David Wampamba

Category: Tips

  • "Ugandan Graduates" are not employed because they don't offer value to business!

    "Ugandan Graduates" are not employed because they don't offer value to business!

    Many of them think the money spent in school and the bachelors/masters accolade is a guarantee to a job. What a lie?
     
    Time, skill, market, labor & ideas are the value one has to offer to an employer or business partner in exchange for a job opportunity. How many Ugandan graduates posses the above?
     
    If you don’t know the fact, most of the jobs created are by younger people or age mates who don’t have access to free first hand business information, mentor-ship and interest free business funds!
     
    Yet once created, there is need to formalize, attracting hefty bills for Tax, Trading Licenses, Rent fees, Marketing fees etc… even before a business acquires the necessary tools and team for production.
     
    Well, this works against a Ugandan graduate’s dream of wanting to drive like others do, wear expensive clothes, go to bars etc… which incites the habit of undermining jobs.
     
    The Ugandan government has a great role to play as well. It should saws in it’s citizens than milking them. They’re many times when professional graduates have turned to informal business due to lack of job opportunities but they’re energy, plans and passion has been destroyed by exclusive leadership and decision making.
    Take for example sanctioning hawkers off Kampala streets, it’s a great move because it’s a way of supporting the businessman in a shop but the timing was totally wrong. You don’t take such a move without first informing the public  and the alternative solution you’re offering.
    Photo by chimp reports
     

  • It's now – the encouraging lesson!

    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!
     
     
     

  • How to earn from a blog?

    Many people from different walks of life ask me this about making an income from blogs or websites. As if everyone is looking at alternative ways of making money. Is it because of the world’s economic recession or the improved level of awareness in the third world countries like Uganda? Before sharing what I know about making money from blogging, I want to say am proud of people like Mark Zuckerberg, Adam D’Angel and many visionaries who implemented social platforms such as facebook.com, quora.com, google.com etc…
    Let’s get to it.

    How can I earn from a blog or blogging?

    First of all what is a blog? What is blogging?
    Quoting from Wikipedia, a blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (“posts”). Click here to find out more.
    Assuming we understand the definition above, blogging is the process of writing content and publishing on the blog.
    Is it about text only? Text alone is not enough anymore. Therefore blogging is about podcasts and Vlogs where podcast is audio whereas Vlog is video.
    Let’s briefly talk about the income bit.
    Advertising
    If you write informative content which people like, you will most probably attract thousands if not millions of readers(traffic). This is a great opportunity for you because many business people want to be seen. Simply create a space where adverts can be displayed and set up your pricing packages.
    Reviewing
    Some companies are willing to pay great reviewers to write about their products and publish on their blogs.
    Affiliate marketing
    Online stores like Amazon.com and advertising agencies such as google have affiliate marketing opportunities for bloggers. The good thing they can give you products links related to your content. These links are to be integrated in your blog articles so that people can click them as they read. If they like the product and buy it, you earn commission.
    Tutoring
    If you know something write about it and let others learn from you. Eventually this can turn into some of training from which you can earn from.
    Basically that’s what I could rushy write about but it’s a diverse topic. My advice to you is to research more and start a blog.
     
     
     
     
     

  • What a way to spend first Sunday of February 2017?

    Usually I’m with a laptop trying to do something. I’m either designing a website using WordPress or I’m learning something online or I’m sharing something on social media.
    5th February was exceptional. As I spared sometime for me then attended the Unseen me Exhibition and the short film premier of Irreversible.
    Before heading to both events I have to add a few hours of coding to some website which is for a actors/actress talent management company, which will be launching anytime towards the end of this coming week. For long I have not been motivated to work on this website but today, I picked the inspiration from a film paper design.
    Had my lunch then took off with a boda-boda local name for public motorcycles to Oasis Mall Kampala where the Unseen Me exhibition took place. It was overwhelming the paintings, handmade crafts exhibited as well the hospitality organizers.
    After a few hours, proceeded on a short distant walk to Uganda National Cultural Center (National Theatre) to watch a local movie premiere. Very interesting was meeting a few friends and workmates there. But the unforgettable are the new friends, who knew me on facebook but we ended up meeting here in real life. We had a chat with them and some representatives of a certain companies who sponsors of the movie premier. When we entered in the theatre we almost missed the seats due a big number that turned up.
    All short films including Irreversible were entertaining, educating and promising of the Ugandan film industry.
    Photos to follow.
    Thanks for reading.
     
     
     

  • Discoveries after coding on Christmas and Boxing day.

