PICTURE Africa! Ugandan Bloggers and the Danish Factor

PICTURE Africa
PICTURE Africa is an acronym for Poverty and Information and Communication Technology in Urban and Rural East Africa. PICTURE Africa is a three year study in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. It is being funded by the IDRC. On Monday the 23rd April 2007, I met Kathleen Diga, from the International Development Research Centre IDRC. Katheen is the person behind the blog Picture Africa. Discussions were centred on issues regarding a communication strategy for the PICTURE Africa Project. We, later attended a joint meeting of teams from PICTURE Africa Project and Research ICT Africa (RIA) before finalising with PICTURE Africa Country team members. True! A Communication strategy has to be developed and implemented! Some pictorials at her post.

Ugandan bloggers
On Sunday, I had the chance to meet some faces behind the Ugandan blogsphere and the Danish students doing a documentary on Ugandan bloggers. Thanks to Dennis Matanda of the Call for the African Recolonisation fame.
Dennis was the idea behind the romantic atmosphere at Joglo, paid all the swine meat bills and accompanyment! A big thank you Dennis! Bloggers! Hips don't lie! Ugandan bloggers, FDC and UPC bloggers inclusive - I don't see the NRM bloggers!, love their bottle, love to flirt, have fun, chat, smoke and locate the g' spot! A blogger is about to fix or marry another in Uganda! A Ugandan tribe is being developed! Ugandan bloggers shall be a force to reckon with!

I left early. I had to! I had to babies sit! And now I say bye bye to the Danes. Come back again! The documentary! Thank you Ugandan bloggers who were there: S.A.G.E , Country boyi, I have left Copenhagen for Uganda! Feed me, love me, never leave me Carlo All sweetening hats who came Rumbling and Rubbish, you should also meet this Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwean Dennis Matanda!

Borrowed Civilisations

ICT is the way to go! ICT!? Yes ICT. Information and Communication Technologies or Information Communications Technology aka Information Technology. ICT, the cousin to Informatics, Information Systems, Information Science, Information Engineering, Computer Science, and all the hype around it! However, ICTs are foreign to the bulk that make African cultures. True! Africa must not only adopt, absorb, concot phrases to refer to ICTs and related concepts but also be prepared to embrace and use ICTs in everyday businesses and activities.

Absorbing a foreign technology is like borrowing a leaf from a foreign civilisation! It can not be easy.This is the context I dwell in. The Information Age version of Uganda, Southern Sudan and indeed Africa. I therefore feel the following skills are badly needed in order for Africa to benefit from this borrowed civilisation called ICT: Information Literacy and then Computer /ICT literacy. I conquer with the following definitions from the National Forum on Information Literacy:

"Information Literacy is the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand. "

Information Literacy is primarily my training in Library and Information Science.

"Computer Literacy: The ability to use a computer and its software to accomplish practical tasks."

Computer Literacy is a vital component of my primary training. I use computers to accomplish my information literacy tasks. To me, this is Informatics! Informatics is achieving an Information service task using a computer.

Were I to combine my Informatics with some training in an information domain such as the health domain to accomplish a health service task, then I would be into Health Informatics!

I wish somebody could throw some light on these borrowed civilisations called ICTs, Informatics and Information Sciences!

Confused in the Information Age

Two things can never be the same! Information Science and Informatics can not be the same! The avalanche of information and terminologies in the Information Society, Information Age and related academic university offerings could have created a mist in understanding the development of the age! What is what!?

I, be but one information professional, feel that Information Science and Informatics is one such mist! I sought some answers from a colleague a colleague, fellow collegian and professional and a friend working as the Librarian at the Institute of Infectious Disease. What is the difference between Informatics and Information Science? Can the task of all librarians at a Medical instute be termed Health Informatics?

From the Wiki Answers, I begged for an answer! I paused a question to the WikiAnswer thus: What is the difference between Information Sciences and Informatics!

Please Answer this question by clicking the New Wiki Question generated! Anselm thanks for your in put!

!?! ?$M7@? I hope you understand!

African leadership is a puzzle! Understanding the ways of African leadership is like trying to analyse the chess moves of the great Gary Kasparov! Gary is alone in his world! You might not be good enough to understand what he does! But see! He is the world's undisputable Super Chess master! Museveni could be the equivalent in the political development in Uganda! He will win! The grandmaster rarely loses his knight for naught! There is a wonder move behind!

Just when I thought the Mabira controversy had incensed Ugandans, His Excellency breaks things down in the New Vision as if to say: Before you make nonsense over this Mabira thing, Look! I gave away this, that and those and you didn't complain that much . You dare disrupt me!

Below is an excerpt and its URL in today's New Vision! It is a good read!

Yoweri Museveni Why I support Mabira give-away to Metha By Yoweri Museveni You must have been following the controversy surrounding our decision to give some forest land to the manufacturers. There are three forest lands that have, so far, been given out to the manufacturers. These are: - Some land in Kalangala for BIDCO, the palm oil project; - Some forest land in Mabira for Mehta to expand his sugar operations; and, - Earlier on, we had given the planted forest at Namanve for an industrial park. I have been involved in these land allocations. Why? It is on account of the urgent need for industrialising our very backward but rich country in terms of natural resources and raw materials.

Pearl of Africa my hoof

Mabira Forest! The events surrounding the Mabira Forest giveaway in Uganda have turned political, racist, emotional, chaotic name it. Ugandans have expressed them selves in the worst possible. Some members of parliament have begun the long rot in prison cells. Opposition leaders are exploiting the situation and their reward is a good bath with (liquid?)teargas. Will Mabira go or not? All national news rooms are portraying the reactivities in Uganda.

Well now that all is not right about Uganda at the moment, so are the Ugandan bloggers and websites. They are failures! I think Ugandans are sleeping in the blogging era! Few are blogging! And few are blogging with regularity!

So whence the comrade thinks otherwise, I begun to ponder who is a Ugandan blogger! I think a Ugandan blogger is a blogger keeping a journal the situation and events about Uganda and not necessarily a Ugandan native blogging!

I think a blogger should be identified according to the premises that cause the content of their blogs. The Danish national who left Copenhagen for Uganda is a Ugandan blogger! She is blogging about events in Uganda! Right? I would call the famed Hash of the White African site an African Blogger and a Kenyan Blogger! He blogs from a Kenyan and African perspective! The 27th Comrade! I think you are a Ugandan blogger! The Danish students offer a clue in their post