Kenya’s ICT Village Concept

One of the projects that will most likely change the way we perceive the ICT sector is the development of the so called Digital Villages Project (DVP) that is being implemented by the Kenya ICT Board through the Kenya Transparency Communications Infrastructure Project (KTCIP). The key objective is to establish a network of information facilities especially in the rural areas of Kenya by making ICT more accessible and cheaper to the folks living in the bundus. This is also expected to create economic activities and in the process hopefully reverse the rural-to-urban migration.

Digital villages are e-centres that will provide a suite of services to the public through computers connected to the Internet, digital cameras, printers, fax machines and other communication infrastructure in rural or peri-urban areas. These services include, but are not limited to: e-mail and Internet access; e-banking (e.g. money transfer services such as Posta Pay); e-government (e.g., police abstract forms, tax returns, P3 forms, and driving license applications); e-business (e.g., franchised postal and courier services); e-learning; e-health; e-markets (e.g., agricultural commodity pricing and exchange); and e-monitoring (e.g., real-time local level monitoring of development funds and projects). There are three types of digital village facilities:

• Digital centres – development hubs with 10 to 20 PCs
  
• Digital schools – educational facilities with 5 to 10 PCs.
  
• Digital kiosks – commercial facilities with 1 to 5 PCs.
  

Each digital centre is expected to support a minimum of two digital schools and four digital kiosks. To assist the owners to set-up, expand, and sustain their operations, funding will be obtained from the following sources:

• Commercial banks,
  
• Youth Fund,
  
• Women's Fund,
  
• Investment Groups,
  
• Constituency Development Funds,
  
• Other sources.
  

The biggest worry among some of us who have been following the developments was the low penetration rate by the state power distribution that is estimated at only 3%! With the swearing in of the coalition government, Minister Kiraitu in charge of power (I think so) promised power distribution to all hospitals, schools and trading centres in the rural areas in the next 2 years.

As part of these efforts, the Kenya ICT Board put out an advert invite all stake holders on the DVP implementation that will be focus on four main activity areas:

• Training for the entrepreneurs who will start and manage the digital villages
  
• Technical support – including direct IT support services such as computer servicing and the like at no cost to the entrepreneur
  
• A bandwidth subsidy to enable the digital villages to charge the lowest possible rates for internet services – therefore allowing more people access to the services
  
• A revolving fund of US$ 4 Million to provide soft loans for the entrepreneurs who want to start or expand their digital villages.
  

Designated Digital Village Managers will undergo an intensive 3weeks training programme designed to stimulate, motivate and prepare them to manage (as businesses) Digital Villages. A special training programme will be developed by consultants to equip potential entrepreneurs to start and successfully manage their own business.

The programme is designed for:

• The entrepreneurial youth
  
• Retrenched / retired employees who want to start their own businesses and require training in business creation, management end growth
  
• Practicing businesspeople who want to expand into a new field.
  

The aim of this programme is to prepare unemployed, practicing and potential entrepreneurs to take charge of their lives and their future.

After training, the participants:

• Will be capable to start and manage Digital Villages
  
• Will be capable of preparing business plans, sourcing for funds using such business plans, implementing their business plans and successfully managing their businesses.
  

More information can be obtained the ICTVillage site

Internet Explorer 7 and 8 causing C:\$MFT Error

On two occasions now I have been encountering problems with my lap top after allowing Windows Update to install critical updates in the form of IE 7. Both IE versions have great interface and options to use for any frequent web surfer, but it was the second time after trying the new IE 8 that the same problem cropped up again which led to question the stability of the web browsers.

What happens is that after rebooting the system you end up getting this annoying message that 'C:\$MFT is corrupt', and any attempts to use the System Restore becomes a futile exercise as it does not work. The error message keeps suggesting that you carry out the maintenance using CHKDSK, an option that is not a good one for me as I have a dual-boot OSes of OpenSuse 10.3 and Windows XP.

Initially the thought was that I had corrupted my boot sector, or even worse, about to crash my hard drive. Searching the Microsoft site did not provide me with any solutions, nor other forums elsewhere.

But I did discover the best solution to the problem – simply remove the IE versions using their uninstaller programme through the 'Add and Remove Programs' feature, and migrate to Mozilla Firefox or Opera which have equally and more better features. Or get stuck with IE 6 that is still dependable but a dinosaur in the arena of web browsers.

Project Management Software

For most of us involved in any project managements, whether ICT or non-ICT related, we will most frequently want to use a project management software that is easy to understand and use, and produces great reports for inclusion into the final submission.

This can be very frustrating when trying to source for a proprietary app such as Microsoft Project that will likely cost you an arm in process. I discovered long ago the joy of free open source software (FOSS) when it comes to searching and determining what apps are best suited to the kind of project we are managing. And it is a gold mine out there in the world of FOSS, which hundreds of apps that can provide a rich source of such apps.

Project management software fall under three major categories: desktop applications, web-based services and web-based systems. For now I will focus on the desktop applications that are installed on your PC and among the best that I can recommend for its simplicity and export capability is Gantt Project. It has good features and accessories for a free product which is distributed under a GNU General Public License, which means you can download it for free.

The major features that come with this software are the creation of task hierarchy and dependencies and generation of PERT chart. You can put in a percentage complete bar, inside that timeline of that particular stage making it easy to see the progress of the project. You can add as many tasks as you need, as well as assign personnel and resources to each task.

It enables addition of team members for a project and assigning them to tasks when you set them up, capture their e-mail addresses as well as phone numbers for each person, and assign them a role in the group. It also includes a Milestone feature which is very useful, giving an end goal to aim for with a fixed time.

Looking at the export document format types, it will not disappoint. It allows you to export your work either as a PNG or JPEG image file; CSV file; HTML file with theme support; PDF report with theme support or even better as an Ms Project (.MPX extension) file.

You can download Gantt Project here.

Another FREE app is the TIMIOS Gantt Chart Designer. It is easy to use, with a wide range of bar types and colours and shades, linked tasks, easy printing options and a copy and paste of chart into Ms Office documents or web pages. It is absolutely free and the current version is which you can download here.