Tag Archive for 'East Africa'

Links: Tanzania Elections + Growing Tech Community

Published on 2010/10/29 in Education, Link and Social Africa. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .
papaya

I sadly have been getting behind on my posting here. There has been a lot of activity for Tanzania lately and this post has some fresh links to share.

  • There is now an Ushahidi Election Violence, Issue and Rioting Reporting Map instance up for the Tanzanian elections taking place next Sunday. You can also apply as an ushahidi voluntia translator and verifier at this Google Form. As of last week, one of four polls suggests opposition may have an edge. I do not take a position for any party in the elections but I do hope that they are carried out peacefully. I especially hope that my friends in country, Watanzania and Wamerikani alike, are safe. (As Pernille points out, UCHAGUZI is a collaborative initiative between TACCEO, Tanzania; HIVOS, Netherlands; Haki Elimu , Tanzania; the biggest Tz national ICT community Jamii Forums, Tanzania; Rakesh Rajani’s TWAWEZA , CRECO, Kenya in association with USHAHIDI and SODNET, Kenya as technology & strategy partners. Wengi wameunga kuhifadhi taifa, Jamani! vz)
  • Beyond the election questions, there are other really bright people: Mtanzania Silicon Valley Diaspora Entrepreneur Mbwana Alliy has an insightful guest article covering no fewer than 5 different promising Tanzanian+Silicon Valley and Tanzanian nzima initiatives. Lete Maendelo! He suggests that the reason you don’t associate Tanzania and the modern tech scene is mostly just a lack of reporting of things south of Lake Victoria. He calls for more coverage.
  • One mentioned startup was Envaya, a website to help government offices and NGOs in Tz and East Africa communicate with constituents easily on mobiles and the internet, cofounded by a returned ICT Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Pemba in 2007. Also see Kabissa.org and Maneno. Each site has similar goals but different approaches.
  • Word on the ground is that Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow (touched on in this post) is looking at leveraging Moodle-based BrainHoney as a part of the software foundation for the initiative. Chisimba (+ one of their rockstar developers on twitter) also seems a good related Africa-oriented e-learning platform to follow.
  • Google Baraza African oriented Question and Answer site is doing an initial community launch. You can apply for an invite here. A Ghanaian Blogger’s ideas are here, Peace Corps colleague Jon McLean here, but do not miss Google’s cute video on the service here if your modem can handle the download. Grab and answer your question for Africa as soon as possible! So far it seems to be successfully bridging East and West Africa as I’ve not seen in a website, though there is little South African participation to date. See also Majibu.com, the preexisting East African Q&A startup.
  • WhiteAfrican has just posted an up to date Snapshot of mobile data rates across East Africa that follows on my own Snapshot from 2009.

As an administrative note: I have broken out my Peace Corps-relevant posts into a separate category that you can visit using the link along the top. They won’t appear on the front page but will appear in my RSS feeds. I’m gratified that my last post was picked up and republished in the Peace Corps newsletter, I hadn’t thought of that! Thanks Aron. Ultimately though, I don’t want to weaken my main practical themes on the blog.

Related articles

3 Major Corporate ICT Collaborations at Each Education Level: Tanzania

Published on 2010/8/16 in Education and General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Prominent US Corporations such as Accenture, Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco have recently engaged themselves with US development initiatives to improve education in East Africa’s largest country of Tanzania. Their ICT-oriented goals are set very high for a country where 95% of finishing students have never seen a desktop computer but they follow on of the legacy of substantial successes of the PEDP and SEDP programs of the past decade.

Back before those actions, most people’s children had never been in a secondary school classroom, too few even saw inside of a primary school. As shown in the graph last week, now primary and secondary school classrooms are equitably within reach of most, but quality lessons are still longed for by students. This challenge of quality improvement sits behind all the government’s collaborations of the coming years:

Primary: 21st Century Basic Education Program (link, USAID)

A 49Mil USAID grant to be awarded (likely) to one of the major three development organizations. It is to try to revolutionize elementary/primary school education in the small mainland region of Mtwara and the islands of Unguja and Pemba on Zanzibar. The goal seems to be to create radically computerized prototypical model regions where prevalent inexpensive computers available to most primary school teachers and some students to change the way primary school–especially the lower standards (1-4) are taught. Mtwara is a southern coastal region of Tanzania that has historically had trouble developing. It is fairly small (1mil people of 42mil in TZ) but still has Teachers Colleges, making it a good region for experimentation. Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, also, despite its glossy tourism-oriented reputation, has been challenged in improving English literacy and improving general education of its students. Pemba lacks even the veneer of tourism. All of these small but very underserved areas will have extremely varying degrees of electricity and connectivity.

The USAID office in Dar Es Salaam, along with the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) may have come up with this plan as a prototype extension to PEDP from years past.

Highlights:

  • Focus on implementing a cohesive Education Management Information System (EMIS) (pg 35). Possibly by working with Microsoft.
  • The EMIS would help manage national school test score results, a system currently accessed by most of the TZ population and fairly challenging to use..
  • Laptops for teachers, 1:1 computer share model for students with 2hrs/wk of usage on Office software.
  • Skoool software by Intel as used by other countries such as Egypt.
  • Improving Teacher Housing and facilities using modern materials–”procurement of pre-fabricated teacher housing and classrooms made from composite panel material composed of a high quality foam core covered with Glass fiber Reinforced Resin skin (GRR) or Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) composite panel.”
Following Next: Major Secondary and Post-Secondary Initiatives in Tanzania.

Page optimized by WP Minify WordPress Plugin