[kictanet] Identity.go.ke not working August 22, 2011

[S.Murigi Muraya]

First, ALL government departments / state corporations should openly LIST
all their contractors / consultants.. including those managing / deploying
their messaging and workflow (enterprise web) systems.

My own view is that we should help whoever gets government contracts... not
demonize or harass them.

Our government pursued a PHP / Joomla CMS strategy.. Not bad in itself but
most PHP web developers in Kenya give up their craft (2-3 years) sooner than
developers working on better paying Enterprise jobs / projects. Not easy to
find good (experienced) PHP devs willing to compete with school leavers for
low wages to improve go.ke (php) sites.

Government contracts should be outsourced to firms that are able to recruit
or create and keep experts for 2-5 years. Dr. Ndemo knows good staff have to
be paid wages above the government scale.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201108012382.html

In Kenya there is too much emphasis on mobile apps. Fewer devs are doing the
kind of workflow (enterprise web) apps our government needs.

http://www.linkedin.com/jobs/jobs-ASPnet-Developer-1801581

Favoritism does not necessarily mean malice or incompetence.

In one telecom customer service center I frequent almost weekly (have been
losing credit shortly after loading it) almost all (over 80%) of the
employees are from one part of Kenya. The serve me well enough for me not to
think of them as more tribal than professional. Employers / employees seek
those have more in common with... culturally / socially / intellectually.

We need to create informal links between government technocrats and known
technical experts / consultants in the market. It is not right for technical
experts to join government so that they can win government contracts as
insiders. It does not take long for them to rapidly deteriorate in technical
skills as they develop in political skills.

Much technical knowledge should be shared semi-formally over tea / coffee /
juice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_universities

There is much competition in the GLOBAL market for technical talent. Many of
our mobile / web devs are doing small (one man) local and foreign jobs
instead of pursuing government projects they know they can never win even if
they are competent. As such they are not developing project management
skills. Others are competing for Tandaa Funds to help them build systems the
government will use in future...

In my limited view the KICTB, through TANDAA funding has done pretty well in
keeping a bunch of our youth interested in mobile / web app development. By
now many of them would have resorted to managing IT systems or become
bankers.



On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 09:41, warigia bowman <warigia at aucegypt.edu>wrote:
>
>> Dear listers.
>>
>> Apparently, NONE of the emails at identity.go.ke seem to be functioning.
>>
>> What do you think of the fact that several emails and the website at an
>> important government office are not working?
>>
>> Rigia
>>
>> Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
>>
>>     customer.care at identity.go.ke
>>
>> Technical details of permanent failure:
>> Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient
>> domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further
>> information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server
>> returned was: 550 550 5.7.1 Unable to relay (state 14).
>>
>>
>>
> Dr. Rigia,
>
> Most govt agencies did come up with websites, not because they had prepared
> well for the digital age, but because it was fashionable to have one (since
> every other person was having one), the expenditure not withstanding. You
> therefore should not be surprised that many of the websites are
> dysfunctional. You'd be lucky if you could find someone in such institutions
> who can "take ownership of the website". You'll probably be told it is "IT",
> and whom you'll discover was not consulted and as such is not any
> interested. So far, what works in KE is physically going there and
> "causing", to an extent that you stop everything else from happening until
> they've resolved your issue.
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
> Nairobi,KE
> +254733744121/+254722743223
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> I can't hear you -- I'm using the scrambler.
> Please consider the environment before printing this email.
>
>
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