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Annual ICT Awards 2011

I attended the Computer Society of Kenya (CSK) organized Annual ICT Awards Ceremony for the year 2011 and was disappointed in most areas. Starting from getting information about the awards ceremony: information about the event even from the CSK website were scanty. Just check the CSK website at http://www.cskonline.org/ and you will be deeply disappointed at the usability level of the website! Honestly, I believe a college student who has done some website design and usability analysis requirements for websites can do so much better. The site is not navigable in the first place nor is it informative, it is cluttered with adverts on key areas right on the home page. Secondly, publicity for the event was not adequate. In this age where technology is driving what is happening in the world, such an event not being advertised even on social media (for heaven's sake this is free) is rather disappointing. I've not checked but I wonder whether CSK is on any social media platform;

What is the 'real' value of certifications to companies and their customers?

 In the current Kenya setup, there are a number of companies that are aspiring to get coveted international certifications like ISO for quality management systems, environmental or security requirements compliance, etc. but how many are actually striving to improve their service offerings to their customers? Few. Many just want to flaunt them to their competitors and prospective customers but not on improvement of their service delivery. Take the example of some public universities (I think almost all of them). They have ISO 9001:2008 certification. But how many lecturers and administrators in these universities appreciate that students are their most important customers? Very few. This is precisely the reason why you will have an ISO certified university that does not have a clear policy (or is it direction?) of where admission forms should be ‘deposited’ or returned to! I had a nasty experience the other day where I had to shuttle between two university campuses trying to convinc

Mr Davis Onsakia: The battle for dotAfrica; who will get the crown jewels?

Mr Davis Onsakia: The battle for dotAfrica; who will get the crown jewels?

The battle for dotAfrica; who will get the crown jewels?

This is an article which I penned in the Business Daily of 8th July 2011 concerning the battle for .africa domain name. The article can also be accessed at http://www.africareview.com/Special+Reports/Battle+on+for+dotAfrica/-/979182/1197116/-/87uo0s/-/index.htm l - on the African Review website. The same article can be found on the AllAfrica website at http://allafrica.com/stories/201107081489.html.

'Censoring' your status updates, tweets etc on social media

National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has indicated that they plan to track any hate speech on social media and promptly nab any wayward status updates on Facebook , racial or discriminative tweets on twitter and all other social media. The following is my honest take on this: It is important to know how to communicate by taking into consideration your audience and a myriad of other factors like the time of your talk. However, how can this be done when 'saying' something online? The internet is accessible by the whole world! Anyway, social media has greatly helped the revolution in the North African Nations of Tunisia and Egypt ( and the Arab world) and the revolution is virally spreading further to Libya, Mali and a host of other nations; even closer home, to our next door neighbour, Uganda – I don’t like the treatment being meted out to Besigye and company – it is barbaric and a crime against humanity: unfair and the highest level of cowardice. This might

Joining the Internet Society

We need to shape the future and direction of the Internet. We can only do so by joining a global body like the Internet Society to be able to put our case across. However, I'm rather disappointed to realize that the society does not have have a Kenyan Chapter may be because we don't have the numbers. We need to register, as Kenyans, both locally and from the diaspora, to be able to form vibrant local chapter which can handle 'internet' matters concerning Kenya and our beloved country. It should be noted that 'young' countries like Rwanda have a local chapter. What does this mean to us? That Rwanda is technologically ahead of us? I don't know but it seems like it is. We need to do something for ourselves and this can be the opportunity. Register yourselves at https://portal.isoc.org/EBusiness/NewMemberStepOne.aspx?refid=xd1371053hf to shape the future of this very important resource. I look forward to seeing you onboard soon.