I should be writing. So I'm writing.

I heard two large blasts yesterday which I instantly knew had come from the Mulago Hospital roundabout. Running late to work (as opposed to just feeling lazy), I took a boda boda around 9:30am and saw 2 or 3 large police trucks and what looked like about a taxi's worth of people, somewhere between 14 and 20, gathered around the roundabout looking on. I thought maybe there had been a car accident, but a stand-off between police and the white SUV they were surrounding containing Besigye was underway. Anywhere from 5 mins to a 1/2 hour after I rode through the roundabout, police arrested Besigye for the 4th time this month, smashing the windows of his car, firing tear gas, dragging him away and hauling him onto the bed of a police truck.

The "walk-to-work" protests started April 14th over rising fuel and food prices, and have been marked by clashes between protesters, the police, and the repeated arrest of political opposition Dr. Kizza Besigye. -BBC News

Uganda's inflation rose in April for the sixth straight time, and jumped to 14.1 percent in April from 11.1 percent in March. Food crop prices rose 39.3 percent in April from the same month a year earlier, up from 29.1 percent in March. -Reuters Africa

Museveni, in power since 1986, blames drought for high food costs and soaring oil prices for surging local fuel costs, and has warned Besigye that his protests will not be tolerated. Besigye lost a presidential election to veteran President Yoweri Museveni in February for a third time and has vowed to continue campaigning despite repeated detentions during the protests that had killed at least five people before today. -Reuters

The TV networks have been banned from live coverage by the UCC, but interestingly, NTV and UBC are broadcasting the Royal Wedding without disruption. Here's a YouTube video of Besigye's arrest yesterday.



This morning I walked to work, which is what I do every day (if I'm not running late or feeling lazy, or both). I've been hearing frequent sounds of gunshots and tear gas, about every 20 mins, varying in distance, and followed by ambulance sirens. And at Mulago Hospital, where the main building for IDI is located, colleagues have been describing the stream of casualties flowing in from the protests. There was supposed to be a press conference today over the protests at 1pm, but its been pushed to 3pm, if it actually happens at all.

I received the requisite email and SMS from the State Dept. arriving in each respective inbox this morning advising on minimizing travel and monitoring the media. And the Daily Monitor and the Red Pepper, two of Uganda's major newspapers, as well as Facebook and Twitter, have been buzzing with almost up to the minute information about the demonstrations happening as they've continued to progress and spread through Kampala and out to the suburbs.

And in true form of swift (and brutal) Ugandan justice, the possessions belonging to Gilbert Bwana Arinaitwe, seen in the video smashing the window of Besigye's car, who people quickly began referring to as Besigye's "key tormenter," have already allegedly been set on fire by angry crowds, and his house almost burned down, spared only by the landlord pleading for mercy!

who I am

I think I know who I am (whoever that is), and I think I want to be that person with you (whoever you are).

mazima (truth) aka My Best Friend's Wedding quote

"If you love someone, you just say it, you say it, right then, out loud.
Otherwise, the moment just...
passes you by.
passes you by."

graduate school???

This is a post by Kelechi Anyadiegwu of ICT4Change - Being the Change the Best Way I Know How.

For about half of a year now, I have been researching graduate schools. I realize that the best way to enter the field of ICT4D is to learn from some of the best ICT4D researchers in the world. One thing I realized with the field of ICT4D is that it is not about finding degrees in ICT4D it is about finding you niche and making a contribution to the ICT4D field. ICT4D is a broad field, there are many sectors with the field (m4d, health informatics, agriculture, etc) My contribution is HCI!

Here is a list of schools with great ICT4D resources in the US. Please suggest more if you know any!

Georgia Institute of Technology – Michael Best is world renowned for his work with sustainability and human computer interaction in the ICT4D context - http://mikeb.inta.gatech.edu/

University of California, Berkeley – Name should say enough, quality school =quality education! Within the iSchool there is the ICTD center. - http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/centersandclinics/ictd

Carnegie Mellon University – TechBridgeWorld @ Carnegie Mellon University does some great work - http://www.techbridgeworld.org/

Michigan State University – Kurt Demaagd, Jenny and thier work in Tanzania - http://tc.msu.edu/ict4d

University of Colorado, Boulder – A degree in ICTD - http://www.colorado.edu/atlas/
Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis – Currently working on an Open MRS project - http://informatics.iupui.edu/

University of Michigan - Graduate degree’s with specialization’s in Community Informatics (ICT4D) - http://www.si.umich.edu/

University of Washington – Technology and Social Change Group - http://cis.washington.edu/

And there are many many more schools that offer ICT4D resources. I’m still searching myself. There are many more schools outside the US as well! I will post as I find.

My professor once told me that as long as a graduate program has ONE class related to ICT4D, the program was worth researching. Here is a list of ICT4D classes compiled by Revi Sterling of the ATLAS institute.

how to rip Ugandan VCDs: part 1

04 Sep 2002 @ 19:44
wonderboy
Suspended due non-functional email address
"more simpler way browse the cd to the folder mpegav. If you cant see any files click files of type and select all files. Your movie will look something like Avseq01.mpg or Avseq01.dat.
it should most likely be .dat so drag and drop to your hard drive and rename the extension to .mpg ta daaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Thanks, wonderboy! Although I am regretful to hear of your non-functional email address suspension.

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/7033

Now all I need to do is figure out how to convert the .dat into an audio file format, because renaming the extension to .mpg doesn't work.

once I'm back in the US

"... once I'm back in the US, I'm pretty limited to other people in the US, the news, and surfing the Internet, there just isn't the same quality or amount of unfiltered information I can get from being here and seeing the mobile network billboards, the electronics stores, cell phones, the SIM cards, the laptops, the internet cafes, the price tag for all of these things, and the ways in which that all fits and doesn't fit together with the way people live day to day and the opportunities they have."

online, but offline

"I constantly find myself ultimately facing the task of accomplishing what ideally everyone SAYS they want to move to "online" aka IDI's training courses, and having along the way to concurrently create a completely substitutable and parallel solution for doing it all "offline" aka distributing all of the course materials with website screenshots in hard copy form and specifying deadlines for online submission of periodic assignments OR distributing CDs or flash drives with an offline version of the training course website and specifying deadlines for syncing up via online submission of assignments and feedback OR distributing smartphones or laptops with individual dedicated connectivity (USB modems) for directly accessing the training course website... and in the end, there's no underestimating the technology education a student is inherently getting if they opt for the distance learning online course format, even if those formats are technically offline."