Saturday 26 April 2008

Cultural Differences and Common Goals

We have situated the Skomara Digital Hub in a Muslim school called Sheikh Khalifa secondary school. Our partner here on the ground is SKOSA(Sheikh Khalifa Old Students Association) which is essentially the alumni organisation associated with the school. The school is providing the workshop areas that we use for the hub, free of charge and obviously we do everything we can to respect the Islamic ethos within the school grounds. For example, there are separate days for boys and girls, mosque prayer times are respected and there is a 'be discrete' dress code for men and women.

However, the workshop is open to everyone who wants to learn about computers irrespective of their religious persuasion. So often times you get Muslim and Christian men and women mixing with one another. Initially everyone is a little nervous with one another but over time people begin to learn from one another through the usual fun and games.

I have noticed that the volunteers just love coming here. Perhaps it is because they meet new people with similar interests but different backgrounds? Today is supposed to be a day off (its Saturday) and normally what happens today is that the key volunteers come in, tidy up the place and essentially ready everything for next weeks training. Despite it being a day off loads of other volunteers have arrived and are now cleaning the facility! Water has been poured on the concrete floor and is being swept out to remove accumulated dust.

The lovely dimension of it all is that all different religions sexes and perspectives are participating today. I can hear the young volunteers giggling and spending time with one another. There is nothing forced or contrived about these engagements - its just young people working together for a common cause.

I have always believed that the best way of dealing with differences is to focus on a common goal that both sides can participate in. If you nurture the simple human aspect of getting people to mix and mingle whilst constructing something positive together you immediately bring down the walls of suspicion and fear. You also give people ownership of the outcome.

What seems to be happening here is that a place of learning using technology has been created and people from all walks of life are drawn to the possibilities that creates. People mixing like this does not happen normally! The peer to peer learning model means that knowledge is shared irrespective of your background or perspective. Trust is built up, friendships are created, confidence is grown and commitment to take on responsibility is realised. Conflict resolution sounds so damn simple when you write it like that!

I am tempted to photograph what is happening here this morning but just in case it upsets the spirit of what is happening I will not do that. You just have to trust me!

When you see young people from such different backgrounds engaging respectfully with one another like this it give you a real sense of hope that the future is in safe hands.

Friday 25 April 2008

The Open Source Cyber Cafe

Africa and Asia are now two of the biggest emerging markets for the ICT industry. They also happen to be the places where there is more boot leg software and software piracy then anywhere else in the world.

Without condoning this in any way, there are good reasons why this is the case. There is a tendency to think that hardware is where the main costs are in terms of technology investment but in fact its the accumulated software licenses that cost more. Hence all the boot legging and piracy in the developing world!

Recently in a high profile swoop a number of cyber cafes in Nairobi were shut down because of this. The big software companies are putting pressure on developing world governments to clamp down on piracy with the promise of investment in their countries if they do.

Its awful to watch this happening. The cyber cafes do not make much money as it is a highly competitive market (mind you not any more in Nairobi...) and they are essential entities for getting the word out about the potential use of technology in the developing world. To see small businesses like this closing because of the 'bigger' needs of multi-national companies actually sickens me.

The volunteers in the hub here have come up with a great idea to tackle this problem. They have developed an Open Source Cyber Cafe (with its own timing, network management and billing system) and have a model of it running in the workshop here. You can use Open Source software for free if it is being used for educational purposes so the plan is to create a series of Open Source Cyber cafeteria's across Mombasa whose revenue supports the educational dimensions of the Digital Hub.

The international airport here in Mombasa does not have a cyber cafe so that is their first target!

The Hub will also become a center of excellence for Open Source training and support and so that also has the potential to generate revenue for its sustainability.

These ideas are in the early stage but it gives me real confidence that enterprise opportunities will emerge from the initiative which will not only bring in revenue to sustain the Skomara Digital Hub but will also transform peoples lives in a positive powerful way.

Given what they have done here in three months I cannot wait to see what they have done in a years time!

Alex

Yesterday I stayed on late in the workshop in the hub. It had been a busy day meeting different groups and people connected with the project. There is a pretty good internet connection here now in the hub so I decided to write some reports in the workshop before going home.

