Anyway, I’ll be in Seattle next week, and I will update you on the progress of this year’s Computers for Uganda team.

I want to note that this is the first year the CFU team has been entirely self-sustainable, thanks to InterConnection Uganda. Rock on.

The Inveneo PC. 20 Watts, with an external battery that charges from a solar panel. The Inveneo website has a little more information.

Mark Summer, the man from Inveneo who responded to my email, has been in contact with John and Fredrik over the past year, and is now best friends with Johnorable (earlier I had a post of John showing off his new Inveneo PC). And next week Inveneo is holding their official launch in Kampala. Also, InterConnection Uganda and a few other local companies (one of them is Denis’s CLS) are partnering with Inveneo, and InterConnection will probably end up providing most of the storage for these PCs.

Soon, after Inveneo can generate some income, they can start to mass produce these PCs and lower the prices. Who knows, maybe in a decade everyone in Uganda will have an Inveneo PC. It’s going to be amazing progress, and it’s something that Uganda (and all of Africa) really needs…I can’t wait to see where this goes next.

Anyway…today, after over a year and a half I finally got to meet Mark!

We exchanged some data, I gave him a tour of InterConnection, we talked about MIT a little, and he gave me some tips about a potential project idea I have and suggested a few programs that I could use for the center. (Thanks, Mark!)

And of course we both talked about the different operating systems and how Windows is…

I’ll just leave it at that, because we like Microsoft too, right?

Last night she interviewed me, and I was struck by a particular question she asked.

So why do you keep coming back to Uganda?

This year is my third visit back, but I was so caught up in the technical work behind setting up InterConnection Uganda that I forgot for a bit why I was here. I had one train of thought: get this place up and running. But that was it…and I sometimes felt a little empty, like I was missing something. And I was.

I didn’t do the CFU lab installations this year. I was missing the Ugandan students.

I see so much potential in this country. But that potential I can’t see in the adults—they’ve settled, and many have lost motivation to find a better future. There is a lack of creativity, a lack of initiative to bring about change.

But when I visit the schools and see how eager the students are to learn, I know there must be a driving force behind that motivation. It may seem that they, too, like the adults, have grown accustomed to a life of poverty when you see them laughing and playing on the streets like nothing is wrong. But every ounce of knowledge that the students gain from their classes is another call, another pull towards a better life. Education is taken seriously here—it is the only way out.

Unfortunately, not every child has access to an educational facility. And many times the schools here just don’t do their job right (although this problem isn’t new to much of the developed world). And so as a result, many children grow up with almost a disabled sense of creativity, yet their country is ripe with opportunity. They blame the “African curse,” that no matter how hard they try, they just can’t get out of poverty.

They are waiting for things to come to them.

That’s how people are raised. In many schools one textbook is shared between multiple students, and most of the learning comes from listening to the teacher lecture—when would you ever have time to read that textbook on your own? And so the information, the learning comes to them. There is no effort, no real incentive to go out and search for it.

Now I come from a public high school, and I’ve experienced many occasions when I thought the education I was receiving wasn’t adequate enough, so I supplemented it. But I had my own textbook. I had my computer, the Internet, online library catalogs, and when I didn’t think the information was accurate enough, I could bike to the library. I had those extra resources.

I remember the first training session we had at Bukalasa during the CFU 2005 visit. I remember letting the students loose on the computer, watching them look things up in Encarta, watching them absorb the information. There was no Internet connection in that school…so an encyclopedia like Encarta was probably the next best thing at that point. The students were hungry for information. Here was a computer, a huge, gigantic, compressed library of information. And if they just had access to the Internet…

I believe that Information Technology can provide unlimited resources, without a heavy price load (like creating a library would). I see so much potential in the children of Uganda, in their country’s resources, and I want nothing more than for them to think creatively.

We can’t solve the world’s problems by bringing aid to developing nations, the change must come internally, it must come from the people—and especially, it must come from the younger generation. Aid may help, but it’s really only useful if it can provide resources for people learn and develop their own incentive for change. You have to get the people involved. If you give, and give nothing will ever change, people will just become more reliant on that aid. (Again it’s the ‘information’ coming to them.)

The computer is a very interactive activity. Information won’t come out of it unless you look for it. And that’s what makes it so great. There is creativity involved here.

