Applications, Geeks, development and culture.
Two days ago, I attended a prize giving session at the Hive Colab in Kamwokya, on Kanjokya Street.
The event dubbed AppCircus was the brain child of an international group with a local chapter called Mobile Monday.
Some of the more popular applications for the day was one which was designed to help you find the best restaurants in Kampala.
The success of this application seems to point to something greater-the emergence of a geek class and it's relationship with American Culture.
I am not certain what the source of this phenomenon is but I can see a direct relationship between the rise of this class and the manner in which American Culture has been exported to Uganda.
We do have a culture that enjoys to dine out but in my view we are not as intense as the Americans.
In other posts I mentioned in brief some of the opportunities that exist in the restaurant business. Experience shows that a lot goes into the establishment of these types of businesses. My concern is, that in many cases, very little research is done when these are set up. As a result, you will find many restaurants that are mere copies of other facilities and that will therefore not last long.
It has not helped much that some of the bigger names in Information Technology services often push for 'New Trends' that involve more creative work spaces (google is usually mentioned for it's creative spaces) as well as alternative staffing options that include telecommuting. No wonder that Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Meyer caused quite a lot trouble when she called in her HomeBased Workers. In addition to this, there are some who feel like they can avoid a University Education and Create great ideas from their garages (as did the founder of google) or even drop out of college to start
businesses (as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates).
When I talked about the creation of business spaces, the plan was to help deal with the challenge of rent for entrepreneurs, to help find an unlimited source of clientele of restaurant and coffee shop owners, to increase revenue for tax purposes as well as to help register more businesses for government.
A good percentage of Uganda's population is under the age of 25. This group of young people is easily influenced and vulnerable to media and western culture. When a group feels entitled but is inadequately trained to deal with the challenges of it's time, there are bound to be problems.
It is interesting but noteworthy that the group that seems to be challenging our nation and regions security is called Al Shabab-loosely translated as youth.
In a much broader sense therefore, the challenge is not really the guns or the bombs it involves jobs, land, education, equal opportunity and very intense planning for the young people.
We therefore need to place a lot of attention on youth movements especially those that are started at the grass roots. Intense and focused conversations need to be held with youth associations and their leaders. Instead of fighting the young people that in our view spend too much time idling in our neighborhoods, we need to find a way of accessing their space.
One of the most misused words of our day is Tyrant. Yet it was historically founded on the notion that in times of insecurity leaders would emerge and take their places in defense of their spaces.
The event dubbed AppCircus was the brain child of an international group with a local chapter called Mobile Monday.
Some of the more popular applications for the day was one which was designed to help you find the best restaurants in Kampala.
The success of this application seems to point to something greater-the emergence of a geek class and it's relationship with American Culture.
I am not certain what the source of this phenomenon is but I can see a direct relationship between the rise of this class and the manner in which American Culture has been exported to Uganda.
We do have a culture that enjoys to dine out but in my view we are not as intense as the Americans.
In other posts I mentioned in brief some of the opportunities that exist in the restaurant business. Experience shows that a lot goes into the establishment of these types of businesses. My concern is, that in many cases, very little research is done when these are set up. As a result, you will find many restaurants that are mere copies of other facilities and that will therefore not last long.
It has not helped much that some of the bigger names in Information Technology services often push for 'New Trends' that involve more creative work spaces (google is usually mentioned for it's creative spaces) as well as alternative staffing options that include telecommuting. No wonder that Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Meyer caused quite a lot trouble when she called in her HomeBased Workers. In addition to this, there are some who feel like they can avoid a University Education and Create great ideas from their garages (as did the founder of google) or even drop out of college to start
businesses (as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates).
When I talked about the creation of business spaces, the plan was to help deal with the challenge of rent for entrepreneurs, to help find an unlimited source of clientele of restaurant and coffee shop owners, to increase revenue for tax purposes as well as to help register more businesses for government.
A good percentage of Uganda's population is under the age of 25. This group of young people is easily influenced and vulnerable to media and western culture. When a group feels entitled but is inadequately trained to deal with the challenges of it's time, there are bound to be problems.
It is interesting but noteworthy that the group that seems to be challenging our nation and regions security is called Al Shabab-loosely translated as youth.
In a much broader sense therefore, the challenge is not really the guns or the bombs it involves jobs, land, education, equal opportunity and very intense planning for the young people.
We therefore need to place a lot of attention on youth movements especially those that are started at the grass roots. Intense and focused conversations need to be held with youth associations and their leaders. Instead of fighting the young people that in our view spend too much time idling in our neighborhoods, we need to find a way of accessing their space.
One of the most misused words of our day is Tyrant. Yet it was historically founded on the notion that in times of insecurity leaders would emerge and take their places in defense of their spaces.
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