kafui.com

The next two weeks, Feb. 25 - March 6, 2008, will see the Simpa Open Summits (www.simpasummits.net) change into another gear. Thanks to the Commonwealth of Learning and the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa.

The Commonwealth of learning (www.col.org) will provide support for the training and conversion of Community Health Nursing Materials into ODL and Online formats by the Community Health Nurses Training School (CHNTS) in Winneba. This is in preparation for a West African Regional roll-out of a Community Nursing programme, hopefully, by Distance Education. Currently, the tutors are working feverishly converting the materials.

The Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (www.partnership-foundation.org) is supporting the Initiative for Digital Content Production in the University of Education, Winneba hosted at www.wikieducator.org/UEW. I am lucky to be Project Coordinator - though I worked hard for it! great opportunity to serve as always - and this time my Alma-Mater. The workshop to be held at the Winneba Open Digital Village (email: admin-ghana@onevillagefoundation.org) will take place from March 3 - 5, 2008 for about forty (40) academic staff of UEW.

UEW and the CHNTS are on the path to lead the expertise needed by African educators to develop and upload their own content. I will be happy to share the outcomes of the trainiing sessions with you all later.

Many thanks,

Kafui A. Prebbie, kafui@kafui.com

The Kick Off Meeting of the Digital World Forum on Accessible and Inclusive ICT (’Digital World’), a FP7 European Union project ended yesterday, Jan 16 - 17, 08 in Orange Labs (France Telecom R & D), Paris, France. The meeting provided the opportunity for the representatives of the 8-member consortium to meet for the first time. I was there for oneVillage Foundation Ghana. The first meeting of the 18month (Jan 08 - June 09) project, offered the opportunity for members to discus details of the 5 work packages (WP0 - WP4) , timeliness and reporting mechanisms within the project. An opportunity was also provided for each consortium member to make a presentation in the first day. Portions of the detailed Document of Work (DoW), WPs as well as issues that needed clarification were made with the Project Officer (PO) from EU in the second half day and final session of the meeting.

The meeting re-united me with Roland Burger, an old friend I met in Sao Palo, Brazil in 2005; I made friends with two new Africans from Meraka Institute of South Africa and Kosumatu & Kosumatu of Nigeria - the other African partners.

Digital World Project brief

Digital World Forum on Accessible and Inclusive ICT (’Digital World’) is a FP7 European project focuses on the use of ICT to leverage economic development in Africa and Latin America.

Providing minimal services (health, education, business, government, etc.) to rural communities and under-privileged populations is of major importance to improve people lives, and to sustain development. Using ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) would be the easiest and possibly only way to develop and deploy those services.

Digital World will explore how to take advantage of the new paradigm of low-cost technologies in broadband infrastructure and devices, as well as the explosion of mobile telephony to bridge the digital divide and connect the unconnected. The aim of Digital World is to make a state-of-the-art in these domains, identify the challenges, and propose a roadmap to tackle them. A particular focus will be on involving local actors from industry, research and academic communities and non-governmental organizations who have field expertise and who will provide feedback on the key factors of adoption.

Upcoming project website: http://digitalworld.ercim.org/

The meeting at the Royal Holloway University of London, UK ended well. Have also returned home safely.

Some follow up activities are planned including members of the network organising a workshop at the eLearning Africa, Ghana in May 2008. Preceding this, members of the network plan to organise some pre-conference activities.

These activities include:

1. A one-day Seminar on the 27th May, 2008 at the University of Education, Winneba (www.uew.edu.gh) . This will present reports of a group research to be carried out in Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique and the UK on the Public-Private Partnerships in ICT4D. It will attempt to take a look at the extent of involvement of the private sector institutions in ICT4D in these countries.

2. Another one-day parallel workshop (same 27th May, 2008) on the development and uploading of online educational resources will be held at the Winneba Open Digital Village (www.opendigitalvillage.org) in Winneba.. With this in mind, we intend to have discussions with the FLOSS4EDU Inintiative (www.wikieducator.org/FLOSS4Edu) and WikiEducator (www.wikieducator.org) Project team both supported by the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada (www.col.org); and oneVillage Foundation-Ghana Management to provide some form of support for the training session.

When more of this is formalised, we will make them available on the partnership website - http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/ict4d/delphe.html - and on the events page of the Simap Open Summits site here - http://www.simpasummits.net/eventsmain.php.

Thanks.

Kafui Prebbie has been selected as one of the ITU Youth Forum Alumni to be at the Global Forum on Youth and ICT Development - Geneva - 24 to 26 September 2007.

The invitation will include a presentation at the Global Marketplace to showcase his work with varied initiatives and to seek global support for the projects. As part of his presentation he will showcase the model on how to effectively develop and harness ICT towards a multi-sector Integrated Development Approach with these technologies for Development in the Africa context.

The presentation will showcase a blend of these ongoing wireless and open source technology projects listed here:

1. OVF Open Digital Village for Open Source ICT Capacity Building
2. WODiV Community Portal
3. Photos from August Workshop on Wireless Networking
4. FLOSS4Edu (FLOSS for Education)
5. University of Education Winneba Ghana WikiEducator Content Development Initiative

The panel he will participate in will explore ICT Platforms for Youth-led development- Breakthrough technologies & applications.

His participation in the event will also include a article about the Winneba Open Digital Village project that will be featured in a magazine and will be distributed to participants during the GAID/ITU forum in Geneva this September.

