Dambisa Moyo || Adebayo Ogunlesi
Journalism	Sade Baderinwa || Ron Mwangaguhunga || Hoda Kotb || Dinaw Mengestu || Adaora Udoji
Politics	Peter Bossman || David Soares
Hospitality Management/Travel	Dorinda Hafner || Marcus Samuelsson         Photo: Marcus Samuelsson, Ethiopian-born Swedish chef and co-owner of Aquavit and Red Rooster restaurants in New York City and C-House Restaurant, located in the Affinia Hotel in Chicago. Photo Credit: Tduk Alex Lozupone”
Religion	Rev. Peter Gomes* || Archbishop John Sentamu
Science & Technology	Kwatsi Alubaruho || Cheick Modibo Diarra || Chinedu Echeruo || Gebisa Ejeta || Ave Kludze || Noah Samara || Window Snyder
Sports	John Amaechi || Kelenna Azubuike || Yinka Dare || Obinna Ekezie || James Ihedigbo || Ruth Kasirye || Mathias Kiwanuka || Dikembe Mutombo || Emeka Okafor || Hakeem Olajuwon || Betty Okino       Photo: Dikembe Mutombo, retired Congolese American professional basketball player, who last played for the Houston Rockets of the NBA. Photo Credit: Keith Allison”

In conclusion, while Wikipedia is a great tool for cataloguing a part of Africa’s reality through its Africa and African Diaspora pages, they need to project the other side of the story.  The basis for this is currently available as individual dots on the Wikipedia site.  What’s needed is for these dots to be connected and given a little bit of context to make it easy for a kid anywhere in the world to access a more inclusive picture about Africa.  I am pleased to note that individual Africans including: Mo Ibrahim, G. Kofi Annan, Sophie Bekele, Ida Horner, Mariéme Jamme, Sheila Ochugboju, Emeka Okafor, Alex Okosi and Joshua Wanyama , are some of the many already working towards the rebranding of the continent.

My hope is that this post will inspire others to join this vital effort.  I welcome any feedback or suggestions for other Diasporans or Diaspora-related items to feature.

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*Rev. Peter Gomes passed away on February 28, 2011

Back in 2007 when I attended the first East Africa Investment Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Dr. Mo Ibrahim speak. I remember then being in awe of his vision for East Africa’s business potential. Even then he was preaching the benefits of businesses building socially conscious business models. I didn’t know much about him and in fact had never heard of him. I’d just started blogging for PD and hadn’t really caught on to the impending technology boom. I am quite sure he has no recollection of me handing him my business card and him promising to keep in touch.

Bah. Bygones.

So it came as a pleasure when I actually opened up my email this morning to find that one of my favorite newsletters to receive, Business Call to Action, had the featured interview above.

The discussions on aid vs trade have been raging for a while now in the aid blogosphere. I’ve chimed in here and there and debated the issue on Twitter (the world’s new discussion board). But I think the Dr. Ibrahim puts it quite succinctly here that, in essence, business is a form of aid. For all that ills that aid tries to eliminate. Business can achieve with just a shift in business model. Dr. Ibrahim states that businesses shouldn’t be afraid to make a profit.

According to Dr. Ibrahim, there’s progress being made. “Business people are realizing more and more that we cannot succeed when our societies are failing. We are part of society.” He also states that

“the main objective of business is profit. Businesses are not charities. Let’s not confuse the two. We expect business to really work for profit. The fact that they are investing and creating jobs, they are creating wealth and that’s important for development. We say thank you very much. Do that ethically. Continue to do that ethically. We don’t ask you to turn from business to charity.”

I couldn’t agree more here. I think the debate over aid vs trade shouldn’t be centered around one or the other as the de facto mode operandi for eliminating poverty. I think the debate should be how aid and trade can coexist more effectively.

Elevating society shouldn’t be a divisive responsibility. It should be a collective effort. Let trade create wealth, but do so ethically so as to enhance the efforts of the aid community, who’s responsibilities should be more focused on filling the gap in civil services. Put another way, both should compliment each other instead of canceling or ignoring each other.

One more thing that Dr. Ibrahim touched is one that I think we as members of the Diaspora need to continue to embrace. Continued investment in Africa needs to be powered by real-time information. Dr. Ibrahim’s recounting of his American counterpart who was wholly ignorant about Uganda’s leader is what I am talking about. We need to continually speak up and represent our continent. Idi Amin is not longer Uganda’s president and hasn’t been for more than 2 decades. Yet, there isn’t a year that goes by where I don’t run into several people asking about him. For once I’d like them to me about mobile internet penetration, or how Diaspora remittances are fast outpacing bilateral aid and what that means to our economies. That’s the story we should be talking about and selling. Because doing so, creates an appetite for investment. Investment begets wealth creation, wealth creation begets a middle class. And I am sure you know what happens when we have an empowered, educated middle class? Change happens.

“We the undersigned wish to express our deep sadness at the murder of Ugandan human rights defender David Kato on 26th February 2011.  David’s activism  began in the 1980s as an Anti-Apartheid campaigner where he first expressed a strong passion and conviction for freedom and justice which continued throughout his life.   David was a founding member of Sexual Minorities Uganda where he first served as Board member and until his death as Litigation and Advocacy Officer and he was also a  member of Integrity Uganda, a faith-based advocacy organization.

David was a man of vision and courage. One of his major concerns was the growth of religious fundamentalism in Uganda and across the continent and how this would impact on the rights of ordinary citizens including lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered / Gender Non-Comforming and Intersex  [LGBTIQ] persons.   Years later his concerns were justified when the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill backed by religious fundamentalists was outlined in 2009.  David was also an extremely brave man who had been imprisoned and beaten severely because of his sexual orientation and for speaking publicly against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Many African political and religious leaders in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Gambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi and Botswana, have publicly maligned LGBTIQ people and in some cases directly incited violence against them whilst labeling sexual minorities as “unAfrican”.

In October 2010, the Ugandan tabloid, Rolling Stone published the names and photographs of “100 Top homos” including David Kato.   David along with two other LGBTIQ activists successfully sued the magazine on the grounds of “invasion of privacy” and most importantly,  the  judge ruled that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons.

The court did not only rule that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons but it issued a permanent injunction against Rolling Stone newspaper never to publish photos of gays in Uganda, and also never to again publish their home addresses.

Justice Kibuuka Musoke ruled that,

“Gays are also entitled to their rights. This court has found that there was infringement of some people’s confidential rights. The court hereby issues an injunction restraining Rolling Stone newspaper from future publishing of identifications of homosexuals.”

