[kictanet] kictanet Digest, Vol 110, Issue 85

Wed Jul 6 23:32:47 EAT 2016

Here is something I shared on the NairobiGNU mailing list before I joined this forum.

If this bill existed in some countries, including the USA. We would probably not have the following companies

1. Apple - Started by Steve Jobs who dropped out of college.
2. Microsoft - Started by Bill Gates who dropped out of Harvard. Paul Allen the co-founder was also a dropout
3. Facebook - Started by Mark Zuckerberg who dropped out of Havard
4. Dell - Started by Micheal Dell who dropped out of University of Texas.
5. Twitter, Square - The current CEO, Jack Dorsey who dropped out of NYU. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams also dropped out of college.
6. Oracle - Larry Elison dropped out of University of Chicago.
7. Plaxo, Napster, Airtime - Formed by Sean Parker who never attended college. He was also an early employee of Facebook
8. WhatsApp - Jan Koum, the founder is also a drop out of San Jose State University
9. Asana - Dustin Moskovitz who was also the first employee of facebook dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year.
10. Nintendo - The 3rd president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, a dropout of Waseda University was responsible for converting the then small card-making company to a gaming powerhouse
11. Valve Corporation - Gabe Newell was a havard dropout. Valve is responsible for the Half-Life game series and Gabe was also the founder of Steam.
12. Wipro - Azim Premji was a dropout at Stanford. He later went back to finish school after he was tired of being called a "College Dropout"
13. Tumblr - David Karp founded this at 15
14. Digg - Kevin Rose, dropped out of the University of Nevada.
15. Reddit - co-founder, Aaron Hillel Swartz was a drop out. We was also a major contributer to Creative Common license, the markdown standard and RSS which has revolutionalized how we get news.
16. Bittorrent - Bram Cohen dropped out of SUNY Buffalo
17. Threadless, the community based t-shirt company
18. Disney - Walt Disney was a drop out.

I am sure I have missed a few more large companies. 
Not to mention the thousands of contributors to open source and people working in both large and small IT firms that are in high school, currently in college and those that dropped out. Also other ‘uncertified’ people that were part of the founding teams of these companies that we’ve never heard of.

