The Zambian » Technology

ZAMTEL Commission Report

The Zambian Editor — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:29:26 +0000

From Zambian Economist, a blog by Chola Mukanga, comes a new post with full details of the ZAMTEL Commission Report.

The final report to President Michael Sata of the Commission of Inquiry into the sale of ZAMTEL. The Government has release this confidential report to foster transparency and encourage public debate on the future of ZAMTEL.

PIPA and Zambia

The Zambian Editor — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:49:32 +0000

On January 18, 2012 many sites around the web — from small personal blogs to internet institutions like Mozilla, Wikipedia, reddit, and WordPress will be going dark in protest and to drive their visitors to sites like Stop American Censorship to take action and help fight the passage of the Senate Bill 968: the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

In an earlier post, SOPA and Zambia, we discussed how we felt that passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act in the United States may affect the way we use the web. This is the same way we feel about the Protect IP Act. SOPA and PIPA are widely considered to be two versions of the same anti-piracy bill. SOPA is the House of Representative’s version whereas PIPA resides in the Senate. Both SOPA and PIPA are intended to curb online piracy. Take a look at the following video to see why we are taking this stance:

No SOPA/ PIPA logo courtesy of Global Voices.

CRS ICT4D Conference Presentation Proposals Due By January 15, 2012

The Zambian Editor — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:03:01 +0000

Catholic Relief Services

Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) Conference

March 27-28, 2012

Hôtel des Mille Collines – Kigali, Rwanda

“Creating Value through ICT4D Partnerships: NGOs, Government, and the Private Sector Innovating Together”

CRS is seeking applications from vendors, nongovernmental organizations and government agency teams to present at the 2012 ICT4D conference on the theme of partnerships. In order to be considered, projects should meet the following criteria:

Successful deployment/use in the field.
Relevant to major NGO service sectors, including health, agriculture, education, microfinance, distance learning, emergency response and monitoring and evaluation.
Demonstrated impact on the quality of relief and development programs.
Ongoing value to developing communities.

Please visit our website for more information about the conference and on the application process.

Registration will be open mid-January and you will receive another email about that soon!

If you have any questions, please email Toishia Powell at CRSICT4DConference@global.crs.org.

Toishia Powell

U.S. Embassy Lusaka Short Training Opportunity

The Zambian Editor — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:56:07 +0000

The U.S. Embassy Lusaka is looking at putting together a small group of people to participate in a short but valuable practical workshop to be held at the American Embassy Lusaka (January 10, 2012 from 15:30 to 17:00). The workshop will be led by Kakie Urch, an assistant professor of multimedia in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications.

The type of participants the embassy is looking for are those people who are directly involved in uploading information to government websites andgovernment social media sites. If you fall within this group of people, kindly send me a direct email to leemuzala@yahoo.com indicating your full names, government ministry or organisation you work for, phone number and email address. The deadline to respond is 17:00, Thursday 5th January 2012.

SOPA and Zambia

The Zambian Editor — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:03:01 +0000

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Now before the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act.

The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who requests the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for 10 pieces of music or movies within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.

(Source: Stop Online Piracy Act)

Although it appears that SOPA has no direct impact on Zambia, it is clear from reading articles like How SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia and from various African discussion groups, that this approach to blocking and filtering the Internet may seriously affect the growth of e-commerce in Africa even as it curtails certain fundamental rights.

Our policy is that we want to keep the Internet free for Africa and Africans and especially Zambia and Zambians. What are your thoughts?

AYSICCIKS – COP17 Communique

The Zambian Editor — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:14:46 +0000

The African Young Scientists and Youth Initiatives on Climate Change and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AYSICCIKS) held Round Table Discussions on the Role of Young Scientists and Indigenous Knowledge Systems on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation at the COP 17 UN Conference on Climate Change. They came up with the AYSICCIKS – COP17 communique that was sent to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to The Kyoto Protocol in Durban, South Africa.