Every human being is protected under the African Charter of Peoples and Human Rights and this includes the rights of LGBTIQ persons.   We ask the governments of Uganda and other African countries to stop criminalizing people on the grounds of sexual orientation  and afford LGBTIQ people the same protections, freedoms and dignity, as other citizens on the continent.”

I received a letter last week from a young African woman (whose identity I’ve omitted, in deference to her privacy), currently a graduate student in a leading hospitality management program in Europe.  What first struck me about her was that she had taken the time to send me a letter, when she could easily have emailed me, given that she referenced she had found me on LinkedIn through a mutual contact and she must have subsequently googled me to find my business address, where she then would most likely could have easily found my email address, as well.  By taking the time to write a letter to me, this young woman already grabbed my attention by demonstrating to me that she understands etiquette — which definitely worked in her favor, given that she wrote to me requesting assistance with a dream she has — to open a hospitality management school in her country of origin, in order to provide less fortunate young people the opportunity to study free in their home country. This would then enable them to qualify for the positions in the country’s major tourism sector — currently occupied mostly by foreigners.

Swimming Pool at Chobe Safari Lodge in Uganda

The letter inspired me to think about service, in general and hospitality in particular, in Africa, beginning with experiences I’ve had in the various places I visited on the continent, including in my country of origin, Uganda.  I’ve always been baffled by the fact that while Africans are generally hospitable people, when it comes to providing professional service to others, there tends to be an inconsistency in how its delivered.  In all fairness, I should mention that there are several establishments I have visited in which I have received consistently great service from accommodating staff and engaged managers.  So I asked myself, what is it that’s lacking in the places to which I have decided I would never return? Based on my own experiences and anecdotes from other customers and even staff, many such places tend to be run by ill-prepared and unmotivated managers, who most likely report to indifferent owners.  These owners often times have not developed the practices and structures necessary to empower managers/employees to deliver consistently great service, be it internally or externally.  The point being, that the leadership sets the tone for the type of service the customer-facing employee will provide.  Once the leader creates a culture that is service-oriented, hires accommodating people, teaches and incentivizes them to provide great service, employees are more than likely to perform better.

One of the Beautiful Cottages at Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort in Uganda

As tourism gains momentum as a major economic driver in Africa, I would like to appeal to proprietors to consider adopting the following six service delivery best practices in order to deliver customer service excellence.  These practices are based on (a) my studies while a graduate student at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration (b) research I’ve conducted on my own as an educator developing and teaching university-level hospitality management courses (c) observations I’ve made about organizations to which I or my firm have consulted and (d) methods I’ve successfully employed in my own business.

1. Development of Standard Operating Procedures: Successful establishments tend to develop procedures to manage the full customer experience.  These procedures are encompassed in the following phases:

• Customer Engagement Phase (e.g., phone greeting, email inquiry response, website information)
• Arrival (e.g., by whom and how customers are greeted)
• Service Delivery Phase (e.g., when and how customer orders are taken and suggestions provided to them)
• Payment Processing Phase (e.g., flexibility of payment options)
• Departure Phase (e.g., how customers are bid farewell and whether there is a request for feedback on service provided)
• Post-Visit Engagement Phase (e.g. thanking customers for their business and providing incentives to encourage future patronage / referral of others)

2. Hiring Practices: One of the key elements to developing a great customer-facing staff is recruiting those people who are inclined toward service, possibly even have experience in working in establishments that deliver consistently and /or people who have demonstrated an interest in service delivery, through their educational pursuits.  Finding such employees is facilitated by the fact that there is such widespread unemployment on the Continent, that employers are able to cherry-pick candidates.

3. Training / Orientation Process: Once appropriate candidates are hired, they should to be taught about the establishment’s service culture and expectations of employees, trained in service delivery procedures and informed about the importance of the service they are providing to customers paying their hard-earned money.  By doing so, the leadership establishes expectations of performance and provides clear reasons that the employees can internalize and refer to in various customer-facing situations.

4. Management Oversight: Managers should practice “management by walking around,” which requires them to monitor operations so as to  to enable them to identify any issues before they escalate, discover employees providing great service and provide an additional touch-point for customers who may have additional questions.

5. Incentives: People are generally motivated in multiple ways, money being one of them.  However, successful leaders recognize that public recognition of performance against clearly defined objectives, the offering of career path options, and support of employees’ extracurricular pursuits are just as, if not more effective means to incentivize performance.

6. Employee Treatment: Leaders of successful establishments understand that the way in which they treat their employees is directly correlated to how those employees then in turn treat internal and external customers.  Employers can do so by treating employees in a hospitable manner, developing practices such as providing them with healthcare, transportation and / or meal allowances to supplement wages, and by taking the time to learn about the employees’ individual challenges and helping to facilitate reasonable solutions.

Giraffes in Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda

Going back to the letter and idea from the young African woman’s vision that inspired this posting (and with whom I have since communicated via email and a skype video call) my professional opinion as a practitioner in the service sector is that she’s on to something great. So I have since communicated further with her and provided her with some of my own insights for how she can potentially realize her dream.  Central to all of this, however, is that as she realizes her dream, she keeps in mind, the importance of developing an institution that not only teaches those interested in working in hospitality, the technical aspects of providing service, but also, the philosophical and human aspects of why and how service is delivered.  Additionally, my hope is that she aims to recruit students (all of whom she envisions would attend on scholarship), who demonstrate a pre-disposition to service delivery, and who therefore, with the right training and opportunities, would help to lift the level of service provided in her country, in particular and the rest of the continent, in general.

Great Eco-Conscious Decor at Boda Boda Restaurant in Kampala, Uganda

Finally, I believe that in the short-term, she should be flexible in how she conceives of her institution.  With the increasing number of applications available to facilitate e-learning, she may want to consider working with educators / industry practitioners to develop a curriculum that can be delivered remotely to students assembled in an existing structure, such as a local school, church or community center.  In such a case, instead of having to wait until she raises the funds for a building, etc., she could literally begin teaching using a laptop, projector and WiFi access — made possible by Africa 3.0.

Unlike my first two postings on Project Diaspora, this young woman and I did not connect via Twitter, 140 characters at a time.  However, some of the insights, which I shared with her, were informed by my frequent activity on Twitter over the last 18+ months.