> On Jul 6, 2016, at 10:20 PM, kictanet-request at lists.kictanet.or.ke wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>   1. Re: Kenya ICT Practitioners Bill - Walu's Views (Harry Delano)
>   2. Re: Kenya ICT Practitioners Bill - Walu's View (Paul Korir)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 21:54:00 +0300
> From: Harry Delano <harry26001 at gmail.com>
> To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenya ICT Practitioners Bill - Walu's Views
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAFOGoAWcbfeb4HFwzuE0jaVf+FuAbCdZkG0aer1tyOPXvX-2mw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Always good to have you back, Bwana Daktari. We miss your valuable &
> insightful contributions of yore..
> 
> I was just about to respond to Kulubi's contribution, when your post came
> up. It aptly sums it up..! In an earlier post I alluded to some 14 years
> that have been nothing short of a truly amazing, tremendous story in the
> ICT space, why..?  Because during this time, the previously heavily
> regulated space opened up and was liberalized and  from there on, there was
> no looking back, and everyone can attest to the achievements to date in the
> sector. Again why..? Because, while those with regulatory mandate and
> oversight had all within their power to further stifle innovation and
> growth, they instead wisely chose  to only promote a regulatory framework
> that sought to create an enabling environment for this space to thrive. And
> towards this, you played your rightful role, facilitating and  engaging
> constantly  with stakeholders even right  here on this forum. With one
> single stroke of a pen, we can build on or lay to waste post-haste what we
> achieved over the period.  So be forewarned..  But again,  who is listening
> out here..??
> 
> 
> Thanks James for putting  the whole bill into perspective..
> 
> Regards,
> Harry
> 
> On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 9:19 PM, Bitange Ndemo via kictanet <
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
> 
>> Here we shall kill innovation and set ourselves back to 25 years ago.
>> Good people, let us stop this by all means.
>> 
>> 
>> Ndemo.
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 8:41 PM, James Kulubi via kictanet <
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>> 
>>> The fact that the Bill has been presented to Parliament before the ICT
>>> Policy review process is completed means that it will be very difficult to
>>> administer it when enacted into law. Usually, the policy sets vision and
>>> mission for the sector for a foreseeable future. The policy may have a
>>> human resource development component. The policy is then implemented
>>> through legislation, government budget and regulations. When I read the
>>> reason and memorandum of the bill, the only policy statement that I can see
>>> is ?to establish a legal framework for the training, registration,
>>> licensing, practice and standards of Information Communication Technology
>>> (ICT) professionals in Kenya.?
>>> The ICT practitioners bill therefore creates some unusual situation.
>>> Those who can remember, we in the ICT sector faced a similar situation in
>>> the period 2005 ? 2007. There were many people supporting the legislation
>>> of the Media Bill but there were serious disagreements on the media council
>>> membership; licensing of media practitioners; the role of the government;
>>> the role of the media owners; regulation of print and electronic media,
>>> offences, and the financing of the Council.
>>> The government, for instance, while supporting the establishment of the
>>> Media Council, did not want the Council to be financed from foreign
>>> sources. On the other hand, some media practitioners did not want to be
>>> financed by the government.  The middle ground was funding by member
>>> subscriptions and accreditation. This too was opposed by many media
>>> practitioners.
>>> Eventually, a policy was developed through public consultation covering
>>> such aspects as media ownership, accreditation of journalists, code of
>>> conduct of journalists and the broadcasting code, etc.
>>> In my view the policy informing the  ICT professional bill should have
>>> borrowed heavily from the outcome of current ICT policy review process and
>>> been subjected to wider stakeholder consultation. The following issues, for
>>> instance, require wider consultation.
>>> 1. The definition provided for ICT practitioner which I quote ?ICT
>>> practitioner (ICTP)" means a person registered under this Act as an ICT
>>> practitioner who is also licensed under section 20 to practice? is vague,
>>> misleading and may be viewed as discriminating.
>>> 2. Many ICT professionals qualify or are already registered by other
>>> organizations. These include those in fields like Telecommunication
>>> Engineering, Computer Engineering, Medical Information Systems, financial
>>> information systems, etc.
>>> 3. The eligibility for registration which is stated as ?holder of at
>>> least a bachelor's degree in an ICT related field from a recognized
>>> university,? is vague and can be abused. Already, we have other fields like
>>> engineering where applicants for registration are suffering due to this
>>> condition. Graduates from countries like USSR which offer MSc as first
>>> degrees cannot be registered. Similarly, those with Higher National Diploma
>>> who have gone ahead to get MSc and even PhD cannot be registered! Further,
>>> in some universities like Maseno all degree programmes have an extension
>>> ?with ICT.? How will the Council treat these degrees?
>>> 4. Technologists have drafted another bill which is before Parliament.
>>> How will the Technologists bill co-exist with the ICT practitioners bill?
>>> 5. There are many institutions carrying out institutional accreditation
>>> and certification of ICT practitioners. How will such accreditation and
>>> certification be treated by the Council?
>>> Best regards,
>>> Prof. James Kulubi
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Wednesday, 6 July 2016, 19:10, Wangari Kabiru via kictanet <
>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Blessed Wednesday!
>>> A handshake to the 2014 article!
>>> There is a great opportunity for Techies to take their rightful place as
>>> professionals and be invited to give valued contributions to the nation
>>> building table.
>>> As I said earlier, non-Techs will be there. Perhaps another
>>> classification within the broader "ICT Professional".
>>> *ICT Practitioners - sounds like a very broad term to attempt to compact
>>> and create shared guidelines/standards.
>>> On the said ICT Practitioners Bill - it seems that part of the issue is
>>> with regard to who is/are behind it. All in all, to have gotten a hearing,
>>> it means this is an organised group.
>>> Which is perhaps what this community might seek to engage with and build
>>> together before "shooting the innovator".
>>> Blessed day.
>>> Regards/Wangari
>>> On Jul 6, 2016 15:47, Alex Watila via kictanet <
>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thanks Walu,
>>> What is the way forward on the bill?
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> 
>>> Alex
>>> 
>>> 
>>> *From:* Walubengo J [mailto:jwalu at yahoo.com]
>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 6, 2016 3:26 PM
>>> *To:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>>> *Cc:* Dennis Muthuri <muthuridennis at gmail.com>; Alex Watila <
>>> awatila at yahoo.co.uk>
>>> *Subject:* Kenya ICT Practitioners Bill - Walu's Views
>>> 
>>> @Alex, @Muthuri,
>>> 
>>> Thnx for 'bursting' me @
>>> 
>>> 
>>> http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/walubengo/-/2274560/2305252/-/1208fkiz/-/index.html
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
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>>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
>>> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
>>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>>> 
>>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> kictanet mailing list
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>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
>> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/harry26001%40gmail.com
>> 
>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
>> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>> 
>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>> 
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> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 20:16:01 +0100
> From: Paul Korir <polariseke at gmail.com>
> To: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenya ICT Practitioners Bill - Walu's View
> Message-ID: <84F200CF-4872-4A8C-B9B0-92F3B0F558F0 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> This is sheer madness! 
> 
> We already have legislation (unconstitutional at that) requiring licensing of any kind of research (Science, Technology and Innovation Act of 2015, Article 12). Was this new dispensation aimed at regulating every liberty we have even those that are natural? Regulation always opens the door for bureaucratic abuse. This stinks of the same colonial attitude that prevented indigenous people from growing cash crops. Whoever came up with this bill was of the mindset 'if you can't innovate then ride in their coat tails'!
> 
> Please can someone stop this madness?!
> 
> With kind regards,
> Paul K Korir, PhD
> Ordnung mu? sein
> 
>> On 6 Jul 2016, at 19:44, kictanet-request at lists.kictanet.or.ke wrote:
>> 
>> Re: Kenya ICT Practitioners Bill - Walu's View
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> End of kictanet Digest, Vol 110, Issue 85
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