    I’m sitting and procrastinating many ideas which could be important to life of many. It’s not because of laziness however, it’s due to a couple of distractions of which some relate to what I have written in this blog.
    Though am happy to be getting somewhere am completely unmoved by the decisions made by some Information Technology experts.
    Speaking of Information Technology, do we even know the difference between Computer Science (CS), Computer Engineering (CE) and Information Technology (IT) and the personal responsibilities each calls for?
    I think profoundly knowing the differences and responsibilities wouldn’t cost businesses dearly.
    Businesses are being robbed off time, creativity, revenue and productivity.
    If you’re an I.T expert concentrate on helping the market how to best use the existing systems. Furthermore discover the troubles the market is facing while using these systems. Suggest to the computer scientists and computer engineers who are responsible for developing not only working software and hardware, producing optimized and cost effective solutions is their responsibility as well.
    If you are a computer scientist and computer engineer, I would recommend building what you think is a solution unless you are just building a profile to show your level of success, you should surround yourself with I.T experts listen to them and do nothing unless there is concrete research backing the availability of the opportunity or necessity of feature.
    Largely time is wasted repeating ourselves. Taking wrong decisions by position ourselves where someone else should be.
    Take an example where small web hosters develop their private systems and end up losing business contrary to those who invest money in existing platforms or choosing open source ones.
    Cpanel, Plesk and DirectAdmin don’t come free but they have been their forever and are powering over 50Million websites today. Because of their popularity support is readily available at a simple google search. New features are released quite often than it would happen for a company with limited resources.
    Opensource platforms like VestaCP and ISPconfig have also picked up, making the entire ecosystem of web hosting stronger with secure, competitive and affordable options.
    An Information Technology personnel, Computer Scientist and Computer Engineer each positioned rightfully means awesome world solutions.

  • Before you make resolutions for #2017, I challenge you to do this first.

    Reading a book, watching an inspirational video or attending a motivation session may cause a positive impact on you.
    However haven’t you also heard of people complaining that it was a waste of time? Perhaps it has ever happened to you as well, in that you attended guided meditation sessions or other forms of motivational sessions, lots of fellowships and group prayers, read this and that book. To the point of stocking almost all motivational videos around the world but you’re still the same.
    I myself, have ever been there and ended up unchanged.

    Become Self-aware.

    The first time, I tried self-awareness was after watching Gary Vaynerchuk video before revising the questions David had sent me to identify my core personal purpose. My journey started and I have never moved back.
    Even if you have to revise your personal purpose or re-identify it. Self-awareness is the only remedy that brings out the best of you no matter where you are and what you do.
    Being self-aware is self-motivating, ignites self belief and love.
    Self Awareness is defined by http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com as having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment.”
    A prosperous #2017 friends.

  • Why should I be energetic for 2017?

    Why should I be energetic for 2017?

    2016 is a memory. Full of personal and business challenges, surprises and milestones. The opportunities,  that it brought such as the “Dine and Dream” and Unleash dreams workshops for free of charge. Over 4 districts of Uganda traveled to educate fellow youths about entrepreneurship & personal development, the networks built, the websites designed and mobile app development opportunity scoped are one of those that make me feel energized for 2017. The first time I applied for a fellowship, can’t wait for feedback. Fingers crossed.
    More reason to be energized is the goal am setting to learn more about youths and women empowerment, human rights, violence and entrepreneurship in all.
    To mentor and support at least 2 young entrepreneurs run self sustaining businesses is what I stand for. I live to inspire individuals to build awareness and self-sustaining communities. So the more knowledge I give, the inspirations I make, the support I give is what keeps me stronger as well as make others stronger. Looking forward to this challenge.
    In 2016 most of my workshops have been in Central and Eastern Uganda, connecting to Western and Northern Uganda will be courageous.
     

  • What would you do in my situation? 

    I set out to blog at least once a month to fulfill the obligation as an ironblogger but recently it’s been hectic to fulfill the obligation.
    In the recent 2 months my company Gagawala Graphics ltd, which offers services in Website design, Website hosting, Graphics design and printing to the market in Uganda, received a number of orders quite more than before. The orders included social media management by one of the top 10 private financial institutions in the countrt, 5 websites and for the first time a mobile app.
    Being the leader of the website development, I had to choose between investing more time and serve the clients or spare time for blogging. What would do you do, if you were in my position?
    I decided to put all my time in designing these websites,  reporting to our clients and I would blog whenever I had some energy and free time. Extra Time &  energy, would be hard to have though. In the end, I couldn’t blog.
    Achievements made
    1. I developed a reusable WordPress theme,  which can be used on any website and customized without any coding. The theme allows you to position the header, navbar, hero, top bar wherever you want. You choose background colors for many sections, you set font families, font sizes, font colors, and is loaded with many widget areas for flexibility. I to provide the theme to the public domain after code optimization in January for free of charge. I also believe this is the last theme, I may have developed using bootstrap 3, since I want to adapt to bootstrap 4.
    2. I developed a WordPress widget plugin which can fetch any posts from any post type and category. You choose in settings to display post thumbs or not,  the number of posts, set the number of columns in which the posts should be arranged, set number of words for title and excerpt. They are quite many options that make this widget quite powerful and of benefit to almost every WordPress powered website.
    3. Successfully developed 2 mini web applications on WordPress. I call them mini because they don’t features for managing front end users. But they allow someone to register for a loan online and visa card online. I’m super excited of launching Next Week. 
    Lessons learned
    My biggest lesson, is that WordPress robust as a CMS as well as a web application development framework.

  • How will I achieve a 10,000 youth empowerment goal?