New Note: I was recently quoted in the book Cornell University School of Hotel Administration on Hospitality: Cutting Edge Thinking and Practice book (page 16)

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HOPSTOP Logo Superimposed on Google Map of Kampala, Uganda

One of my favorite iPhone apps is HOPSTOP, founded in 2005 by US-based and Nigerian-born entrepreneur, Chinedu Echeruo.  Why I love this app is that it enables me to easily map out my travel route (by foot, rail or bus) when I’m visiting places across the US, with which I’m unfamiliar and provides me with access to services located around my destination, such as a Starbucks, I can visit prior to a meeting to have a warm beverage, check my email or  freshen up.

I was reminded of why I love HOPSTOP so much, during my recent vacation to Uganda.  It was a great trip during which I visited many parts of the country, dined in fantastic places, stayed in great resorts and as a constantly-engaged entrepreneur…even snuck in a few meetings.  One of the only challenges I faced however, was that despite having born in Uganda and traveled there quite often, I needed to have guides with me throughout the trip, because the country — as with others on the African Continent — have limited numbers of street names.  This is not only a challenge for visitors, it’s also an issue for locals who are forced to use landmarks to find destinations.  The aforementioned challenge limited my experience to those places I researched online prior to my visit, those which friends recommended to me and those with which my various guides were familiar.

I wonder,  if had I been able to access a HOPSTOP app to find destinations on my own,  would I have been comfortable trying out new places and possibly venturing out on my own?  Why this is significant is that when I put myself in the shoes of someone visiting a country such as Uganda, for the first time, I can imagine that navigating through the many wonderful places to experiecne might be a challenge, particularly given the aforementioned lack of street names.  To be fair, there are many sources, one of which is The Eye Magazine, which does provide listings of destinations and maps of their corresponding locations.  However, for folks like me who are used to being able to access information easily on a PDA, we definitely need more.

Ideally, I would love to see an app that enables visitors to:

• Map out their routes by various available modes of transportation with cost and risk estimates for each (a trip on a boda boda can be quite a harrowing experience, yet is the most affordable option in East Africa, besides walking)
• Access location-based services that are generated based on the user’s location, personal preferences and purchasing history
• Retrieve a time-limited coupon for access to services, such as those of the Groupon app
• Post reviews of their experience of local services (a la TripAdvisor)
• Monitor traffic updates that enable them to avoid “jam” centers

Having presence on an app such as the one proposed above would be great for owners of small businesses in Uganda (and other African countries),  in that it would potentially provide them access to consumers they might not otherwise have been able to attract, enable them to receive feedback about their services that could help them improve delivery, create more needed jobs and generally stimulate economic growth.  Google has already embarked on a project to map various countries throughout Africa — an endeavor which should help to facilitate the aforementioned.

Mr. Echeruo, I ask you to seriously consider creating the app I’ve proposed above…if you’re not already doing so.  You’re a terrific example of the great minds to which Africa has given birth and from which it should benefit…as it develops.  You have successfully scaled HopStop across North America and it’s now time to take your talents and resources to Africa — a continent that relies heavily on tourism and and increasingly on international commerce, both of which would be more easily facilitated by a disruptive app that ultimately furthers the development of the Continent.   In addition to all of the aforementioned, there is a growing community of trail-blazing tech savvy wiz kids on the Continent (that I learned about 140 characters at a time on Twitter) with whom you could potentially collaborate to work towards Africa 3.0 – an aspiration that a tech visionary such as you, has the wherewithal to achieve.

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Murchison Falls on the Nile in Uganda

As I write my first blog posting for Project Diaspora, I do so with the backdrop of change being fueled in Northern Africa by various social media, at the core of which are the 140 characters at a time on Twitter that have enabled those affecting and directly affected by the change to mobilize support from many around the globe who otherwise would never have known, cared about, nor even tried to further their plight.   The aforementioned is but one example of the viral nature of information exchange in our ever shrinking global village — enabling individuals to collectively voice their opinions — leading to dramatic change politically, economically, socially and spiritually.

With that background, I begin my sharing of thoughts and analyses with you, as they relate to the change I see happening across the African Continent.   I’ve been online for 20 years, when the Internet as we currently know it, was in its infancy and I was a student in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, learning to email my homework assignments on my first PC and struggling to find information online to complete my final senior paper on the importance of Africa leapfrogging the then-available and cost-prohibitive fixed-line infrastructure, to embrace the emerging telecoms technology at the time…satellite.

Today, I struggle to filter the plethora of information available through my multiple social media networks that I access on mostly on my iPhone.  Fortunately, the increased connectivity has enabled me to keep current on the goings-on around the world and to find those who are geographically dispersed, yet thinking and expressing themselves on topics about which we are mutually passionate – stories about Africans on the Continent and  in the Diaspora, currently working on and looking to participate in the future development of Africa.  The “place” where I have found most of those people is on Twitter – where I met @TMSRuge, visionary founder of Project Diaspora.   While we originate from the same country — Uganda — in the past that would not have been sufficient enough for he and I to connect, in that our families are from opposite parts of the country, we are from different ethnic groups, grew up at different times and in separate places around the world.   The beauty of 140 characters is that despite the aforementioned artificial boundaries, @TMSRuge and I are now connected based on our shared interests and ideals, have subsequently engaged in email exchanges and conversations — all of which have led to my current blog posting and hopefully, future collaborations.

My connection to @TMSRuge, through 140 characters, has paved the way for me to access a vehicle — Project Diaspora — to highlight Africans who are moving back to the Continent and effectively reversing the brain-drain by either working as local representatives for multinational/domestic corporations, international development organizations, joining their respective governments or pursuing their own entrepreneurial dreams.  The 140 characters have also led the way for me to showcase those companies, organizations and individuals who, despite originating from outside of the African continent, are partnering with Africans, to assist in its development.

The themes of my blog postings moving forward, will focus on how Africans in the Diaspora, on the Continent and friends of Africa, are contributing to its development in innovative ways and how their efforts are helping to give birth to Africa 3.0…possibly 140 characters at time!

Here’s how you can connect with me:

Twitter

LinkedIn

Facebook

Amazing Taste Website

As we kick in a new year here at Project Diaspora, we are excited to be continuing our Diaspora at Work series of interviews where we catch up with interesting members of the African Diaspora busy at work changing the continent. This week, we caught up with published, award-winning Ugandan documentary photographer, Andy Kristian. Among other notable mentions, he’s founder of the civic engagement project, Voices of Uganda.

''Do not involve yourselves in acts of violence during this election period.''

