[kictanet] CONGRATS 'UNCLE' VINT... BUT WHERE ARE THE AFRICAN OLDIES? (WAS Vin Cerf @ ihub: Internet Oldies meeting young techies)

Sun Oct 2 23:40:42 EAT 2011

Congrats 'Uncle Vint' and 'Uncle Stefano'.....

But where were/are the African 'Oldies': 'Mzee' Mike Lawrie,  Ibikun Odusote, Bill Sangiwa, Tieni Bah, Prof. Venancio Mansingue,  Musa Fall, Charles Musisi, Mark Bennett, Nejib Abida, etc?

Mediocrity the bane of Africa's problem. God help Kenya!
Shem

________________________________
From: Grace Githaiga <ggithaiga at hotmail.com>
To: shemochuodho at yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Thursday, 29 September 2011, 21:05
Subject: [kictanet] Vin Cerf @ ihub: Internet Oldies meeting young techies

Vin Cerf at ihub: Internet Oldies meeting young techies 
By Mutwiri Mutuota

NAIROBI, Kenya, September 29- The pioneers
of the information age met with their young disciples on Thursday in an eye
opening assembly held as a side event of the ongoing 6th Internet Governance
Forum (IGF) in Nairobi.

The session was held appropriately at a
venue where technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers congregate in Nairobi , known as iHub,
the global IT gurus led by Google vice-president and one of the acknowledged
founders of the internet, Vint Cerf.

“The enormous social impact of the internet
was evident even before the e-mail was invented in 1971. Now, internet and
mobile technology drives the world and the potential for industry are
limitless,” Cerf stated in one of his moving insights into the gift his
invention alongside Bob Khan in the early 70s gifted the world.

While re-counting in detail how the thesis
developed by the two computer scientists turned to be a tool that billions
transact their daily lives almost 30 years on, Cerf challenged Africa to be at
the forefront of capitalising on the expanding cloud computing opportunities
for business and economic growth.

As young techies gathered scrambled to
store the large volume of information being passed from the living IT icon, the
gathering also proved to be a think tank on the next generation innovations
that will maintain the info age bubble.

“I hope than on January 1, 2013, IPv6 will
be turned on to run alongside IPv4 to mark exactly 30 years since internet was
turned on. I’m so excited and I cannot wait for this to be realised," Cerf
enthused.

For the uninitiated, Internet Protocol
version 6 (IPv6) is the next edition that is designed to succeed the 32-bit
predecessor, IPv4 and it will see the Internet operating by transferring data
between hosts in small packets that are independently routed across networks.

The award winning Google vice-president who
joined the tech giant in 2005, said the company had designed products specific
to the needs of Africans with the continent’s native languages incorporated to
make them appeal to all spectrums of the populations.

“We have made it easy for African
businesses to advertise on Google Ads by developing the system that sees users
pay for the adverts once they are clicked on. This model has appealed to many
enterprises particularly those in Africa ,”
Cerf offered.

He added: “We continue to encourage more
user friendly content and creating volume for locally generated content since I
believe content generated in Africa for example should circulate within Africa,
not through Europe or America .”

Adel El Zaim from the Global Alliance for
ICT and Development in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs who was
also in the assembly dwelt on the economic aspect of the advancements in
information technology.

“It is the responsibility of individual
entrepreneurs to archive their data on the internet but research on how content
is being uploaded, the risks that posses and how it is stored and privacy
should be done to give the correct picture on the risks,” said El Zaim.

“Cloud computing should be opened up to be
free to all but there is need for reaching acceptable level of internet and
mobile technology. There is also need to understand better how technology can
be used and for business opportunity in Africa ,
local content products should be offered by using local languages,” he added.

Laura Abba, who was involved in the RINAF
project mooted in the 90s that was tailored to usher Africa into the ICT age
recalled the efforts that were spearheaded by the UN led initiative that fast
tracked internet development in the continent.

“Today the internet is no longer about the
infrastructure but the content. When we started this project, 90 percent of
content concerning Africa was generated in Europe 
and other parts of the world but this has changed and should be encouraged,”
Abba told the gathering.

Engineer James Rege, the Member of Kenyan
Parliament for Karachuonyo Constituency who is one of the first IT specialists
in the country observed that Africa and Kenya in particular was catching up in IT innovations.

“However, there is need for democracy in
communication. Development of ICT in Africa 
has been hampered by political hurdles and they need to be freed,” Rege
advised.

“Even old women in Karachuonyo have email
accounts and I urge tech companies such as Google to view Kenya as a remote part coming up
and should help  it advance,” the legislator added.  

He singled out the Kenya ICT Board for the
positive steps it had taken to ensure the country was in tune with development
as well as generation of local content for the Internet.

Kaburu Kobia, who is in charge of
generating local content at the board acknowledged more Kenyans were
contributing content conversant to them particularly in social networks such as
Facebook.

There was concern about ownership of data in the cloud.
“At Google we believe you own your data. With
cloud computing, there will be substantial amount of support since data will be
shattered into small pieces,” Cerf explained.

Cloud computing will see shared resources,
software, and information provided to computers and other devices as a utility like
the electricity over a network.
“We need to find standards where clouds can
communicate with each other, use the high speeds between them in the backbone of
the internet to transfer data and I’m very much in favour of use of clouds for
this purposes".

“But with concerns on cyber security, we
all need to ensure it is compliant with the rules in the jurisdiction they
operate with the kind of protection people should have,” the tech sage added.

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