Alex is one of the volunteers here. I had noticed from day 1 that he opens and closes the workshop each day. No matter how early you arrive or how late you leave he is always here.

I discovered why that is the case last night.

Alex is 24. He left school in 3rd year in secondary school because his family could not afford his school fees. He started doing odd labouring jobs to support his family and eventually became a painter. He painted the entire Digital Hub for free (inside and outside) during the initial renovations and has been a committed volunteer since the hub opened 3 months ago.

2 weeks ago, he was made homeless and since most of his family live in the western province he has no family support structure here. To help him out the management of the hub have allowed Alex sleep in the workshop over night. In the meantime they are on the look out for some accommodation for him. His bed consists of a curtain from one of the windows that he takes down and lays out on a concrete floor.

I asked him was it comfortable and he said he had got used to it.

I then discovered that the poor bloke had not eaten the entire day. I asked him did he want to join me for dinner and he agreed so off we went to a nearby restaurant and had something to eat.

He has two brothers and a sister. His sister died last year giving birth to her 7th child and all 7 children are now back with his mother and father in the western province. The unrest at the beginning of the year had made things very difficult for the family and they were all displaced for some time. Things now seem to be settling down even in the rural areas where the in fighting was at its worst.

The reason he had not eaten today was because his father had sent him word that he was gravely ill with Malaria and that he desperately needed 1500 schillings to pay for medicine. Alex had been trying to raise the money by begging friends to help for most of the day.

It made me realise that it only takes a conversation to uncover the most desperate circumstances that people find themselves in. It also was a sobering reminder that even though it is wonderful that people are volunteering their time in the workshop, people could easily end up being exploited. The desperation people have here, to learn skills so they can get out of poverty, is something that many organisations public and private exploit.

There is a thin line here between giving your time and giving your life.

The good news is that I have just come from a meeting with potential sponsors of the hub where, thanks to the conversation with Alex, we were able to urge people to support the feeding program here. I am hopeful something positive will come out of that.

The least we can do for the volunteers is to feed them properly. In time, as the hub begins to generate revenue we may be able to offer some kind of on going allowance to those committed to the venture.

It is a challenging dilemma. Education for the future or a job for the present. And it comes back to the decision Alex's parents made asking him to leave school to help support the family. This is the typical dilemma facing the majority of families here...

Are we right to encourage people to take significant time out to learn, where they are not able to earn money (for them and their families to simply survive) so they can better themselves in the future?

Its really a balancing act between survival in the short-term versus longterm investment in their future. You realise that in the developed world we have the luxury of being able to make that choice. That is not the case here.

That said, technology not only enables education, it also enables enterprise. My hope is that the technology can accelerate education to enterprise activity thus bridging the gap in this dilemma.....

I asked Alex about this and he was convinced that this can happen. I sincerely hope he is right. Many of the volunteers already are discussing entrepreneurial ideas so there is a basis to my hope. I will talk about one of those ideas in another blog.

As I said, you only need to have a conversation with someone here to realise how damn challenging this whole situation is!

P.S Just as I am writing this I have been told that they have found a nice clean room for Alex nearby to the workshop;-) he has just been given the keys....

Thursday 24 April 2008

The Skomara Digital Hub

Skomara is a collaboration between Camara and SKOSA (Sheikh Khalifa Old Students Association) and is the legal entity running the Digital Hub here. Before I leave Kenya, Skomara should be a legal entity that is a fully incorporated not for profit company limited by guarantee. I am so glad I took a technical/medical career course rather than a legal one;)

As I have said before the Digital Hub is well and truly up and running. Over 700 volunteers have registered with the organisation, it is supporting 48 schools in the Mombasa area and over 70 institutions nationally. The organisations it is now supporting range from primary and secondary schools to technical and teacher training colleges and even community groups and orphanages.

The demand for affordable computers and associated training is growing and growing. I honestly do not know of any other model that can meet both needs. To make computers affordable to people earning a euro a day they need to cost 100 times less than people earning 100 euros a day (average wage in Ireland). So if we typically pay 500 euros for a machine then the machines need to cost 5 euros (or a weeks wages essentially out here). You simply cannot build ICT technology for that price so you need to subsidise. To get a refurbished computer from a company in Ireland to a school in Africa costs about 80 euros all in. The company pays 20, the school pays 5, Camara has to raise the other 55.