Tell us a little about your background… and how you ended up in the Diaspora?
I am a Ugandan/East African Documentary Photographer. I grew up in Mbarara with my extended family of about 14. My mother was single and I am the fourth of 5 children. My mom’s brother, Chris, always lived and still lives in Canada. As a kid, this was kind of cool. My family says they always knew that I would end up living abroad. That is because even as a child, I was always dissatisfied with the status quo in the country. I ended up in the Diaspora not so much because I wanted to leave my country, but because I wanted to learn, to be stimulated and inspired and exposed, and that’s what’s happened to me. As I speak, I am now ready to return to Uganda, and to inspire the change I have always dreamed.

"As bodaboda drivers, we are not able to work when there is electoral violence. We then fail to repay our loan obligations to the banks, which cripples our business."

How did you get into photography?
My boyhood friend, Edgar’s dad was a school teacher who supplemented his income to support his five children and his wife by taking portraits of students, church folk and people in the hood. Both my friend’s dad and mom used to travel a lot, which offered us an opportunity to explore with some of his abandoned cameras and play in his dark room. Edgar was so proficient because he had learned from his dad. In turn, I learned from him and got my first interest in image making, but would not discover myself as a career photographer until about a decade later while working as a consultant on the Juba Peace Process between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GoU).

''We need leaders that will ensure better healthcare provision and education for our children.''

How did you retain a close connection with your homeland even though you lived in the Diaspora? What drives your passion to stay engaged with the Pearl of Africa?

First, unlike many who leave Uganda at a very young age and lose their connection to their heritage, I first left when I was about 22. By this time, I was already contributing to my kid brother’s tuition fees, and therefore somewhat responsible. For example, by 19, I already knew I wanted to invest in tree planting both as an economic means and an environment conservation strategy. The tree planting craze has just began in Uganda, and some of us already dreamed of these things even as teenagers. When I was about 16 or 17, I was so discouraged and annoyed by our government’s failure to make a dual carriage network to Entebbe Airport. I had never been overseas, but it made sense to me that the road to Entebbe Airport should have the fastest road in the country, with people rushing to catch planes. Years later, the government failed to seize another opportunity brought by CHOGM to correct the wrong! How does this rhetoric fit into your question? It is this passion, the desire to lead, the love for my country that has kept me plugged in. I read the online versions of the Daily Monitor and the New Vision every single day.

''Select a leader/s who will ensure zero tolerance to corruption.''

What lessons can other members of the Diaspora learn from your engagement that they could use?
The Diaspora has some of the best minds that Uganda has. From Engineers to Doctors to Nurses to Photographers to Servicemen to business men, the best that Uganda has, live abroad. We in the Diaspora need to step out and lead. We need to use our minds to uplift our people. Most of us are discouraged by the way of things in Uganda, but we can’t just do nothing. We have to do something, anything. We need to use our gifts and talents to serve our country, whatever profession or business one is engaged in.

“We need peace and non-violence during election season.”

What led you to start Voices of Uganda? Tell us a little bit about the project. What are you hoping to achieve?
I have an academic background in Peace & Security studies, and that’s how I got involved in the Uganda Peace Process. After having abandoned this career for photography, I am still a peace maker and non violence advocate. But above all, I felt the need to begin walking the talk, instead of talk talk talk. That is when I began conceiving of Voices of Uganda. I felt a responsibility towards my country, and knew that I had a duty to serve our people in whatever small way that I could with my talents. From a peaceful message, the project revolved into a greater civic engagement project, in which I could have real citizens talking to other citizens to get involved in issues based politics; for example, instead of voting for someone because they are of a similar tribe, people should start evaluating the candidates, and voting for them because of their abilities to serve the greater needs of that community. That has been the essence of the project, and I think with my partners in distribution, we have managed to plant seeds of true democracy and social change. Oh, and do not forget so quickly what happened in Kenya, Togo, Zimbabwe and what’s now happening in Ivory Coast and Tunisia.

''Vote for a leader/s who will ensure the development of agriculture.''

Will you eventually consider moving back permanently to the country as a “reaspora” or are you planning on living the duel life-style?
I hinted above that I am already considering moving back to Uganda. I am at the point now where it makes a lot of sense to be based in Uganda than in USA. I came to the USA to learn, and that I have succeeded in doing. Now I need to come back to Uganda to teach what I have learned. As a “social change” documentary photographer, there’s more for me to document in Uganda and East Africa than there is in the USA. I am now working on some neat projects, that I am quite positive will change a lot of lives. My partner and I are looking to raise several thousands of dollars that will benefit pediatric cancer children of Uganda. With the state of our health service delivery, we have to take some matters in our own hands. We are going to organize the Uganda Charity Week, which will become an annual event. Every Ugandan will want to be associated with this. Plans are in the pipelines, and we will welcome anybody who has something to contribute; ideas, money or otherwise.

''Too much taxation cripples small business. Less taxation means more money in the hands of the poor. Let us vote for a leader/s that will advocate for lower taxes.''

What are your hopes for Uganda election season due next month? Any concerns? And what kind of impact has VoU made in the run up to the elections next month?
My hopes for the Uganda election season in Feb 2011 is that first, it would be a peaceful one. Second, that the majority of Ugandans would have the wisdom of voting for leaders that will advocate for meaningful change. Third, that there would be no vote rigging, vote stuffing and every poll dishonesty. Fourth, that the losers would accept the results gracefully or use legal means to challenge results rather than wielding guns, iron bars and stones.

I am quite positive that the Voices of Uganda project has had a lot of impact on the people in respect to the issues I have raised above. It is unfortunate however, that there wasn’t enough funds to have the initiative penetrate even to the remotest of villages, especially where the “issue based voting” is needed. Nevertheless, I have planted a seed, and if someone else can water it, who knows?

Women of Kireka Documentary from Project Diaspora on Vimeo.

Cody Punter, our first male intern at Women of Kireka managed to put together this well-done short documentary as his last project with us. Thanks for your hard work Cody and we wish you success in your endeavors. The women will miss you!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Project Diaspora Presents VIA: VILLAGES IN ACTION CONFERENCE sponsored by Business Fights Poverty and Orange Uganda.

Project Diaspora is dedicated to change perceptions about the poor by building a platform whereby the voices of the poor can be heard. On November 27, 2010, the first conference will be held in a village outside Masindi, Uganda. The goal of this one-day conference is to showcase the grassroots efforts driving economic development and improving the welfare of the community – all with little or no assistance from international aid organizations.

In September 2010, international organizations, heads of state, celebrities and specialists gathered to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As you may know, the MDGs were set in 2000 to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by 2015. In the midst of the coverage of these grand events, the actual “poor,” (the object of these goals) were not invited to these elite events.

