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STUDY ABROAD OPTIONS
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JOKO PROJECT SET TO GO ONLINE IN SENEGAL Hewlett Packard has formed a pact with Senegal’s telecommunications services provider, Sonatel, and Africa’s World Music superstar Youssou N’Dour. Together they are launching the Joko Project, a bold plan to use the Internet to broaden access to social and economic opportunities for Senegalese people living at home and abroad. The project will involve more than keyboards and monitors. "The African culture is much more verbal than written - or typed," notes Lyle Hurst, director, HP World e-Inclusion. "So we will also design applications around telephones and radios, which are familiar, low-cost, intuitive devices that are already there. A radio station is a capital-intensive thing, but a PC-based micro-broadcast station is not. Our goal is to have millions of users for Joko’s content, which could include radio transmissions about employment opportunities, transportation schedules, weather, and crop prices for farmers." One of the tangible advantages of the project is access to Sonatel’s infrastructure, which is pretty sophisticated by African standards. Although it is still a monopoly, it is going to be privatized by 2003. The Joko Project will build a web site for all of Senegal as well as the Joko Clubs - Internet access centers - to connect Senegalese people through e-mail, online chat and Web videoconferencing. In Wolof, an African language widely spoken in Senegal, the word joko means connection or link. Joko is also the title of N’Dour’s most recent album (Nonesuch Records), his first U.S. release in six years. Work on the Joko Project is due to start in February 2001. The new Web site and the first clubs will be in operation by spring of 2002. American and European mentors will teach Web development skills to the Senegalese participants.Senegal has a sizable expatriate community. One example is New York City’s "Little Senegal," around 116th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard, where most of the local businesses are owned by Senegalese immigrants. Small Joko facilities will be built in cities in North America, Europe and Africa so that Senegalese expatriates can remain in touch with family and friends online. The Joko Clubs will offset development costs via advertising, merchandising and a modest income from food and beverage sales, membership fees and yellow-pages listings. Ultimately, the Joko Web site will license Senegalese music and cultural content to major Western Web sites on a revenue-sharing basis. HP’s World e-Inclusion program, which seeks to help the 4 billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day, will make Senegal the focus of its largest project to date. (source: Hewlett Packard’s web site) BURKINA FASO’S MOBILE OPERATORS TAKE ON STATE TELCO For several months now, Burkina Faso’s two mobile operators have been locked in battle with state-owned Office National des telecommunications (source: http://www.africaintelligence.com/channels/sectors/telecoms ) GHANA TELECOM SETTLES ITS TAX BILL WITH ACCRA Ghana’s first fixed telephone operator, the former state telco Ghana Telecom, agreed at the end of January to pay the taxes that the capital city of Accra was demanding of it. (source: http://www.africaintelligence.com/channels/sectors/telecoms ) SENEGAL SETS UP A TELECOMMS MINISTRY After the "technical reshuffle"
of its government announced on February 5 by Prime Minister Moustapha
Niasse, Senegal now has a ministry of telecommunications, headed
by Mamadou Diop Decroix. SOUTH AFRICA NAMES DIGITAL DIVIDE TASK FORCE Top names for telecoms task
force to get SA up to speed President Thabo Mbeki committed his
government on Friday to ensuring that the SA telecommunications
sector does not fall behind the rest of the world, and announced
the establishment of two high-profile task teams to assist the
government in closing the so-called "digital divide".
Members include: Larry Ellison of Oracle, Carly Fiorina of HP,
Esther Dyson of Edventure Holdings, Craig McCaw of Teledisc,
Prof Manuell Castell of University of California, Serge Tchuruk
of Alcatel, Rajendra Pawar of NIIT India and David Potter of
Psion. ABSA’S FREE INTERNET SERVICE ATTRACTS OVER 20,000 IN THREE DAYS More than 20 000 people have
registered for Absa’s free internet servicein its first
three days. This figure represents 3% of the market share in
the current ISP playing field. If it continues to attract at
this rate, it will trigger a major shake-up in the South African
ISP market. Meanwhile M-Web announced last month that its monthly
internet subscription rates are increasing to R119 a month, making
it the most expensive ISP in the country. CISCO AND UNDP TRAIN THE TRAINERS IN WEST AFRICA Cisco Systems and UNDP have launched an Internet training programme in Cotonou, Benin, for 18 Internet administrators from eight francophone countries in Africa and are establishing a new Internet training centre in Burkina Faso. The "training of trainers" course is a new step by UNDP, Cisco Systems, UN Volunteers and other partners to bring Cisco’s Networking Academy Program to half of the world’s 48 least developed countries. The 17-day training session, which ran through January, concentrated on installation and maintenance of Internet infrastructure, said UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Moustapha Soumare. Mr. Soumare also noted that Benin is one of the few African countries where the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) is underway. Launched by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and managed by UN Volunteers, UNITeS mobilizes information technology professionals to help developing countries harness the power of ICT for human development.Benin is home to a Regional Academy for francophone countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for the Cisco initiative. The 18 participants hail from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Togo. SDNP Benin, which hosts the Regional Academy, is providing facilities for the training. In a related development, the
Information Technology Centre at the University of Ouagadougou
in Burkina Faso has signed an agreement to become another Regional
Academy for the Cisco initiative. Under the agreement, the Information
Technology Centre will undertake to enrol at least 10 institutions
in the region as local academies. National universities in Chad
and Niger are already expected to provide homes for local academies.
SENEGALESE PROJECT TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY USING INTERNET A project called "Information and Communication Technologies supporting women’s gender equality programmes in Senegal" has been launched.The project is being implemented by ENDA Third-World in partnership with Siggil Jigeen, and supported by the International Development Research Centre. The project aims to raise public awareness of the need for replacing notions of "marital power" and "paternal power" with ideas of "joint parenting" and "joint responsibility for the family". This will be done through research, content production, information and communication, training and lobbying - using the many tools offered by the Internet. The project is runby ENDA Third World’s SYNFEV team ("Synergy Gender and Development").Siggil Jigeen is a consultation and action framework made up of 17 Senegalese NGOs working for the promotion of women’s status in Senegal. (source: ENDA Third World:
synfev@enda.sn and
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This page last updated on January 28 2004.
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