But to be honest thats incredibly good value. Each computer has the potential to hold more information than all the paper libraries in Kenya without even being connected to the internet.

All the software on the Skomara/Camara computers is Open Source. The advantages of Open Source are obvious:

(a) You can do just about anything with Open Source packages now that you can with software you pay for.
(b) It is more stable and runs quicker on older machines
(c) You learn more about the computer learning through Open Source
(d) You have a planet full of brilliant developers and supporters for the initiative

Critically though for poorer schools, they are not laboured with huge license fee issues once they have the hardware.

It makes total sense for the developing world to embrace an Open Source strategy.

However, though computers and software are totally necessary they are not sufficient as a solution. Training is critical. Knowledge transfer in this instance is utterly important because computer and software packages break in time.

Sending out technical volunteers with a combination of teaching skills and high end ICT skills to places like the Skomara digital hub is crucial. I cannot think of any other projects where short-term time in the developing world adds more value. Camara is committed to sending out volunteers each summer to the hubs and schools it supports to provide high end ICT and teacher training expertise.

The beauty of a volunteer program like this is that when you return from your time over seas there is something obvious to return to. There will still be a need to keep the refurbishment operations in Ireland going!

We have noticed over the last three years since Camara has got off the ground that many people go back back a second and even a third time with the volunteer program. This is a tremendous unexpected development.

If you have read this far, please consider getting involved. I can tell you straight up that the project with the right support is going to make a real difference out here.

Its hard to put into words the sense of excitement and ownership people here on the ground for the hub and remember its only 3 months old! In the next few blogs I hope to capture that.

Thanks for all your support so far as always...

Gary

Wednesday 23 April 2008

Abdul





A year ago if you were to ask me what are the key aspects of the Camara operation in Ireland that are not transferable to a Camara operation on the ground in Africa, at the top of my list would have been the volunteering dimension.

Camara has only a few full-time staff (far too few - they are all brilliant, capable people but completely over worked!). Operationally it really depends on key volunteers giving their time consistently each week so that a constant stream of quality computers are being delivered to schools in Africa. At this stage in its evolution Camara is no essentially a production line with the capacity to deliver about 500+ computers a month to Africa.

In the developed world volunteering is in many ways a luxury. We have time to give back to society because we do not have to worry about basic survival needs. Infrastructure is in place and systems are there to allow people take time out and give of themselves.

There is no such luxury in the developing world. People have more basic needs to look after like eating that day, supporting their family, managing illnesses like Malaria etc. People rarely take holidays here - they simply cannot afford to - there is no social welfare system - people just look after one another in the hope that they will be looked after when they need help and so on.

And despite the fact that life is much tougher here you still get a sense that the positive dimensions of the human spirit are much more prevalent than back at home! People really know how to look after one another here - we seem to have forgotten that.

So with that background I was totally taken aback when I discovered that over 700 people signed up to be volunteers in the Skomara digital hub.

People have come from all walks of life. Older members of the community, young people, men and women Christian and Muslim have all signed up. Some people have backgrounds in ICT, some have none but everyone sees value in being a part of this new initiative.

The hub is only running three months and already volunteers are training others with the basic knowledge that they have. If somebody works out how to swap a CD drive, suddenly there is a course on that and everyone gathers round 'the trainer' to learn the new skill. Its quite extraordinary. Knowledge is not protected here - its shared because there seems to be an implicit understanding that shared knowledge benefits all.

I stay late most evenings chatting to everyone trying to get a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the place. Volunteers who earn literally nothing pay for public transport to arrive here early each morning, stay the whole day giving of their time and energy and then leaving late in the evening. They are all immensely proud of what they do. That would seem to be key. Many of them say that without the hub they would be doing nothing and that working here gives them a sense of pride in themselves.

One evening, I went over to the training centre and found a volunteer called Abdul sitting at the computers. Abdul is one of the most committed volunteers in the project. He describes himself as a human rights activist and a person who is committed to community building. Before the hub he had never even touched a computer before. He has amazing hand writing and so he does all the signs around the hub and is meticulous in everything he does.