The keynote speech will be delivered by the village’s LC1 chairwoman, Milly Businge. Mrs. Businge represents this village of 270 homesteads and just over 1000 people. Her keynote will revolve around the development springing up due to the shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming of sugar cane. Kikuube’s first hardware shop was opened by an enterprising young woman who identified an opportunity and now has a thriving business.

Most of the presenters and panelists will be from the village itself, mixed in with local subject-specific experts and practitioners from the technology, education and community health fields of practice here in Uganda.

The conference is title sponsored by Business Fights Poverty and Orange Uganda. Business Fights Poverty, a network that connects practitioners and experts around the world to push the boundaries of how business can fight poverty, is facilitating the day’s events. Orange Uganda, provider of Uganda’s largest 3G network, will power the live video stream.

This ground-breaking conference brings together over 500 members of the Kikuube community, community leaders, development practitioners, who will interact with a global audience connected to the conference through Twitter, Facebook, the live video stream and live blogs. Anyone in the world with a broadband connection can watch the live stream on the Business Fights Poverty homepage; the Villages in Action homepage. Follow the conference on Twitter using the #via2010 hashtag, and on the Project Diaspora Facebook page.

About Project Diaspora
Project Diaspora (PD) is a USA-based organisation established in September 2007 with a simple mission—to promote African Diaspora engagement in sustainable economic activities within Africa. PD actively seeks to mobilize, engage, and motivate members of the African Diaspora to participate in Africa’s economic, social, and cultural renaissance. Looking beyond the $40 billion in annual remittances to the continent, the strongest resources the African Diaspora possess are its vast wealth of knowledge, technical expertise and professional network. Africa’s Diaspora is well positioned to become a major developmental force. In light of their cultural and personal ties to their home communities there is no other single group that is better equipped to generate positive, sustained change across the continent.

About Business Fights Poverty
Business Fights Poverty in a free-to-join global community of professionals passionate about fighting world poverty through good business.  Business Fights Poverty connects over 10,000 people from 150 countries through its online network (www.businessfightspoverty.org), its communities on Twitter (@FightPoverty), Facebook and LinkedIn, and through physical events.  Community members come from a diverse range of business, government and civil society backgrounds to share experience and good practice – collectively pushing the boundaries of how business can fight poverty.  We believe that we can achieve more together – by harnessing our collective intelligence and energy – than we can alone.

About Orange Uganda
Orange is the key brand of France Telecom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. With more than 131 million customers, the Orange brand covers internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the Group operates. At the end of 2009, France Telecom had sales of 44.8 billion euros (33.7 billion euros for the first nine months of 2010). At 30 September 2010, the Group had a total customer base of 203 million customers in 32 countries. These include 144.5 million mobile customers and 13.3 million broadband internet (ADSL, FTTH) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

With its industrial project, “conquest 2015″, Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group’s ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.

For more information (on the internet and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv

Contact:
TMS Ruge
Co founder – Project Diaspora
Teddy@projectdiaspora.org
+256 792 134 655

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As many of you know, I am running the Montreal Oasis Marathon on September 5th, 2010 – in exactly 27 days! Running the marathon was partly inspired by the need to find a way to help pay school fees for the children of the Women of Kireka. These twenty women, who still work part-time in a quarry for a pittance, now have a small start-up jewelry business, which I helped to establish in 2008 in Kampala, Uganda and now assist through Project Diaspora.

As many of you also know, I’m generally no longer a fan of fundraising. After a couple years working on and off in Kenya and Uganda, and further experience in the “wheel of development,” I have learned to deeply appreciate the value of business. By business, I mean a system where a unique high-quality product, made through painstaking attention to detail, is fairly traded for monetary capital. This seems to be the most sustainable and engaging form of economic development.

In line with this, Women of Kireka has transformed itself from a donations-funded model, where international donors help to raise enough capital for the women to start their own business, to a small start-up business built on hard work by the people who make up the Women of Kireka and Project Diaspora.

However, in order to get Women of Kireka to where it is now, it was necessary to help the women spend a few less hours on the quarry. They identified school fees as one of their most expensive and stressful costs. By covering school fees for a year, Project Diaspora – and your first two round of donations – gave the women enough time to see if Women of Kireka was for them and whether we could build a successful business together.

This generous time has proved to be fruitful and we think that, after this final round of school fee donations, Women of Kireka will be entirely run as a business, no longer soliciting donations. In the little time we’ve had this year, we’ve registered Women of Kireka as a business, opened a local bank account for the women to place their savings, developed an emergency health fund scheme, launched one line of jewelry, developed a website and established a series of local and international partnerships with such groups as Solar Sister.

This final round of school fee donations will give the women the free time to perfect their second line of designs. It will also give us the time to focus on opening the online Women of Kireka store. We expect that these activities, particularly the opening of the online store, will ensure that the women can support their children next year in school and work increasingly with Women of Kireka, thus moving off the quarry for good.

Fortunately, the beginning of the children’s semester coincides with the Montreal Oasis Marathon. As I cross the finish line, the children will be getting ready for their final school term this year and we hope your generous contributions will help us pave the way for a successful new school term!

For more information on the Women of Kireka, please visit our website.

In the last 7 days, I have been on three continents and my feet have touched down in four countries. Dopplr says I’ve added in excess of 1,659 kg CO2 to my carbon footprint. My body feels like a stubborn piñata, beaten to a pulp, but hardly broken. My mind has absorbed, contemplated, calculated, commiserated and generally tried to make sense of the world around it. South Africa successfully concluded hosting the world’s biggest sporting competition; BP stopped it’s 3 month effort to fill the Gulf of Mexico with oil; Steve Jobs turned on his reality distortion field to quell “antennaegate,” and Washington, DC was hit with an earthquake.

My heart however, has been stuck in a geosynchronous orbit around Kampala, Uganda.

As of this posting, it has been exactly a week since Spain beat The Netherlands to stand alone atop the World Cup throne. The world watched, in celebration and disappointment as the games crowned their final champion. In Africa, many gathered in make-shift pool halls, barber shops, local beer joints or “locals,” or anywhere where there was a TV or radio tuned to the proper channel broadcasting the game.

In Uganda, 76 people did not get to see the final results of the game. They had began their day in frenzied preparation to finish whatever the day required them to accomplish in time for the match. Some went to pray, others went shopping for sports jerseys emblazoned with the colors of whatever team they were in support of, some had lunch with friends and placed bets with each other. Others made plans to meet at pubs or restaurants to enjoy the final game. None, it would seem, made plans to die that day.