So I guess you can say I come back for that…to bring fuel for creativity. Because every wide-eyed student I meet can change this country. I want to see them contribute to the economy by creating new, innovative businesses. I want to see them investigate the problems in their communities on their own and actually have resources to find solutions. I want to teach them to teach themselves, and I think there is no better and cheaper tool for that in this environment than a computer and access to the Internet.

It’s a good thing that there are two schools left over because of the late container shipment. I guess I will get that chance to set up a lab and meet with the students once again this year.

We left for Entebbe at around 4:30 in the morning and got to the airport entrance right before sunrise.

There was a mad rush to get the bags out of the matatu and the bus.

And after everyone found their bags, they said their goodbyes.

Meanwhile, Johnorable was lecturing Fredrik about…well…just about everything. (The car ride over here was quite interesting.)

Then, after all the excitement, all the drama, all the adventures, all the labs, all the work, the team was heading home.

And I was staying behind. (This is certainly a new experience!) As Fredrik said, “Wow, Biyeun, I’d never thought I would be saying goobye to you in Africa.” Maybe next year the team can stay longer…

And by the time the sun had risen, the team was inside and ready to go.

See you next year, guys. Mwelaba.

Anyway, today, just following the awesome dinner/dance party and the Vice President’s, we’re heading to the State House where the First Lady has invited the CFU team for lunch (talk about your crazy weekends). She was so touched by their hard work, and was especially thankful to them for installing a lab in one of her chosen schools this year. So this was her goodbye party for them.

The food was lovely (although nothing can quite beat the VP’s barbecue), provided by the Sheraton right across the street from the State House. As you can see, the team was enjoying it…a nice break after a long two and a half weeks.

During lunch a few of us got up to present some gifts to the First Lady.

Serena gave Mamma Janet a formal invitation to go to her high school (Forest Ridge in Washington State)—she had invited her beforehand at the computer lab handover ceremony.

The two Janets meet! Dr. Janet Graeber, by the way, is the woman who started this whole project five years ago with Johnorable. She was the only headmaster from all the high schools that John emailed in Washington State to respond to his email about the CFU project. We have her to thank for this amazing experience.

Now it was my turn to give a gift: an MIT T-shirt for Mamma Janet, and an MIT pen for the President.

Wow. That was soooo cool.

After a few goodbyes, a group photo (I need to get that from the staff photos sometime!), we headed off to the CFU bus.

On the way out we received an unexpected but amazing honor: a Presidential Honor Guard Salute.

Now, that…was awesome.

Christina was scheduled to arrive at 2:00pm in Entebbe, but John the Driver got a little mixed up on what the schedule was, so we didn’t leave until 1:50pm. Ooops. I hope she’ll be okay.

By the time we made it to the airport, the passengers were just leaving the airplane. It turns out that they had delayed the flight by an hour. Wow…what timing.

Then things got even nuttier.

John, Christina, and I hung around Entebbe until about 6 pm, waiting for the Computers for Uganda team to arrive. On the agenda today: Meeting with the Vice President of Uganda at his beach house in Entebbe.

Wait…what?!

The dinner at the VP’s was lovely: A Ugandan barbecue complete with different types of meat, matooke, plantains, and you know…the good stuff (most of which I’m not allergic to!). We were entertained the whole night by an excellent dance troupe which performed a dance from all of the different regions of Uganda. In the meantime I was able to give the Vice President an MIT hat and pen, and invited him to come to MIT…!!

The VP is a very nice man, by the way. He’s very friendly and loves to interact with people, no matter what their social status is. He’s also very passionate about education and ICT (he sponsored one of the schools that the CFU team visited this year by funding them to set up the appropriate facilities to house the computers). Although there are quite a few corrupt politicians in Uganda and all of Africa, it’s nice to see that there are some genuinely caring people in office. With his wonderful personality, I think the VP has a good chance at running for President if he wanted to.

The most exciting moment of the night: The dance troupe came over to where we were sitting, the Vice President pulled out a drum, and a lot of dancing ensued.

Now, how awesome is that?!

Dance, John, dance!

I’ve been practicing too, ya know.

It’s a disco in here!

And so appropriately, after the song was over (actually *just* as the last drum beat ended) the power went out.

Shaun then got out his camera and we used the flash as a strobe. Haha…discotheque at the VP’s.

I love this country.

Today is the big day. We got to InterConnection Uganda under little sleep very early in the morning to make last minute preparations. Three ministers were going to be here today, including Johnorable. The guest of honor is the Minister of Education and Trade.