    Normally I blog once a week, but I missed last week because I was interrupted by the journey to Nairobi, Kenya. Sorry my readers for keeping you waiting.
    If you have been following my previous blog posts then you’re familiar to my dream of empowering the youth of Africa. I emphasize that I will start at home because that’s where I know better, so it helps. I will also be focusing solving the problem of ignorance/unawareness in the community. Catch up the introductory part of the project and second part discussing the reason why I chose computers as the tool.
    Today I continue to write about the project in which I hold strong belief to positively improve the life of many youths and young people in Uganda and across Africa. My ultimate goal is 10,000 youths by end of 2026.
    How will I make it possible.

    1. Do more research.

    I believe it will be a vital step to do more research about the technology I choose. In fact recently I watched a YouTube video comparing the Raspberry PI gadget with another gadget called a Nano PI. The performance difference were minimal though the price difference was significant.

    Also I have to visit places where a similar project is taking place to learn, pick inspiration and study the differences their model has to in contrast to the one I hope to use. It will also allow opportunities to understand the concept, it’s advantages and disadvantages.

    If I cannot find any local places doing this, I will research for international places which also gives an opportunity to travel internationally for this reason.

    2. Make a concept paper & create a work plan.

    It’s fortunate I have observed the problem in my community, thought of the idea and set up a projected milestone to achieve by end of 2026.

    To get closer I have an important question to answer. Which is how am I planing to achieve the goal/vision. What are the specific steps, I will make? What do I need to take these steps?  Where will I get the resources needed? Is the project sustainable? Who is my competition? What are the exact pain points of project beneficiaries?

    I will be grateful.

    3. Build a functional prototype

    This is the step am so excited about. I can’t imagine the happiness. Anyway, it’s soon happening because I already pitched the idea to someone who funded so that I get the Raspberry PI 3 and build it for his kids. Of course delivery from USA to Uganda takes forever, waiting a couple weeks.

    I also hope to document the process and share it with you my followers.

    4. Pitch to impact funders.

    5. Go to the market and build a team.

    That’s it for now, I have to get back and complete my YALI Application before I resume coding the WordPress theme which I hope to use with tourism website projects, I handle this year.
    Do you want to contribute anything towards the project, get in touch via the comment box.
    Cheers!

  • Why choose a computer as tool to empower youths in Uganda?

    Like 2 weeks ago I wrote about empowering a rural child in Uganda, in the article I focused on building affordable computer units as tools to be used in the process. This is why I think they are ultimately offering a competitive advantage.

    1. Various opportunities.

    12 years ago, the only thing I was able to do was to play soccer which soccer would not help me earn and help the people around me. After spending many years of learning how to use the computer, now am able to support myself with basic needs, as well as support my fellow youths through teaching them what I know of which a big part, I learned using computers. In fact right now am typing on this blog, using a computer, the blog itself is hosted on a certain computer somewhere.

    Like me who is now a happy website designer, web application developer, junior mobile application developer many others are photographers, Bboys, artists, writers, bloggers, rappers such as Abramz the founder of Break Dance Project Uganda an organisation which uses breakdance, Hiphop, art & education for empowerment & positive social change and tech developers such as Solomon King a founder of Fundibots a social enterprise which uses Raspberry PI, to teach kids and youths about robotics have some sort of computer influence in their life.

    2. Communication

    Imagine a world where everyone was silent about their achievements, instructions towards their teams, important messages towards their families, friends and loved ones. In my opinion the world would be a mess. To avoid that, the computer is playing an integral role to support internet which transmits information in a snap of a finger. The computer also helps the deaf and the visually impaired to communicate. Without the computer human communication would be harder.

    However, though computers are available, a big part of the world is missing out on this great opportunity to communicate with the rest of the world. I think it’s one of the greatest actions in human history to make computers accessible to the youths of Uganda and the rest of world.

    3. Data collection, storage and analysis

    Pilots need data, health service providers need data, radio presenters, sportsmen, farmers; name it all we all need data. The data we need should be sourced from various parts of the world, but according to statistics made by http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm  indicating 9.4% of Africa contribute to the overall World internet users.

    So in my opinion, if 24 people, from different communities in Uganda, have access to computers, data sourcing is mostly like to double, if not triple.

    4. Setup businesses

    With the skills have developed over the years, I have been able to found 2 businesses including Gagawala Graphics Ltd which is using computers and digital technology to deliver affordable quality graphics design such as logos, brochures, calendars, memorable ceremony cards, company profiles as well as print them and design websites to boost the market for local businesses and organisation initiatives online. We are serving over 100 customers every year and we have built a team of 8, skilled youths.

    I also run a social enterprise “You Inspire You” using computers, digital technology,. discussions and writing to empower people and uplift communities. With You Inspire You, we have reached over 400 youths and adults in a period of a year, teaching them how to use computers, about personal development, starting and run sustainable businesses.

    As an individual the benefits and the things I have been able to involve are many but it’s because of the computer skills I have. I see incredible business starting in Africa, or existing businesses get boosted if we ease computer accessibility by youths.

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