Global Entrepreneurship week (14-20 November ) saw Pam and I at the SHINE Unconference where we were attending hoping to find useful advice and collaborations to help us develop 'The Stronger Together' Workshops and Collaborators Clubs.

Photo by Andy Broomfield shows Dadamac's first Meetup which was held at Central Station On October 20th 2011.

Events

Business Fights Poverty meeting June 2nd

How can we better apply the results of impact measurement to drive improved business performance and greater development impact?

http://businessfightspoverty.ning.com/events/how-can-we-better-apply-the

Emails through posterous

Great news about Barefoot Power:

http://dadamac.posterous.com/world-bank-recognition-for-barefoot-power-pro

Continuing to explore overlapping intersts with Mike Gurnstein's Community Informatics Students:

http://dadamac.posterous.com/online-course-intro-to-community-informatics-3

http://dadamac.posterous.com/first-thursday-general-information-for-monthl

Nikki's regular blog about our UK-Nigeria meetings is turning into a valuable archive for us. We don't have anythign similar for the UK side of things so I'll try this. It won't be reflective and analytical  - more like bits taken directly from a desk diary - some dates and key activities, links to events I went to (plus bits copied and pasted), and a list of open letters I've written on Dadamac's Posterous. If it proves useful (to others or even just to me) then I'll  keep doing it - if not I'll stop. I might add reflective notes about the actual diary writing process from time to time (as I am doing here) but the general objective is to do something that is fairly quick and easy that will provide an easy reference and overview as time goes by.

The diary

So: May 26th - diary of the last week or so

New Posterous posts:

since my May 16h list of postings to Posterous:

Over the last eight weeks I have been experimenting with Posterous - so now I am reflecting on the  experience. Posterous can be used for blogging, but I already have a blog, so I wanted it for something different. I was attracted to it because it is so easy to use  - as easy as an email.

Midway between private and public

My first entry said "I think it [Posterous] might help me with those emails that are "half private half public". I mean the ones  where I start to write the email then realise that I need to add a chunk of background information that is not yet on my blog." So - is that how it has worked out in practice? Well certainly most, though not all, of my posts are copies of emails, but there is something more to it than that.

Hi Vijay

Thanks for the telling me about three women from Africa getting trained in making and installing solar lamps at a training course at the Barefoot College in Rajasthan  I am trying to think what you already know about dadamac's current interests in solar power. I'll just mention a few things in case we have not discussed them before.

Fantsuam Foundatin uses solar power at the main compound. It is not a very big solar panel, but it is very useful for Zittnet and means that the generator does not need to be turned on every time that the mains power supply fails (which usually seems to be more often than not).

Small scale solar power is also of interest and Fantsuam has looked at the possibility of helping someone to set up some kind of local small business selling solar lamps. We have been discussing this on and off with a company called Barefoot Power. However, Fantsuam Foundation (FF) has never had the money to invest in importing the supplies. As there are so many other things that must be done more urgently at Fantsuam, and so few people to do them, this is something that seldom stays near the top of the agenda for long.

Hi Pam, I decided to put up this post since there is an Africa angle to it.

The much-acclaimed Barefoot College in Rajasthan (North India)has been empowering rural men and women by teaching them skills that help them get a livelihood. 

This news link was interesting since it talks about three women from Africa getting trained in making and installing solar lamps.

The news items says: "The three, who have been here for two months, will train another 16 weeks, learning about charge controllers, inverters, core-winding, deciphering of printed circuit boards, testing, wiring, installation, and repair and maintenance of solar panels. After six months of hands-on training, they will return home to install solar units in their villages, dispelling the darkness forever."

The Barefoot College began in 1972 with the belief that “solutions to rural problems lie within the community”. The college, which has bagged many international awards for its innovative approach to empowering poor and rural women, encourages practical knowledge and skills rather than paper qualifications.

It would be good if to find out if Barefoot College would like to invite a few women from FF for training in solar engineering.

Thanks,

Hi Vijay

I was interested to read your impressions of social media - and glad you enjoyed the twitter session. (All the teaching tips are in the Second Thursday twitter session achive. ) It was the first time we have tried anything quite like that - just a handful of us agreeing to meet onine to learn about something as specific as twitter (Second Thursday twitter session invitation).

Do you still like Facebook?

I joined Facebook because Chris Macrae often sent me information that I wanted to read - but increasingly he sent it through Facebook. For a while I just ignored information sent that way, but in the end I joined. Then I looked at Chris' list of friends - and was intersted to find people I knew.. so I looked at their friends and so on. But I never became an enthusiast. When I do go there it just seems too full of stuff that I really don't have time to plough through.

Hi Pam, I don't hate technology, but I also don't have a craving fascination for it.

Social media, of course, is a different arena. I love the idea of connecting to people and exhanging ideas and thoughts--and as you would say, rubbing minds with those who would like to share their wisdom with me on a range of topics of interest to me.

But here too, I am not a person who plunges headlong into anything new unless I am truly convinced that I need it for 'building bridges' with the community around the world. I take my time to explore, play and understand the technology and its bigger impact.

Facebook (FB) was the platform that I began to use since last year. I liked the idea of being able to instantly share interesting stories, thoughts, links, audios and videos to friends and acquaintances. Of course, I kept believing that the catch here was that my friends had to be online to be able to read the stuff that I had put up. To my pleasant surprise, I found out that many of them had mobile internet connectivity which allowed them instant access and reaction time to the latest posts on FB.

Hi Pam,  

Hope all of you are doing fine.

It has been a long, long time. I have been quite busy with my work.  

Here is something that might be on interest to Dadamac readers. It is an infographic from the Economist magazine which says that sub-Saharan Africa's economy is forecast to grow overall by 4.5% this year. In comparison, economies of countries south of the Sahara together grew by less than 2% in 2009. 

As much as the infographic, it is interesting to read the comments by readers on what this news would mean for Africa. While some have responded that the rate of growth should be higher, others have said that even faster pace of growth would mean nothing for Africa unless it controls its growing population and tackles issues like health and education.

Thanks and regards,

Vijay

The crucial topic of open source software proved the highlight of Wednesday's weekly online UK-Nigeria meeting.

Interestingly, the UK side were informed that Linux is a key part of the curriculum on the 'IT Essentials' Cisco course, run by Fantsuam staff.

It was explained to us that the first approach is to introduce the students to the basic concept of open source.

Kelechi told us that part of the students' installation module includes installing Linux as well as Windows. We also learned from John, a trainer, that most of Fantsuam's students are very familiar with Ubuntu.

We were extremely interested to learn that Kelechi is currently testing another open source e-learning platform called Dokeos. He explained that it is built on Php and uses mysql as database.

He is hopeful that this system will help him administer the students' exams and tests online. He also hopes that this may help to reduce the costs of materials and presumably administrative costs too.

Dadamac has recently set up an Open Source Special Interest Group where team members can learn more about the subject together.