Seven days ago, the Somali Islamic militant group, al Shabab, or “youth” detonated a series of bombs in Uganda’s capital of Kampala which injured hundreds and left the city with 76 less people that I will never get a chance to meet. An outdoor gathering at the Kyadondo rugby club was hit by a suicide bomber, while simultaneously another bomb hidden under a table ripped through Ethiopian Village, a popular restaurant and socializing spot for tourists and expats.

I ran across the news while sifting through the day’s tweets. I’d just returned from a dinner with colleagues I hadn’t seen in a while. One of them, left the dinner early to go watch the start the game with her father. Earlier before the dinner, I’d sped past the rugby club across from Lugogo Mall on Jinja Road, straddling a boda boda taxi. I’d just spent the day sifting and editing images at the Hive Colab offices. The air was crisp and the sky was clear as evening was setting in. The rugby club gates were busy with activity as the early arrivals filtered in to grab the best seat on the field.

The first tweet was from non other than Solomon Benge (@solomonking). Solomon tweeted from the front lines during the Kampala riots a year before.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I was curious enough to stay tuned while he confirmed the report. Soon enough there was a flurry of reports coming out. I remember a heavy sense despair descended on me as I sunk into disbelief. The winner of the final had just been announced, and the orange-clad Dutch expats were filtering out of the bar at the hostel, in dejected disbelief. I watched the Twitter stream a few more minutes before it occurred to me that I should start accounting for my team. “We are OK, are you?” “Have you heard from so-and-so? No, have you? Call them and I’ll call you back.” Within minutes everyone was accounted for, on the way or home and safe. A few hours later I was replying to Facebook messages and tweets; “team PD was accounted for and safe.” The news was now international, struggling upstream to break through the tide of World Cup coverage.

What amounted to a cloud of numbness occupied my soul for the two days before I was to board for my flight to Dallas. I took meetings in a daze of disbelief, meetings that were occupied with discussions of who was responsible, digesting the gory images in the tabloids of limbs and blood. The images were arresting and the same time disappointing as it seemed every newspaper was racing to print the most disturbing images from the two bombings. I was keenly paranoid of where I sat and who was around me.

Was this the new state of mind I would have every time I came home? Strangely, everyone seemed to be alone in their thoughts. Around Kampala, life went on as everyone tried to make sense of the events of Sunday night. The overly crowded taxi parks in the informal sector were just as packed, the nightly street vendors still sold you a rolex with a smile. The boda boda drivers still snaked through Kampala’s gridlock like water through a rockslide.

The most heart-wrenching reality of the bombings manifested itself at the airport as I was departing. Lines of expats, and tourists choked the check in lines to a point where the computing system shut down for several hours. It seemed a mass exodus was in play. It became clear that the effects of the bombings would spread beyond the loss of 76 lives. In contrast to South Africa’s .5% bump in GDP brought on by hosting the games, right here at Entebbe, Uganda’s tourism industry was bleeding massively. I immediately understood the somber countenance of John Hunwick, proprietor of Backpackers Kampala hostel, as I waved goodbye.

“We’re finished,” he muttered.

Instability in the city meant no tourists, volunteers, or traveling students – which spelt financial disaster for the hostel. Mr. Hunwick’s hospitality and tourism business depended on the assumption that it was safe to travel to Uganda. Kampala’s once vibrant nightlife won’t be the same for a long time as revelers avoid crowded establishments.

As I touch down in the fifth city this week, I am still haunted by the images of the zombie-like corpses on the front pages. Men and women, soaked in blood and frozen in repose in their plastic chairs on the lawns of the rugby grounds; a woman clutching a soft drink with her head slumped to the side, a man leaning in the chair clutching a cellphone on one ear. The most haunting image that I can’t shake is when I was driving by the rugby grounds days after the bombings and watching the massive prehistoric scavenger birds — famous for feasting on Kampala’s growing garbage dumps — land on the pitch. I couldn’t bare the thought of what they were feeding on in the grass.

So where do we go from here? How do we rebuilt our city? How do we sell stability again and inject customers back into the tourism sector and related businesses? How do we avoid sinking into a relentless cycle of xenophobic violence? President Museveni has vowed not to be intimidated and has called for a state of calm. Uganda’s continued presence in Somalia as part of the African Union’s peace-keeping mission means that we are now on a continued terror alert as al Shabab begins to retaliate beyond its borders. I suppose I have no choice but to resign to the fact that this is our new life now,  “…in blood and color.” Is this the price of progress and freedom? Please stay tuned.

For a long time, Uganda’s value has been associated with its physical, tangible assets. This includes its natural resources, hospitable environment and cash crops such as coffee. In economic terms, the value proposition is shifting all around Uganda and the time is now to realize that the value attached to coffee and fruits is fast shifting to the knowledge possessed on how to grow these same things faster. Intellectual capital and intellectual property laws, the tools of protecting this capital are a key concern for today and the future of Uganda.

Broadly speaking, intellectual property law in Uganda is known to accommodate the laws that protect brands and the identifiers of value in businesses. These could be names, symbols, logos, slogans or a combination of these. It also covers Patent laws. Patents protect technical innovations for things like new methods of making medicine or even apparently simple inventions like modifications to a padlock. The third major area covered by IP law in Uganda is the law of copyright, which provides protection to those whose creative effort is reflected in music, books, artistic works, dramatic works and similar works. There are other less well known but equally important areas such as industrial designs, geographical indications, trade secrets and plant varieties that are included among the important areas of Intellectual property. However, although Uganda acknowledges their importance, some of them have not yet been specifically passed into legislation in this country.

Where do we stand in terms of intellectual property education in this country? IP has traditionally been the preserve of lawyers. As such, the subject was until the late 1990s only taught as part of the Post graduate Bar course at the Law Development Center in Kampala. During the intensive one year course, IP is taught in the course of two days. With the need to modernize legal education, Makerere University introduced the subject in the late 1990s and it was subsequently introduced on the Uganda Christian University Law school program, when that university started in 1997. Currently, the subject is taught as part of the LLB (Bachelor of Laws degree) with varying degrees of content in 6 universities. These are Makerere University, Uganda Matyrs University, UCU Mukono, Kampala International University and the Islamic University of Uganda in Mbale. It is apparent that all of these Universities only teach intellectual property law as a substantive subject to law students, leaving other disciplines with hardly any significant content in this regard.

