This was a very intense week for the
country especially for the gate keepers of its technology space.
There we gathering that were designed to attract technology ministers
from across the region as well as other business providers.
I could not help but think about the
average basic organism. The single cell organism is most basic in its
structure and functions at two basic levels. The first is internal.
Dealing with food, growth, cell division and taking instructions from
the nucleus. The Second has to do with its interactions with its
environment. Movement and growth, dealing with neighbors and finding
food...and yes dealing with threats.
So the structure of the meetings that
took place this week will be viewed largely in this method.
Internals
Your organization and its interals
whether that has to do with growth and expansion of your group and
its brand. And so many signed up for this meeting with the hope of
learning a lot more about internal dynamics. How are other companies
organizing their staff and their products as well as technologies.
The need to hire more staff and to
train and develop the staff that you already have.
Externals
Government to Government
Business (Local) to Business (Global)
Business (Services) to Governments
Business (Products) to Governments
Business (Products) to Business
(Products)
Business (Services) to Business
(Services)
Business (Services) to Business
(Products)
Education to Business (Services)
Education to Business (Products)
Education to Government
Approach
The need to interact with additional
players in your field of influence both for nourishment and for
growth. In this regard we spotted some interesting appearances at the
meeting. The government of Uganda for example split up its teams to
ensure that they covered all the relevant possible players.
The Ministry of Education and Sports
split up their participation (for the roundtables) to include:
- Curriculum Development and Teacher Training
- Higher Education Technical Vocational Educational and Training
- ICT for Education
- Ministry Top Table
- ICT Ministry
As a sub-group, the larger Universities
sought their own spaces Kyambogo, Mbarara University of Science and
Technology and Makerere University were represented in the local and
international space.
The South Africans chose to split their
teams largely between education and technology.
- Basic Education
- Education, Gauteng Province
- Ministry of Science and Technology
- Ministry of Telecommunications
Larger groups simply sought to gain
more coverage for their brands as well as to find links in which
governments would directly sign contracts with them for hardware,
software and other services (and possibly collaborations).
Visibility
In the advance of across the Education
space we spotted innovations such as the MTN Educational Internet
Bus which is a great way to make inroads into the educaiton
sector as well as push the companies mobile internet platfrom (and
speeds). This is probably a global trend with other players such as
facebook and google also attempting to bridge what they
see as a technlogy and internet divide across the third world. Both
have pushed ideas where they sought to place satelites and
internet balloons into the upper atmosphere to increase acess
to the internet.
Samsung was also on site to
demonstrate what a solar powered mobile internet school would
look like.
It should be noted that the marked
difference between the Samsung and MTN approach is that they have
both chosen to be visible. Both google and facebook have a seeking to
create solutions that are long term-yes but nom-visible.
Interaction
The interaction between Education and
Business (Global) has been interesting because international
businsesses have found that it might be much cheaper dealing with
fresh recruits (students on campus and at innovation centers) to help
develop new ideas as opposed to having to mine for innovations from
entrenched staff members who may often also be much more costly. In
addition to this, these companies have held ntohing back in making
sure that young students (talent) from top universities have access
to their devices both for advertising as well as for devleopment
(student led google developper days).