And coming along with with the important dignitaries, instructors, and businessmen, is a horde of reporters. Yikes.

The ceremony went very well, even though it started about an hour late (our guest of honor was a little behind schedule thanks to a man from Microsoft—not Fredrik).

While we were waiting for the Minister, we headed off to take a look at the M.T.A.C. Lab.

We’re giving them computers periodically over the next two years as a barter for the warehouse space.

Finally the minister arrived, and we headed back to the conference hall where the administrator of M.T.A.C. introduced all of us.

Being a little camera shy I prefer to stay in the background and take the pictures myself during these big events, so I sat far on the right in the front audience row…away from the table where the three ministers, Fredrik, and Brenda (our excellent general manager!) were seated and posed to give their speeches.

First Johnorable gave his speech—it was long enough but to the point I think, although sometimes he does tend to ramble.

Then Fredrik gave his speech (always inspiring)…

…and then the Minister of Education gave his quite long, rambling, but incredibly passionate speech about IT.

He truly believed that the future of Uganda’s educational system will be determined by information technology—especially access to the Internet. He was very appreciative of InterConnection Uganda and was inspired to see that finally doors were opened for people to get affordable computers.

Then (in typical Computers for Uganda fashion) Brenda handed over the plaque for the M.T.A.C. lab to the Minister.

After that, a big group photo of all the launch participants…

And then we all headed over to InterConnection for the ribbon cutting and the grand tour…

Apparently the Minister really liked the titanium scissors that we handed to him for the ribbon cutting…

And, finally, the big moment of the day…

one…
two…
three…

InterConnection Uganda is finally open!

Inside, the Minister, reporters, and other guests get a tour of the facilities.

Kyakawa is in the refurbishing side appearing hard at work…

After the scene has cooled down a bit, and the big shots leave for home, we take a mini group photos with all of the partners involved in the project.

And much later, it’s the official InterConnection Uganda team photo!

From right to left:
Me (chief technical advisor), Mathias (chief refurbisher, electrician, and 007), Brenda (general manager), Godfrey (publicity advisor, but he’s really Johnorable’s IT man), Sophie (sales), Robert (cleaner and refurbisher in training), Fredrik (president of ICU Holdings, LLC), Nicholas (sales and PR), and Kyakawa (refurbishing guru).

Wait, that picture was too serious…

LOL, Godfrey….

Anyway, I’d like to end this entry with Fredrik’s speech, which conveyed InterConnection Uganda’s purpose perfectly. (Thanks, Godfrey, for editing it.)

——–
Dear Dignitaries, Hon. Ministers, Members of Parliament, permanent secretary of ICT, representative from Ministry of Education, Executive Director for MTAC and board members present, partners, ladies and gentlemen.

I want to welcome you all to the ‘Grand Opening’ of InterConnection Uganda.

This is a day to celebrate the realization of a dream we have had for about a year now: As you all know, and heard from Hon. Nsambu this project is an outgrowth of the Computers for Uganda project started by him and Dr. Graeber of Forest Ridge High School in Seattle, Washington State, in the USA. For five years now students from Forest Ridge, Mount Si and South Kitsap high schools have been collecting second-hand PCs from companies in the Seattle area. They refurbished them at home, shipped them here to Uganda and have been visiting in every June and July to install computer labs and provide some basic computer training in Primary and Secondary schools here. I want to thank Hon. Nsambu for this initiative: It is a fantastic program where all participants win—there is no reason why it should not continue for many, many years to come—and we at InterConnection Uganda want to help make that a reality!

Last year when I was here we discussed the opportunity to have the refurbishing efforts take place here in Uganda rather than in the United States. This would provide important skills development, job and economic opportunities locally and contribute to the sustainability of the project. To achieve this we partnered with an already successful refurbishment and personal computer reuse company in Seattle: InterConnection Seattle. Their experience has been extremely helpful in getting our center started! It is important to stress that InterConnection Uganda is an initiative that will sustain itself financially: In addition to partnering closely with the Computers for Uganda project we will offer refurbished computers for sale at very reasonable prices to schools, computer retailers, NGOs, companies and individuals. At a minimum, 10% of the PCs refurbished here will be donated to school labs through Computers for Uganda.
We want to be part of a cycle of education, discovery of local ICT relevance and economic opportunity and I’d like to say a few things about that…

First, education: This is where it all starts and where the Computers for Uganda project has already impacted by setting up over 50 school labs, a total of 600 PCs, and thousands of primary and secondary students being exposed to the power of the personal computer—many of them have also been able to use the Internet from their schools.

