I’ve always thought that Africa was full of entrepreneurs – thousands of people eking out a living in container stores and markets selling goods a minimal profit, so they can support their families, send their kids to school, and, in general, survive.
Now, there’s clearly a difference between the startups of Silicon Valley that get venture [...]
Posts under ‘Random’
Entrepreneurship in Uganda
Zap: Much more than Money Transfer
So MTN Money is not the only mobile-phone based money transfer service (mobile banking services not-withstanding), Zain Uganda also offers Zap, with marginally lower prices, and what seems to be slightly less restrictive than MTN Money – no 1M UGX limit on the balance to be held by the mobile service provider being the one [...]
Tethered Computing
At long last I have my personal MTN sim working for both voice and data on my android phone, *and* I can connect the my computer to the Internet using mtn’s gprs connection using JuneFabric’s PdaNet software.
Sigh, well PdaNet only works for windows, not my MacBook Pro, but since my MBP is currently out of [...]
Orange Telecom Launches in Uganda
One of the more quiet headlines of the week in Kampala is the launch of a new mobile service provider – the France Telecom owned Orange Telecom. Reactions are mixed but hopeful. Orange is the 5th major operator here, following South African owned MTN, Zain (pakistani-owned? Formerly known as Celtel), Uganda Telecom/Mango, and Warid [...]
Ergonomics, Ugandan Style (sort of)
Well, you can’t really call it Ugandan style if it involves a stack of 4 eeePC boxes, admittedly, and I’m not actually going to use this as my permanent setup. But I thought it would be entertaining to share this with you. Most days I’m too lazy to set up the entire stack – I [...]
A Socially-Responsible Amazon/Textbooks for MUST
My friend Ben pointed out Better World Books, an online bookstore that ships books worldwide for only $3.97! I did a bit of poking around, and realized that not only do they have crazy low shipping prices, but somehow their proceeds go to support literacy – specifically through World Fund, Books for Africa, Room to [...]
Where Were You When Obama Became President?
How many millions of people were watching CNN, MTV, and whatever other media (BBC, NPR, etc) from how many hundreds of places to see the inauguration? I updated my facebook status on my phone as one friend pondered whether Obama liked porcupines and another studiously avoided CNN, and my department sent out an email [...]
Conflict in North Kivu: A Brief Summary
My friend Marian did a brief summary of what’s going on, with a couple of links and pointers to some things you can do to intervene. In her words (with a couple of edits here and there):
There is a crisis in Eastern Congo around Goma. The rebel army, CNDP, lead by Nkunda advanced from [...]
Talk to your Senator about Conflict Coltan
As many of you know, Goma, DRC is the site of much mineral wealth – as well as much conflict, both over this wealth, and ethnic conflicts, including remnants of the Hutu/Tutsi hatred that resulted in the Rwandan genocide.
Just as diamonds are mined to finance these conflicts – coltan (used in the Sony PS2 and [...]
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Melissa R. Ho
PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley School of Information
Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions Research Group
Information, Communications Technology, and Development
Mobile Computing for Healthcare Information Management in Africa
Telecommunications Policy and Practice in Africa
I do information technology for healthcare in Africa. Actually, I’ve also recently dabbled in solar powered lighting for [...]