Leaving the formal educational system, a number of Government institutions have now recognized the need to increase awareness of the value of IP in Uganda beyond the University setting. Key among these are the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), the Uganda National Council for science and Technology (UNCST), the Ministry of Trade Tourism and Industry and Makerere University.  This realization is critical and timely and I will share a few reasons in support of this position.

First of all, as Uganda becomes more integrated in the Global economy, its economy becomes even more vulnerable unless it becomes more innovative and competitive in its key industries. Many policy makers have recognized the vulnerability of holding on to the past ancient advantages of the cash crop-commodity era. This is because tea, sugar and coffee prices are subject to numerous trade barriers at the best of times, while newer products like vanilla have to compete with artificial flavors, thanks to modern science and technology. For this reason, scientists, artists and business people small and large need to appreciate the notion of intellectual property and what advantage it gives them in this new era of international trade.

The second reason that has compelled some of these organizations to rethink the intellectual property education processes is the intrusiveness of the internet.  The internet is recognized worldwide as being the most disruptive technology of the past century, almost in the same measure that mobile telephony was to Africa in the 1990s. It provides huge opportunities for learning as well as trading and commerce. Small and medium businesses in Uganda have latched on to electronic commerce as a sensible imperative of cutting out middle men in Kampala, and Nairobi, thereby saving themselves a lot of money and making more profits. More importantly in the context of intellectual property, cultural goods such as music now constitute a significant value of Uganda’s invisible exports. The Ministry of trade, tourism and industry, as well as other partner institutions have realized that enhancing artists and other actors in the creative industries sector will in turn lead to an increase in service sector exports.

Thirdly, Uganda as a least developed country that signed up to the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS agreement is bound to implement and enforce IP laws. Whereas Uganda has some flexibilities it enjoys until the year 2016 with respect to Pharmaceutical Patents, there is tremendous pressure from developed countries for it to comply in other areas. One of the key areas of concern in this regard is the area of trademarks and enforcement of stringent anti counterfeit legislation. Whereas most Ugandans appreciate the importance of stringent laws against counterfeit products, which include pharmaceuticals, there is a worry that the scope of the law may be so wide as to prevent generic medicines into the country under the guise that they are counterfeits. This is an area that requires the line ministry of Trade as well as that of Health to deploy significant resources in terms of sensitization and public awareness for the public to appreciate the purpose and imperatives of the law. If this does not happen, Uganda’s Anti counterfeit legislation is likely to face significant implementation challenges.

Lastly, IP education has become more important as learning in the online environment becomes more prominent. In the past, most teaching materials were in the form of physical text books. Due to war and the decline in local publishing, fewer local authors are on the approved list of published works for use in the public education system. Universities have come to appreciate that in order for their students to make use of the wide repertoire of works available on the internet; they have to navigate through the various copyright permissions necessary for them to access online resources. With the availability of better and faster internet access, there is increasingly the view that Universities churning out thousands of IT professionals should also focus on developing local content. This should have the effect of creating a greater appetite for online resources as well as local solutions. The challenge here is that the creators of this content will expect some form of compensation, as availed under copyright regimes that users are not yet aware of, or prepared to pay for. In light of this growing awareness, Makerere University passed its Intellectual Property policy in 2009 to assist its staff and students in determining how to assess, appropriate and distribute benefits from intellectual property.

Beyond the existing plans lie huge institutional minefields to overcome. The basic concepts of intellectual property and its application at an enterprise level and benefits at the macro level are yet to be understood by public officials. This could significantly delay or even derail any efforts in the direction of curriculum review or even public sensitization. It therefore means that all public and private organizations and companies should join hands and work together to enhance understanding on a subject that could potentially lift many from poverty as well as have a positive impact on the country’s export earnings.

On the other hand, it is high time developed countries and their multinationals that reap the most from Uganda’s consumption of their commodities give direct support to Intellectual property education drives, as opposed to crying foul when counterfeit products are found littering the streets of Kampala. This must go beyond workshop style education to practical support on how to use the intellectual property system ie through the transfer of know how to enterprises and supporting the establishment of a national innovation support system. Hopefully this is a formula that will leave everyone in a better position to exploit their creativity and entrepreneurship to the benefit of businesses and the country at large.

Paul Asiimwe, Advocate & IP  Consultant
Chairman, National IP Advisory Group under the UNCST
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Sipi Law Associates
Advocates, Patent & Trademark Agents
Investment & Corporate Legal Advisors

The time has come to raise funds to keep the children of the Women of Kireka in school. We raised enough money in our last fundraiser to keep them in school through the first term of 2010. However now the 2nd and 3rd terms must be addressed as well. There are currently 58 children enrolled in school and we are raising the funds with a combination of sales of the beads made by the women and donations. We have been covering our work with the women here on the blog for quite some time. So if you are a regular reader you know the story, however if you are not here is a quick recap:

One of our projects involves a fantastic group of women who were displaced during the war in Northern Uganda and fled to a town called Kireka outside the capital city of Kampala. They live in what is called an IDP camp (internally displaced persons) and work in the rock quarry there. For the last year or more we have been working with them to transition them out of the quarry an into more profitable and safer work. We currently have a team of interns working with them on job skills training, business training, working to get them counseling and health services and more. Just this week we were able to get them a small two room office, where they can meet and get training. Their ultimate goal is to create beautiful handmade crafts. They are currently making jewelry and will begin their training as seamstresses very soon. So it has been a very exciting time.

However in the midst of all of this it is time again to raise money for the children’s school fees. This year we are looking at a total of $4000 that needs to be raised. This will cover cost of school for 58 children through the end of the year. I will have a small quantity of necklaces made by the women for sale, the proceeds of which will go to the school fees. I expect to receive that shipment any day. Donations are also welcome in any amount via paypal.

Here are a few links that you may find interesting!

Three Days Earnings

Last Year’s Fundraiser, with videos!

A Conversation with Grace Lamono

An Intern’s Story

The EAC is kicking off the 3rd installment of the Investment Conference, to be held in Kampala, Uganda. The last edition, which I had the pleasure to attend in Kigali was quite interesting. This year’s installment is timely, especially as EAC marches towards common markets this July.

We are steadily moving towards a fully integrated economic community where goods, capital, labour and services will move freely without borders, and it is important to highlight to the world the abundant potential that East Africa offers today.

The inaugural East African Community Investment Conference was hosted by Rwanda in 2008 and brought together more than 1,000 participants under the theme, Leveraging the East African Market Through Trade and Investment.

