Part of the benefits of at least signing up for the ICT Uganda Association is that you get fast access to information technology related events that take place throughout the city (the suggestion has been made to take the events further into the country). Thus we begin this blog with a suggestion-get membership or at least subscribe to mailing lists related to ICT.
One of the participants in his introduction reminded the attendants that there had been a notable shift in attendance favoring Women. A plus point that was appreciated by the Women who attended and re-emphasized by the Lilliane Nalwoga (President of the Uganda Chapter of Internet society).
There was a review of previous meetings and discussions regarding the forum in 2014 which dealt in some length with some of the topics that were handled as well as introduced new topics that we would deal with.
A quick look at the attendance
A quick survey of those in attendance reveals quite a number of business people, representatives from Universities, young people from innovation hubs (such as those who have benefitted from competitions that have now become common place). In addition to this members of our active press core. The Observer, New Vision's Brenda Kembabazi (she does an ICT development and innovation show).
This day's event revealed a trend that many of us have become accustomed to. The ability to wear many hats. What this means is that many the attendants are not only handling this event but dealing with multiple other projects and platforms.
Round One
The first session was designed around the subject of Internet Infrastructure and Local Content in Uganda.
The NTF consult CEO talked about innovation and the need for paradigm shifts. He emphasized the need to differentiate between the circle of influence and the circle of concern. The latter lies right outside the former and quickly disappears when we learn to expand our circle of influence.
Paul Ngabirano presented NITA's perspective on some of the current policy issues and emphasized the groups desire to work on infrastructure related challenges. He also spoke about NITA's commitment to the creation of more Internet connection alternatives (redundancy).
Kyle Spencer director of the Internet exchange point gave a detailed description about some of the new players in the market as well as some of the distance related challenges.
Brian Ssennoga presented the perspective of the free and open software movement and the need to create partnerships between government and the education sector.
Take aways and suggestions
Open Source software has brought about quite a disruption in the technology space by creating a new model for the design of software.
We have also seen the strained relationship between Linux users and developers and their counterparts in Microsoft.
It would be good if more of these events were held in the periphery of the Country to encourage the rural populations to develop and cultivate an interest in some of these technologies. It turns out, that Chinese Emperors also faced the challenge of demonstrating the effectiveness of their central governments by measuring their successes in the periphery.
Defining Internet Service Provision
There was some difficulty defining the term internet service provider. What happens if with the purchase an internet dongle, i use my router and windows experience software to distribute that connection to my neighbors for a cost? Does that make me an internet service provider?
Practical Tips to cutting your internet costs
The age of the night time bundle is on us. If you air advantage of 2500/= packages between Midnight and Six in the morning you could save a lot of money.
Round Two
The attendants were thrilled when a presentation was given by a young man (Moses Owiny) who articulated the difficulties of translating Internet freedoms in a frighteningly male dominated society to enthusiastic women. WOUGNET focuses on gender issues in ICT related laws and policies.
Juliet Nanfuka of Cipesa dealt with subjects such as censorship, Internet freedom and rights. The organization she represents covers Africa and reports on technology and internet freedoms with a special focus on vulnerable groups such as women, children and civil society activists such as human rights advocates. The attendants were reminded of the extensive and well designed laws in Uganda but expressed dismay at the inability to put these well written laws into action.
Kyle Spencer dealt a little more with the subject of net neutrality.
A (Emmanuel) representative from NITA also shed some light on toolkits that were developed in collaboration with the Internet society.
Lillianne Nalwoga also helped clarify Uganda's position on child protection as well as provide some insights into previous significant events that were held in the Country such as the child protection summit.
Round Three
These were perhaps the most intense and technical sessions dealing with naming, numbers, authorities both local and international, protocols and internet addresses and the challenges of transitioning to new more capable systems.
We also has a talk by the ICT ministry representative (Kenneth Bagarukayo). We were able to see the relationships between NITA, ICT ministry, Uganda Commutations Commission (UCC). In addition to this he charted a way forward for the ccTLD
Policy men and Practical men.
It was refreshing to hear the views of a predominantly technical core group as opposed to other sessions or meetings that had people with policy expertise.
The moderator-a teacher by profession Ambrose Ruyooka has also done some work with the Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS annual performance report). His summaries of the proceedings in that particular event in all it's length and complexity was very impressive.
1)The Quality of our Human Resource.
The previous problem relating to graduate skills was death with by establishing Business Process Outsourcing courses geared entirely on talk centers and other marketing and client related support services.
2)Localization and free software.
The need to fight for localization by using Ubuntu and other open source systems and platforms such as Mozilla (the Uganda team has dome a lot of work involving language in some parts in Northern Uganda).
3)The need to differentiate between innovation and imitation.
4)Policies that regulate hardware especially with regards to Internet technologies which change often and can result in devices that do not last long on the market.
Why we called them rounds
We chose to call these rounds because some of the exchanges were very intense. Invitation to the space as a panelist was a kin to a crucifixion to of the unprepared. But was balanced by some measure of humor.
The ascot races and the hats?
Image from Glamor.com