As I said, it all starts with education, but without local relevance the ICT education becomes useless knowledge. It is important that we encourage the students who learn about ICT to explore how it can provide relevant and valuable services here in Uganda; starting from simple secretarial services for small businesses to communicating commodity prices to local farmers, assisting NGOs to achieve their goals, or helping address critical health care and other governmental challenges facing Uganda… This is no simple task and will require creativity and collaboration. It is here that we want to contribute by bringing United States college students like Biyeun, who attends the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to work with her fellow Information Technology students here in Uganda. Together we hope they will be able to discover many viable and relevant applications using ICT that are specifically beneficial in Uganda. One solution she is area already exploring is to understand what it will take to integrate the world of computers with mobile phones—it is no secret that there are many more mobile phones in Uganda than computers. Tying them together in a single network should provide powerful solutions & services.

Such services will in turn translate to opportunities for solving key social and economical problems, value creation, jobs and income: With good ideas and an entrepreneurial spirit we will see further creation of wealth—maybe we will see some “Ugandan Bill Gates” very soon?

It would be our hope that the people gaining from the introduction of ICT in Uganda will themselves contribute and ‘pay back’ in supporting the education of future generation of ICT entrepreneurs—thus completing the cycle of education, relevance and opportunity.

It is an honor and a privilege for InterConnection Uganda to help contribute to this. We hope the products and services we provide can be a seed for much positive development and we want to do it in a socially responsible manner: There is much talk about PCs, TVs and other electronic waste being dumped on countries like Uganda from the corners of the world. We want to make sure that every computer shipped from InterConnection Uganda will be disposed of in an environmentally proper fashion. We are already in discussion with UNIDO and Microsoft on how to solve this problem – with them and others as partners we will avoid polluting the environment with the hardware we are bringing in. This project is the second project Biyeun is already exploring over the next several weeks and we invite participation and collaboration with other parties here in Uganda.
In closing and to quickly summarize: We like to see students learn ICT technology, discover how this learning can be applied locally to create economic opportunity for themselves and their families & communities. By creating value, they can themselves become prosperous and contribute to further education of the future generation of ICT professionals—for InterConnection to contribute to this cycle in a socially responsible manner is our most important goal.

The staff we have assembled for InterConnection Uganda: Brenda, Sophie, Nicholas, Kyakawa, Mathias and Robert (can you all please stand) are up for this challenge and we are all excited to get started.

Thank you.
————

In other news…I rode my first boda-boda today!

Boda-bodas are these motorcycles that you see all over Uganda weaving in between the cars, going through the ditches, and generally causing all sorts havoc in the traffic (they are not as bad as matatus though).

People here use boda-bodas to get to places fast when there’s a lot of traffic, but if there’s no rush it’s better to use a matatu—unless you have a death wish. They are called boda-bodas because they were the vehicles that people used primarily to sneak across the border to get away from Uganda during Idi Amin’s reign.

Anyway, although I don’t have any death wishes that I’m aware of, I was certainly in a rush today. When we got to InterConnection Uganda at 7:45 am I realized that my contact had fallen out and since I’m nearly blind there was no way I could get any work done, especially since we were planning to stay very late today to get the center ready for the grand opening tomorrow. Added to that, Fredrik wanted to go with me to meet someone from the Garameen Foundation today to discuss his idea about cellphones and data collection, and we needed to leave by 9:00 am. So I jumped in a matatu and headed back to Johnorable’s house. Unfortunately the matatu line stops 15 minutes away from my destination. I reached the stopping point at around 8:25 and thought that I had enough time to jog to his house, no boda-boda needed. I got to John’s house a few minutes later, got my contacts in, changed into a little more formal business attire (I had forgotten completely about the meeting this morning…oops), and left at 8:45. Shoot. Fifteen minutes left…there’s no way I can wait for a matatu to arrive at the stopping point. So I ran to the street yelled “Boda!” The boda-boda stopped immediately.

“Where do you want to go?”

“The taxi park.”

“1,000 shillings.” That is so overpriced, but I didn’t have time to argue so I hopped on.