The 2^nd Annual Conference, hosted by Kenya last year, hosted 2,000 participants under the theme, Invest in the EAC; Where Global Challenges Are Opportunities. Both conferences attracted local, regional and global investors and business leaders who rightly identified the vast potential that the East African region provides.

The East African Community is made up of approximately 130 million people. The East African Community has a Gross Domestic Product of more than US$60 billion. With the establishment of a fully-fledged Customs Union, and the July launch of the East African Common Market, we can confidently announce that East Africa has opened up as One Market, One Destination, FOR BUSINESS.

If you are interesting in doing business in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, or Tanzania in the near future and tapping into a collective $60 billion market, I’d highly suggest you make haste and register to attend. Better yet, how about buying up one of those sponsor spots for some serious visibility, you high rollers you!

Lastly, is it just me or is it a little bit creepy and unsettling that the EAC Conference’s bank account information is published on the web. Ignorance or just just begging for trouble?

I think I speak for a majority of Africa’s diaspora when I say that the mobile phone in Africa has made life away from our homes of origin much more bearable. The ability to instantly connect and have a conversation with family members allows us to maintain those family bonds that are so important to many of us. Unless your entire family migrated out of Africa, many of us still have loved ones on the ground that we are now able to connect to with ever increasing immediacy.

In a sense, the world has shrunk for us. It used to be that separation for the African diaspora meant vast distances marked by snail mail and connecting flights. Now that distance is reduced to the time it takes you to dial a number or send a text, or compose an email.

I am very close to my family in Uganda. So close in fact that i rarely make decisions without consulting them and vice versa. We operate like a well-oiled organization. We routinely check on each other’s progress with family meetings. As the older sibling, I am chided (in good fun of course) for still being single. We constantly fuss about the future of our younger siblings and their education, a unified effort to make sure that our family is well-equipped to survive in this world. We take a “no-sibling left behind” policy in our family. I Facebook chat with my sister Pam on a daily basis. It is the new, “after-tea conversation.”

This week, I had a Skype conference call with my brother Isaiah (an administrator at the local college, my sister Pam (general manager of UMPG), and my mother (a pastor and local councilwoman for her village). There wasn’t anything special about the call really, in fact, I had done it several times before. This time though, I had a huge smile on my face. Perhaps in retrospect, I was reliving my talk at SXSW. This is what I was talking about. I was living the future of a connected Africa, in real time. I was having the same out of body experience as one would have walking through a déja vu episode (I am always freaked out by those!).

At the SXSW presentation, I demonstrated the collaborative possibilities of a connected Africa with a live Skype interview with Appfrica Labs in Uganda, iHub in Kenya, and Limbe Labs in Cameroon (I am still saddened that I didn’t get to talk to Banta Labs in Senegal because of time constraints). I had also planned on making a call to my mom in the village so she could tell the audience what a difference having a mobile phone has made in her life. I failed to connect due to a bad network connection. Instead I did the next best thing. I called my mum a few days after the presentation and interviewed her for this post. You can listen to her interview below.

With 450 million mobile subscriptions on the continent, one can’t help but think of the possibilities, and what all this connectivity could mean for us. Milly lists some of the benefits (and challenges) of owning a mobile phone in the village. The greatest of which was the joy that she could talk to her son at any time (provided I called more often of course) without her having to take a 3 hour bus ride to Kampala so I can reach her on a land line. The accelerated penetration of mobiles predicted over the next three year is even more exciting. Stats point to nearly 50% of Africa’s population as under the age of 15; coming of age just as Africa gets ready to tap into over 18 terabytes of designed broadband capacity available to the continent by 2012.

The possibilities for the continent are endless, but to me, they are very real and personal.

NOTE OF CLARIFICATION:
Just to clarify, while Grace gives varying answers on the video on how long it takes to put together that box of jewelry, it actually takes the women about 3 days to produce the pieces in that box. Grace confirmed that it took 3 days to produce Ush 40,000 (~$20.25), the equivalent of three weeks worth of work breaking rocks.

My last photo shoot featuring Women of Kireka jewelry got a lot of positive interest. Within one week the women got orders from London, Vancouver, Nairobi and Kampala. Last week alone, Siena and myself hired a couple of boda bodas and took some interested buyers to visit the women at the quarry where they worked.

The frenzy of sells got me thinking about the income the women were pulling in just from the jewelry. The video above once again stars Lamono Grace, talking about the economic impact of selling just a few pieces of jewelry versus the income from the daily grind of pounding stones.

As always, be part of a solution and encourage these women by buying some jewelry if it appeals to your sense of style. Remember, it’s not charity, so don’t buy anything unless you feel it’s up to your standards. But having seen these pieces with my own eyes, they are worth every dollar.

On a further note, let me task you with this: what do you earn in three days of work? Do you even think twice when you spend the equivalent of a week’s worth of earnings for each woman on a cup of coffee? Again it’s not a request for charity, but a simple reminder of what some people on this planet of ours have to go through just to earn a dollar.

More information on the Women of Kireka, bead purchases, internship opportunities and quarry visits can be found on Siena Anstis’s website. We’re thinking proxy websites spreading like Western Union across Kampala’s downtown core. Ah, if only we were the Starbucks of East Africa.

The original here:

As someone with many un-paid internships under her belt, the word “volunteer” often makes me shudder. But, the facts are, we need your support!

• Programme Assistant Intern (Full-time): This position with the Women of Kireka would involve guiding the women in their current business practices (accounting, savings, establishing micro-loans, etc.), doing marketing & design, escorting visitors to the quarry, and organizing sample shipments/partnerships with local and international organizations.

• Advocacy and Awareness Intern (Full-time): Not long ago, a reader commented that we were not doing enough for the overall Kireka community. Granted, when the women leave the quarry, their jobs will be taken by equally desperate individuals. In order to mitigate this, we would like to run an awareness campaign on the working conditions of the Kireka community among media, community and government. There’s been a trickle of information on the quarry over the years, but we really want to ramp this up and make an impact.

The lovely Hannah Gray will help you organize your internship placements. She has a boat-load of experience in this field and is an expert in all things Kampala (and fun!). If you are interested, please send your CV, cover letter and a short 500-word statement on what you would like to achieve to myself or Project Disapora. Of course, information on the site is limited, but we want to know how creative are!

Note: We’re certainly not as widely known or CV-boosting as UN-name any branch, but we can promise a very engaging experience with the Women of Kireka and Uganda as a whole. We are also expert reference-letter writers. Most importantly, we’ll help you build contacts in the field of international development in East Africa.