TechPlus+ | Technology & Development Redux
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Out of (South) Africa
Read more: Out of (South) AfricaFlying from Maputo to Johannesburg, which takes 45 minutes, is an efficient gateway to easily notice the huge gap between the two countries. The same goes for most of the sub-Saharan African nations. It is almost like flying from Mozambique to a Latin American country at the speed of sound. The first time I visited…
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Maputo in May, again
Read more: Maputo in May, againSix months is probably not a long time to expect and run into major changes in most countries. Mozambique is, of course, no exception. Maputo is still an intriguing city with its beautiful geographical surroundings and coastline that hosts the grayish Indian Ocean. Unlike New York City, time in Maputo is less expensive and much…
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Africa ICTD Strategies Workshop
Read more: Africa ICTD Strategies WorkshopToday we had a lunch meeting with Salomao Manica (ICT Policy Commission), Laureno Chemane (ICT Policy Commission), Aeneas Chuma (DRR) and Violet Kakyomya (PO). Salomao started by explaining the reasons as to why they would rather not hold a meeting with 8 countries (one powerful being the issue of country selection, the second the issue…
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Meeting with the Advisory Board of Ireland Aid
Read more: Meeting with the Advisory Board of Ireland AidStephen, Radhika and I met with the Advisory Board. Yuri Afanasiev from RBEC was also present. After the presentation by Stephen, members of the delegation raised serious concerns about the relevance of ICT vis-�-vis other development priorities. They saw huge obstacles in practical terms for Africa in relation to infrastructure, basic education and capacity commitment…
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SDNP Malawi
Read more: SDNP MalawiMalawi SDNP Meeting with Azusa Kuwota, PO Malawi CO. The future of SDNP is at stake and after 7 years of supporting the programme the CO is eager to make it an independent entity. For this purpose, a national consultant was recruited earlier this year to assess the situation and issue recommendations. The consultant was…
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Dominican Republic BTOR
Read more: Dominican Republic BTORBack to Office Report Mission to Dominican Republic 21-25 April 2003 Garry Garriott, SURF Panam�, and I visited the country at the request of the CO who recently signed an MoU with INDOTEL, the Dominican telecom regulator. The main purpose of the mission was to kick start the process for the elaboration and finalisation of…
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Dominican Republic
Read more: Dominican RepublicThis was my first time back in Santo Domingo since 1999. I must admit the city has changed quite a bit. The first thing one notices is the development of physical infrastructure, buildings and roads specially. The long and beautiful ride from the airport to Santo Domingo has now been transformed into a 6 lane…
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TTF Working Group Meeting
Read more: TTF Working Group MeetingBDP organised a TTF manager discussion to address the issues that have emerged regarding the management and allocation processes for TTFs. The first item for discussion was the presentation of the TTF report to the EB in the summer. BRSP informed us that a special session of the EB will be held in September to…
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Meeting with UNF – Conectas Project
Read more: Meeting with UNF – Conectas ProjectI met with Malak Poppovic (UNF Senior Advisor, Sao Paolo) and Lena Sinha (BRSP) to discuss the above project and identify potential for collaboration. Conectas (http://www.conectas.org) is a non-gov, non-profit network working on human rights on a global scale. One of their priorities is to use of ICT to enhance collaboration and information exchange (I…
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OSS Follow-up IDRC/Bellanet
Read more: OSS Follow-up IDRC/BellanetI spoke to Mark Faul from Bellanet on the above. We agreed to: – organise a conference call next week with UNESCO, UNDP, USAID & Bellanet to see if we can coordinate our efforts. – support the workshops in Peru (August), Paris (November) and others is available – discuss the Open Source Resource Centres in…
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Bridge-IT Global Support Team meeting in DC
Read more: Bridge-IT Global Support Team meeting in DCNokia, IYF, Pearson and UNDP held its quarterly meeting on 4 April. The meeting concentrated on 3 central isssues: International launching for Philippines pilot in May; discussion on the guidelines for visual representation of the partnership including use of logos; set up of conditions for pilot scalability and replicability at the country level. The launch…
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Meetings with WB/DGF in DC
Read more: Meetings with WB/DGF in DCYesterday afternoon I visited he offices of the DG at the WB. I met with Sid Kane to introduce me to gateway stuff. I also met Carlos Braga and Robert Valentin. The meeting with Carlos centred on OS. The WB is agnostic about OS but will advice governments on the advantages/disadvantages of OS if requested…
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Visit to Microsoft
Read more: Visit to MicrosoftBruce Jenks, Stephen Browne, Sarah McCue and I traveled to Seattle to discuss with MS a potential partnership on e-learning and related initiatives. The meeting took place on Friday, 21 March 2003. Here are my notes. MS key ideas and issues – MS has rallied three parts of the company to work along the lines…
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2nd Open Source Conference in DC
Read more: 2nd Open Source Conference in DCAtsushi and I attended the conference which went from 17th to 19 March. The focus of this one was on OSS efforts in the US, Europe and Japan. We made several contracts, including: – UNESCO: possible collaboration on OS, have a keen interest. A regional OS workshop in Perú is being planned by their regional…
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UN ICT Task Force Meeting
Read more: UN ICT Task Force MeetingStephen, Radhika and I met with Sarbuland Khan and Sergey Kambalov to discuss a) ICTD Strategies workshop and b) follow-up to high level meeting of this morning with the UN on WSIS The TF expressed interest in supporting the proposed workshop in Mozambique and agreed in principle to fund part of it. They have 60k…