I asked him what was he doing. He told me that each evening when the training centre is empty he sits down at the computers and goes through the Camara Skill builder program (this is the basic ICT course that we provide in hard and soft copies to all the schools with Camara labs). He told me that he never imagined that he would have an opportunity to learn about computers and that as soon as he was ICT literate he was going to use his skills teaching other members in the communities he supports (for free!).

I tell this story not to evoke compassion for Abdul and the other volunteers more to point out that giving people the opportunity to learn and participate in a project is as important to their dignity as anything else? Obviously you cannot exploit this! Our intention here in the hub is that enterprise activity is generated so that people get rewarded for their efforts. Volunteers are giving their time and resources for free here but you cannot sustain that. However it has really struck me that we have come to associate giving someone a wage to giving someone their dignity and that is not the case here. Giving somebody the opportunity to learn really does give the person their dignity.

Sending this from the new Open Source Cyber Cafe on the Digital Hub!

Gary

Saturday 19 April 2008

A new kind of bank - a new kind of currency

I visited the same family that has already featured on this blog on a number of occasions, yesterday afternoon. Everyone is in good health including the youngest girl who I was quite concerned about last year. At that time she had looked quite malnourished. Yesterday she looked wonderful and was bright and cheerful and full of energy.

On the way to the house I noticed that the roads were paved and that a large shopping centre is being built near where the family lives. Despite the difficulties Kenya faced during the elections it does seem that things are improving here.

I was only with the family for about 30 minutes. During that time the Mum took a telephone call from her own Mother who is ill at the moment. The older woman lives in Nairobi and needed 350 schillings (about 3.5euros) for some medicine urgently.

My first reaction was that the Mother was wasting money by ringing her daughter with the request. Instead something really interesting happened....

Safaricom (the main mobile operator here) has a system that allows you transfer mobile phone credit from one account to another for free. You simply type in a couple of keystrokes including the mobile number of who you want to transfer the money to, and a security pin number and then press call. Both parties then get notified of the transfer.

Notice that this is effectively peer to peer banking. Whats also really interesting is that you can now use 'mobile phone credit' as a valid currency of exchange. Mobile phone credit is considered so important here that you can give somebody credit (as above ) and receive goods or a service to the equivalent value. The Mother of my friend was going to use her phone credit to pay the pharmacist for her medicine!

Why does this work? The system of exchange is completely safe and no physical money is required for these transactions. There are no fees for the transaction. In a poor country where crime (and in particular robbery) is a serious problem there is a real need to be able to carry out mcro transactions like this. Mobile phones are still stolen of course but the money in the accounts is not. And since the money in the accounts is small there is no real incentive to hold the bank up so to speak!


Its a great example of where technology can challenge old ways of doing things in a transformational way if everyone is allowed participate. Without probably meaning to, a new form of banking and a new currency have emerged from the mobile phone system being accessible to even the poorest person here (on that note the mobile charges are still ridculously expensive but hopefully that will change in time).

If you are in the banking sector and reading this I would seriously take note! In my (humble!)opinion banks should make money on keeping money safe and investing it well. They should not make money on transactions.

If you are in the mobile phone business please do not even consider charging for a service like this. The indirect benefits far exceed any short term profit making here - mobile phones are effectively becoming digital wallets and allowing people to engage in commerce and entreprise that will ultimately beneift everyone including business;)

Gary

Friday 18 April 2008

Back in Mombasa




I arrived in Mombasa late last night. Its good to be back! The wonderful smell of African cooking is a fantastic reminder to me of this fabulous country.

I visited the Camara digital hub first thing this morning and was blown away by the progress so far. We started this project last Summer with some old empty warehouses in the Sheikh Kalifa school on the Malindi rd. Its humble origins were unrecognisable this morning - its a thriving dynamic place, full of volunteers, trainers and students. There is storage section, a refubishment centre, a realy nice little social area and now, a just completed training section. Over 700 people have registered with the Hub so far as volunteers and over 500 computers have already been refurbished and distributed to local schools.

The demand for its services seems to be growing all the time. More and more schools are asking for Camara open source computer labs and the associated training - the hub is the ideal vehicle to meet this need.

Its very inspiring to see it up and running and further reinforces in my mind that this is absolutely the right way to go in terms of moving Camara forward.

I will write more over the next few weeks (and hopefully upload some photos).

Gary