Oh my goodness, that was a scary experience. Johnorable, I hope you aren’t reading this. Anyway, I got to taxi park five minutes later (considerably less time than the matatu) and grabbed a matatu heading to InterConnection immediately. Whew. I managed to get back exactly at 9:00 am, and Fredrik and I departed for our meeting.

We met with the Garameen Foundation man at MTN’s Village Phone office. We talked for a while, but it seemed to us that the project they were working on (somewhat similar to what we were trying to pull off) was not really off the ground too much. Anyway, contact information was exchanged and we left to take a look at one of InterConnection Uganda’s first potential big clients—a data entry business called International Data Solutions. Very interesting place. The company had only a few machines at the moment, which the employees were using to convert handwritten things (in this case it was a very early U.S. Census) into digital information.

After all that we headed back to InterConnection where we made the final, last-minute preparations for tomorrow. It’s going to be absolutely insane.

I set to work organizing all the internal components on the parts shelf, the keyboards, and mice. In the meantime, M.T.A.C., the management and technical educational institution that’s allowing us to use the warehouse space, came today for their share of computers (our barter for the warehouse).

At one point the power went out, and we attempted to get the generator hooked up.

…but we failed miserably.

Later, Fredrik, Rudi, and I had dinner with the Katahoire family at a very nice Indian resturant. Dr. Katahoire is the Chairman of the Ugandan Communications Commission. We discussed our plans for InterConnection Uganda and then about Fredrik’s idea of intergrating Microsoft SmartPhones with PCs to collect data from SMS messages sent from normal “dumb” phones. But we’ll talk more about that in time.

We took her to “The Surgery,” a medical center that is supposedly endorsed by the U.S. Embassy. Since Brenda was at work today at the South African Embassy, Fredrik had to drive us around in Kampala. I was actually quite impressed with his driving. When we had to make a major right turn (like a left turn for all of you who drive on the right side of the road) he just busted right through two lanes of cars. Oh yes, they backed off. They were probably thinking, uh oh, a Muzungu driving…better get out of the way!

We waited an hour or so at The Surgery. I spent most of the time playing with my camera and observing the very green and unclean fish tank.

Jackie kept herself busy by reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat…

…and Fredrik played games on his SmartPhone.

At this point I was thinking…we totally need House.

Eventually Jackie was called in by a doctor who looked like “Willy Wonka on steroids.” He gave her a few pills and then asked for a stool sample—which, eh, must have been difficult since she hadn’t had much to eat. The Doc gets a sample, and we make our way out the door thinking that we’ll get a call with the results later that day. No, not even two minutes had passed and the doctor was rushing out to tell us that Jackie had “ornery food poisoning.”

That was fast.

And in the meantime he managed to research Johnorable and confirm that, yes, he was one of the few uncorrupted and genuine Ugandan politicians. Wow. Seriously on steroids, or speed, or whatever, buddy.

Anyway, we left and headed back to InterConnection, but all the while Jackie was just getting sicker and sicker. She called her mother to tell her the results, but her mother is already talking about bringing her home. Jackie has been trying to take Cipro over the weekend and she’s now switched to the new medicine she received from the doctor. However, because of her regular vomiting the medicine is just not being absorbed by her system. At this point she might need intravenous antibiotics.

Now her mother is insisting that Jackie take the next flight out of Entebbe tonight.

We drove back to The Surgery to get a confirmation from the doctor that she has ornery food poisoning so that she can fly home under the travel insurance that her parents bought for her. However, the Doc just kept insisting that she stay at the surgery and get intravenous antibiotics. Jackie just got the heck out of that place.

Jackie’s mother calls back to tell us that she has reserved a ticket with Brussels for Jackie to fly back home. So we headed back to Johnorable’s house, got Jackie’s things together and headed off to Entebbe airport.

Hit the pedal to the metal…

…not so fast!

Usually it takes about 45 minutes to get to the airport from Kampala, but tonight there was exceptionally terrible traffic in Kampala. It took us nearly one and a half hours before we could get onto Entebbe road. Now, the road to Entebbe airport is bad enough in the daylight with all the construction that’s going on in preparation for the Queen’s visit in November, but driving through it at night is just terrible. Luckily we arrived at the airport in time for Jackie to pick up her ticket. It was sad to see her leave so early, but I hope that she will want to come back in the future. Perhaps her travel insurance will allow her to fly back here soon.