ZAMTEL introduces Free Fax to Email

The Zambian Editor — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:53:28 +0000

ZAMTEL has just introduced a new service called Fax2Email. Essentially, this is a digital online faxing solution that allows you to register for a free fax number and receive any faxes sent to that number by e-mail.

Some benefits of the service:

Get a virtual fax number
Receive Faxes directly to your email box
Receiving faxes is free
Sending faxes to your fax number only costs the sender K2,000
Your confidential documents are securely stored
Messages are archived for up to 30 days

Congrats to Michael Nabutali, CCIE #28640

The Zambian Editor — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:19:49 +0000

Michael Nabutali from Zambia passed his CCIE R&S last week. That makes Michael as far I know the FIRST and ONLY in his country to get a CCIE. That is remarkable. Michael contacted me for the first time in October last year after I passed my SP and he expressed his ambition to be the first CCIE in his country. He asked me for some guidance after his earlier attempts and I provided some basic info to assist where I could.

– Routing-Bits

The Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) certification is accepted worldwide as the most prestigious networking certification in the industry. Network Engineers holding an active Cisco CCIE certification are recognized for their expert network engineering skills and mastery of Cisco products and solutions. The CCIE community has established a reputation of leading the networking industry in deep technical networking knowledge and are deployed into the most technically challenging network assignments.

Congratulations Michael!

ICT@Innovation Programme Builds Free and Open Source Capacity in Africa

Brenda Zulu — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:42:50 +0000

In March 2011 the ICT@Innovation programme, aimed at building free and open source capacity in Africa, achieved a 75% pass-rate for the Southern Africa leg of its Linux professional certification programme. This follows the 66% pass rate achieved in its East Africa leg which was held in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2010. The success of the project so far has double the number of Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certified professionals in countries such as Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and Mozambique.

“The success of the programme so far has exceeded our expectations,” said George Nyambuya programme manager at ICT@Innovation, “ and we and hope to achieve a much wider impact as participants implement plans to roll out training programmes in their local communities.”

Linux Certification, a division of South African based Jumping Bean, an open source integration company was selected to run the two week intensive course which prepares participants to write the internationally recognised LPI Level 1 certification.

“We are thrilled to be part of the effort to build open source capacity in Africa and overjoyed that our Linux training programme has been so instrumental in helping ICT@innovation achieve its objectives” said Trust Zifa, Technical training manager at Jumping Bean, who attributed the high pass rates to the quality of the trainers and participants alike.

“With the first phase of the programme well under way we will now be concentrating on the 2nd phase of supporting participants as they grow floss businesses around Linux training and help foster the adoption and use of FOSS in a sustainable way for Africa” said Evans Ikua ,FOSS Certification Manager for ict@innovation.

ICT@innovation is a partnership of FOSSFA (Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Funding partners are the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). The programme focuses on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as a key technology to drive innovation, add local value and create sustainable and affordable ICT solutions. ICT@innovation aims to enhance regional networking and to strengthen consulting capacities of regional and national ICT associations and training institutions as well as of other relevant change agents.

Jumping Bean however also offers training in Drupal and Java training.

Africa College Competition: Using Research to Make an Impact on Food Security and Human Health

The Zambian Editor — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 01:07:24 +0000

First Prize £400 Special prizes of £200 for best entries from research, private sector, civil society and farmer organisations

How to enter:

Entrants are asked to answer three questions: (i) what impact was made and who benefitted, (ii) what the author(s) did to help achieve this impact, and (iii) what lessons this has to increase the impact of research on food security and human health in sub-Saharan Africa.

A maximum of 1,500 words is allowed. To enter the competition entrants must use the entry form available on the Africa College web site.

Entries must be received by 5pm (GMT) on 6th June 2011. Winners will be announced during the Food Security, Health and Impact Knowledge Brokering Conference, 22-24th June 2011.

The prize is sponsored by the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences

For more details on the competition and entry form please go to www.africacollege.leeds.ac.uk or request these by email to africacollege@leeds.ac.uk