[kictanet] Open Data - Where does it sit?- its just thebeginning.

[bitange at jambo.co.ke]

Walubengo,
I am in the US attending an open Data conference.  On the sides of the conference is an innobation alley with developers from around the world. They have analysed every bit of data we released.  Most are planning to map especially county data and create a product.  They want to mash up some of the data to come up with meaningful information.

Martin Luther King once hoped that we be judged not how we look but by the content of the character.  Can we spend a few moments to judge (analyze) the content of what will define our character in the days to come?

We spent the 70's lampasting the Bretton Woods institutions for emphasizing import sabstitution industries.  Kenya was then more industrialized than it is today.  Local content at the General Motors plant hit 60%.  We were on the way to building a local vehicle. Trivialities and dismissiveness killed it all.

In the 80's and 90's the BW's once again came up with Structura Adjustment Program basically meant that we re-engineer ourselves along the line of Asian Tigers.  We were to leverage on import sabstition and become more competitive.  Instead we spent most of the time criticizing SAPs.  Even those who had no idea what they meant blamed our laziness on SAPs.

Today we have a liberalized economy.  Africa exports in excess of $400 billion but we spend lots of time to beg for $40 billion in donor funds.  A two percent increase in intra Africa trade would result in excess of $100 billion in trade revenue.  As I write Mangoes are rotting in the coastal area.  Some drop and hurt those looking for jobs as Mango juice continue to be a drink of choice but scarce. 

IT infrastructure is in place but non of us is talking about content.  We wait to complain when foreigners start doing it.

Why do we always take a destructive path?  


Ndemo.


Sent from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com>
Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 02:41:26 
To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Open Data - Where does it sit?- its just the
	beginning.

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