Global Forum on Youth and ICT for Development: Youth and ICT as Agents of Change

Who? Youth, policy-makers, high-ranking government officials, representatives from the private sector and civil society, UN agencies and other stakeholders

What? Uniting agents for change in an open discussion on technology’s role in advancing people’s lives

Where? Geneva International Conference Centre, Geneva, Switzerland

When? September 24th – 26th, 2007

How? Co-hosted by the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)

“Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society’s margins, all of us will be impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to participate fully in the lives of their societies.” – Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General

The first day of the Wireless training at the Winneba Open Digital Village (WODiV) as part of he Simpa Open Summits - http://simpasummits.net was a success.

There was a beautiful opening ceremony chaired by the ICT Coordinator of University of Education, Winneba and full day session on Introduction to Wireless by CEO of Arrow Networks, Mr. Kwaku Boadu.

The event was graced by Prof. Sandy Turner of Ohio University; Dr. Issifu Yidana of the University of Education; Mr. Ebenezer Malcom - PhD student at Ohio Univ; etc.

There were 26 participants in all with diverse backgrounds and expectations. All partners of the event were present and had very fruitful and collaborative discussions as well.

All I can say is, “it was a good start” and promises to be more exciting, revealing as well as challenging in the coming days.

Kafui A. Prebbie - Event Manager

The heat is on…the teams are running….the energy is constantly being depleted and replaced for the 10-day Wireless Training - http://simpasummits.net/eventsmain.php !

Thanks to all who are making this workshop a success. Notably the team at Djursland International Institute of Rural Wireless Broadband - http://diirwb.net/ led by their Educational leader, Mr. Bjarke Nielsen. The have air-frighted 5 boxes of wireless equipment including Linksys WAP11 Access Points with cables, biquad antennas,CD with Instructions, etc. to us yesterday. They should be here in the next 6 days. John Kibuuka who was a former student of Djursland International Institute has blogged up some information that might be of interest you here - http://kjohnah.blogspot.com/ with extra pictures here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjohnah/

Through the help of Jeff Burdrer, OVF-USA is supporting the project also with a generator to forstall the power-cut problems during and after the project.

Arrow Networks - www.arrownetworks.net - is also providing two technical staff to support the set-up. The CEO, Mr. Kwaku Boadu has promised to be present on the first day; what a commitment!

The University of Education is supporting our trainers with accommodation and feeding.

We’are on…but funds quiet a hitch to purchase electric cables, antenna cables, switches, hubs, and other network accessories. Let’s do this together by donating some resource or funds.

We are OPTIMISTIC; the Winneba Open Digital Village Wireless Network will be up soon!

The Winneba Open Digital Village (WODiV) will be hosting a ten day summit on wireless development in Africa. At the summit discussions will center on the role of wireless ICT to bridge the Digital Divide.The event in Winneba, Ghana from Aug 1-10 will be focusing on hands on training. This will include opportunities to set up a small wireless network in Winneba that will be part of the WODiV.

Venue: Winneba Open Digital Village (WODiV)

Date: AUGUST 1 – 10, 2007

Objectives:

1. Introduce wireless technologies into community project managers as a means to effectively deploy and utilize expensive internet access;
2. Discuss available and appropriate wireless technologies available for Africa;
3. Develop start-up expert groups with specific wireless technology skills in the creation of Wireless Networks;
4. Design effective local strategies to build local capacity in wireless technology on propriety and open source platforms;
5. Train experts to build routers with local materials and build a mesh network in Winneba;
6. Foster collaboration between community information centers to effectively deploy wireless technologies to increase outreach and address the problem access in Africa;
7. Publish content and proceedings from the workshop on www.simpasummits.net.

Duration: Ten (10) days, August 1 – 10, 2007

Participants: Fifty (50)

Partners:

• oneVillage Foundation, Ghana (OVF-Ghana)
• Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS)
• Wireless Ghana

Event Content (Proposed):

1. Setting up and configuring wireless local area networks (LANs)
2. Open source on wireless technologies
3. Network security
4. Troubleshooting
5. Bandwidth optimization
6. Managing your network
7. Building local wireless routers
8. USB WiFi and how they work
9. Installing Open Source Software, etc.

Pre-requisites:

1. Computer Literacy skills
2. Speak English or French
3. Possess a laptop with Wireless card

Who attends:

• Community Information Center/Telecentre Managers
• Computer Science students with interest in Wireless Networks
• Consultants
• Wireless enthusiasts
• Linux User Groups members
• IT Professionals
• NGOs, Government/Public service workers, etc.

Cost:

• Package A (Accommodation, Lunch, Snacks, Certificate)
  • Students, Individuals, etc. US$150
  • Corporate US$25o
• Package B (Lunch, Snacks, Certificate)
  • Students, Individuals, etc. US$100
  • Corporate US$200

Accommodation: At Students’ hostel on the South Campus of the University of Education in Winneba.

Inquiries: For further inquiries and registration, please send an email to the VF Ghana Administrative Assistant, Miss Shine Agbevivi at: admin-ghana@onevillagefoundation.org or applications@simpasummits.net

Dear Patient site visitors,

I have had some technical problems with my blog and just fixed it. I will keep you updated of developments in Winneba especially the Open Digital Village and the up-coming first Wireless Roadshow dubbed the Simpa Open Summit. Simpa is the indeigenous name for the village I live in, Winneba.

Regards…Kafui