I’m glad to present about “deserving to be there at the top” at the first WordCamp in Africa in 2023. This is a wonderful opportunity to connect and share my experience with the community. #WordCampEbbs happening now at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center. (UWEC) #WordPress
More updates are coming!
The trendy today in a country commonly known as peaceful and a pearl of Africa since the landing of the Europeans dating back 100s of years ago is the total opposite.
It is sad to accept but it’s true, the reality and what we have to find a solution for. I used to hear the so called group of angry youths going around Kampala beating innocent civilians and stealing from them what belonged to them. This were just stories on the internet until recently when 3 of my own people, one of them almost lost life to this group. The other two lost belongings such phones, laptops etc.
One of my people is a young skilled, hard working web design and volunteer aspirant who volunteered to redesign our website youinspireyou.org. Whose way of living has been made difficult by the greedy lazy group of thugs who stole two laptops from him while in a public taxi.
How did it happen?
At around 10:00am Calvin took a taxi from Bukoto heading to Kampala city center, on their way they realized there was a lot of traffic jam which prompted them to U-turn through a different route.
He recalls, being requested to properly close the door closest to him. Then a lot of things happened in this short period of time.
Upon noticing disappearance of the bag were the laptops, that’s when he was sent out of the taxi.
What does this mean?
How do you handle such cases in your location?
One of the reasons we started a community Mobile Digital Hub, is to introduce as many people as possible to technology in Uganda and around the world. Fulfilling this that task won’t only teach most Ugandans about technology, it will also encourage learning of many important skills for life.
We discovered that most people who applied for the training were older than 19 years and had either little education background or none at all. When we introduced them to internet, and they learned how to carry out simple research with the internet you could see each of them one searching something of their own interest. One of them was searching about money lending businesses, the other was searching about the best schools in Uganda perhaps because she has a daughter who could start to go to school soon.
On the graduation day we gave out both certificates of completion and participation, we also received a lot of feedback from the learners. [Photos coming soon]
In other news google has published updates for the Nearby Communication API, allowing offline peer-to-peer communication among Android devices.
What does that mean, it means there is a chance we could use WhatsApp and other Android chat applications without having an active internet connection.
In Google’s google android blog stackoverflow.com is referenced as a recommendation for developers who may face problems while developing the apps integrated with this new API.
No wonder some developers in my circles nick name it StackOverBro.
Stack Overflow, or stackoverbro in our language, is a network of Question and Answer websites visited by 116 million people on a monthly basis and my appreciations go to Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood the developers and co-founders.
Are you a software developer? What have you developed, what does it solve and how many people have been helped so far?
Until then.
If you are a son/daughter of the ghettos or rural areas in Uganda and across Africa, and made it out there, I guess you have a great story to tell.
I’m sure you shared a pain that will never be forgotten for your entire life as much as \ things are better now. This is manifested when I find a young man or woman or child who is doing his or her best to make a living or learn a skill which can give them an alternative way of living a life.
Currently as I type this, I can recall the 2 to 4 years I spent using internet cafe and computers of my friends. In the process, I seemed to be selfish to some, aggressive to some and a good person to some. Fortunately, some years fast forward am happily running digital agency which also offers printing services in Kampala, check out gagawala.com
This is where it all begins. I’m able to earn a living and as well as help 6 others earn. But that’s not all, the businesses, organisations and individuals we serve are also able to sustain their ideas and businesses, which maintains the employment and service delivery in the country.
What this improved a little more?
If am able to earn, help my family of 4 of us have food and afford electricity bills every month, as well as help 2 children go to school, how can I help others to also improve both personally and on the financial front?
I started teaching about technology to individuals and groups in my free time for free. Of course, I have done this already in the communities but it’s on an irregular basis due a couple of reasons.
Teaching small groups or individuals seems to be a little bit easier because you get to attend to attentive yet eager to learn.
On 4th June, 2017 I had the first official class to which a team of two young youths from Democratic Republic of Congo, living and studying in Uganda attended. Andrew and Rogers are both artists working in communities performing beatboxing drills and teaching people of the communities how to beatbox. You can catch up the two in the video below and learn more about their work.
https://www.facebook.com/AmaniLeo17/videos/1927054020911956/
During our training session with them, my friend Mutebi Ivan Junior and I taught them how to use internet, YouTube in particular to promote their work. Through the process they were able to create a YouTube channel and upload their performances and workshops, they also learned how to use gmail to communicate. We set a target to save money together so that by October 2017, they can acquire their first ever smartphone which could enable them serve more in the communities as they inform the world about their work. Hope to meet them again soon to review their progress.
I’m happy about the efforts engaged by everyone on this day, the feedback I get from these life changers is tremendous and encouraging me to learn more and support numerous others.
In 2016, I had an opportunity to attend several web and blogger meet-ups in Kampala, Uganda.
With hospitable people, Uganda has over 1000s of tourism businesses contributing millions of dollars to the economy of the country.
Tourism is enabled because of the nature of the country which is gifted with rivers, lakes, hills & mountains, very unique and miracle making hot-springs, wildlife and abundance of the biggest bird species on this planet!
However, every part of Uganda has something that the world doesn’t know about or will never know about unless it’s shared on internet where over 4 billions of people end up for information.
I live in Kansanga, a township which is only 6KM away from the city center of the capital city, along Ggabba Road.
Through this town Pope Francis passed from Munyonyo to go to Kololo and meet the youths congregation on in his visit.
Kansanga a home to 2 big international universities; Kampala International University and International East Africa University. A home of several Banks, fuel stations, and a lot of malls with restaurants, clubs for entertainment and gardens good for hosting special events.
I believe that all of this information is worth uploading on the internet.
Thus I took the initiative to build the first website of this township, which will allow the locals and anyone to contribute anything about Kansanga for free of cost. Of course there will be a challenge to moderate and maintain the hosting of the website online.
I have a small business strategy in place for guidance.
I would encourage everyone to participate as well as the people living in other towns to copy the idea for their own towns.
Here is the link of kansanga.com clicking sign up, it will take you less than one minute to to get a free account and start your contributing.
Also find out more about Kansanga on wikipedia at the following link => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansanga where our website is also referenced, putting us in a good position to develop this idea.
Hey! Hope you are doing well.
Today I want to share my thoughts about the idea of now. I’m writing about this because many people in the world are suffering from regrets.
A story
I’m an iron blogger (ibcoco.net). Here everyone of us writes once in a week without limitation of the type of content. You owe 5 euros or a good deed in the community, for every week missed. I currently owe 30 euros for missing 6 times and I don’t want to increase. That would be a bad idea, isn’t it? As of now I would have to be suspended, if I don’t write. To get back in, I would have to settle my debt!
At this point, I want you to pause and ask yourself, what if the world worked this way?
Life is a free gift to all living things, thus it’s worth all the happiness and joy!
How many times how we given it to ourselves or someone else? As I was dozing, dozing on the bed, I wrote to iron blogger facebook group chat, that I won’t be able to write. As a family, everyone was sympathetic because they knew I would be suspended for laziness though for the past week I have been sick!
Suffering from stomach ulcers, is creepy. It reminds you the days you didn’t eat well or starved or skipped visiting a doctor whenever symptoms showed themselves!
I’m lucky am feeling better, after a week of medication, following doctors orders.
This blog wouldn’t come if my team mates didn’t react to my message immediately. They showed compassion and I was encouraged.
This article is a dedication to you my readers and my iron blogger teammates! I appreciate the encouragement you give me and I encourage you to:-
Eat well now!
Work on your dreams now!
Visit a doctor now!
To avoid the punishment of laziness.
Thank you for reading!
