I asked a similar question on this blog several weeks back, “Where are all the black bloggers and readers?” and noted we needed practical steps. Posts like Mandy’s and Ramons are counter productive and actually serve no purpose as they are separating us in groups. Nic pointed this out as well on his blog and Nur Ahmed also looks at the issue on his blog.

Blogging about things like this actually does nothing other then change perceptions and as i pointed out in my previous post the only thing that really matters is ACTION and practical solutions. It boils to down to access to ICT and education. I posted on why access to ICT is a key economic driver as quoted below:

“In a study (PDF) by Harvard economist Robert Jensen he reported that when mobile phones were launched in kerala in 1997, Fisherman used the phones to call local markets while still at sea. This in turned helped raise profits by 8%, lowering consumer prices by 4% and reduced catch wastage from 6.5% to practically nothing.”

Instead of asking these silly questions and debating issues that draw racial lines in the sand(which further perpetuates difference and hatred and turns into this), we should be asking:

- How can we use technology, to uplift people in poverty?
- How can we grant people people who don’t have access to ICT that access?
- How can we TRAIN people with very little knowledge of technology cheaply and efficiently?
- How can we use technology to stimulate entrepreneurship for people in poverty?

This should not be about race, but about empowerment not based on skin colour but of PEOPLE IN POVERTY, irrespective of race.

Having said that, i recently started a project to actually take action and use the varied skills everyone has to make a change. I posted about it on techleader and created a google group to discuss practical steps. However, no one bothered to join. With only 9 members, i am forced to conclude that no one really cares (except for a few) we are more interested in blowing smoke, debating issues, blogging about making a difference while having dinners, meetups and networking events amongst a selected few, “the technology savvy/early adopter crowd”. We can have conferences to spread ideas, but the only thing that will matter is ACTION.

So lets re-frame this, and let me give you a purely selfish reason why you should care.

Our country is facing serious economic issues and social unrest. We have fuel prices being hiked, interest rates going up, massive food shortages and inflation at the highest level in recent times. Do not get me wrong, this is not a doom and gloom post i am just pointing out the facts of the current situation. We may not feel the pinch, but people below the bread line will definitely and this could lead to social unrest.

South Africa has about 47 million people and according to a report by world wide worx only 8% internet penetration as of November 2007. Based on these figures that equates to just over 3.7 Million people. This means, that South Africa has a very small economy of scale for any Internet Company / Blog / Online media company, This means less profits, less people viewing your blog, less people joining your niche social networks, less people clicking on your adsense ads. It also means less tech savvy people, less people who would study internet or IT engineering related fields, which makes it more difficult to source talent for companies.

So look at it this way, if you could increase that penetration you could increases the number of people that are tech savvy, increase the number of people that are educated and trained, you increase people who could have the right skills for jobs, increase people clicking on your ads and you get more profits, and we are also better off as a country with more people out of poverty, more people educated and trained and more people that are economically productive. Now, these may seem like big goals but they are not when you consider the power of technology and drastically reduced costs of publication and co-ordination.

So here’s an open challenge to the white boys club, the non white boys club and everyone else, basically all of us:

Rather then point out the elephant in the room which does nothing but acknowledge that it exists.

Ask yourself: what small practical steps can we take, to make a difference?

Ramon, you run Netucation: how about free training for those that can’t afford it?
Nic, you seem to write well on your blogs, how about training on how to blog online and run a business from blogging?
Dave Durate, you run a programme at UCT, how about a competition giving someone a sponsored place at the next one? If that is out of the question we could raise money from the tech community or get a sponsor

These are just a few of the ideas, off the top of my head. Small things like this will actually make a difference.

The question really is Do you really care enough to to do something.

Take a look at the screen shot of the most popular blogs in the last 30 days which are publicly available here.

The top two sites(Rugbydump & Keo) which account for roughly 30% of the traffic focus mostly on rugby. There is nothing entirely wrong with that as sites like amatomu are ‘democratic’ and the public choose the best with the number of visits but the statistics become more interesting when you delve deeper to what they actually mean.

I do not believe anyone could claim that rugby is the most watched or the most popular sport amongst South Africans yet these blogs are the most popular, this further proves that the blogosphere is not actually an accurate representation of South Africans.

This points out that black bloggers and readers are strangely lacking. This was covered by Khanya when the site launched. A year later and the picture has not changed. Khanya ends his blog with

“Perhaps there is a need for some affirmative action here.”

This is just plain silly.

It however does point out that Black South Africans are not blogging nearly enough nor are they surfing as much. I haven’t seen any statistics on internet usage or access to PC’s of black South Africans but i am willing to bet that the imbalance would be represented there as well.

Instead of calling for affirmative action, we should concentrate on education and getting people access to computers & the internet.

As with my previous post i will end with:
Stay tuned for some practical steps to initiate change.

But seriously now, ENOUGH! These headlines and articles, radio stations make NO SENSE what so ever. The media, the parents and Patricia de lille seriously need to get a clue.

The articles states

“Olivier said although Hannelie’s case is “sensitive”, he is positive it’s connected to MXit, which he condemns as “evil”.” A quote by Desmond Olivier.

Everyone and their mother seems to want to get on the ‘MXit is evil’ bandwagon, this is fueled by sensationalist journalism from the main stream media.

I am going to clue you in on why this kind of reporting makes no sense.

MXit is a service, Like ANY other service. Just like SMS, Mobile Phone calls, the internet, Google and facebook. They are all just services provided by a range of companies.

Would headlines like these make sense for these other services?

• Teenage boy hooked on google addicted to porn
• Mobile Phone user missing

Yes? No?

Ok, Here’s another question to get you thinking.

If you give your kid a PC, with unrestricted internet access and he uses Google to find porn. Is Google to blame for indexing these sites?

Nobody in their right minds would claim that. The responsibility lies squarely on the parents and the kids. If you are not monitoring your kids internet usage you are to blame if they are exposed to things they should not be. If you are not monitoring your kids cell phone usage YOU as a parent are to blame if they contact or give their numbers out to the wrong people.

So what’s going on here? Deep down, most people find it difficult to accept they are flawed. It’s difficult to tell yourself ‘YES i made a mistake’. It’s easier to blame a SERVICE then to blame yourself but i believe when you really go to the roots the issue much deeper. Its merely a fact of parenting and control and yes its difficult to admit this BUT IT is the truth.

Maybe if we accept this fact then we can actually start tackling the real issue of parenting and education.

This post actually came about while i was researching another topic and happened to Google MXit. I found practically no business related articles on it.

We wonder why many South African start-ups do not make it internationally. We have a service that has been launched that WAS good once upon a time(thats the topic of another post) and the only value it offers to us is being a scape goat for our own parenting flaws.

We seriously need a paradigm shift in South Africa, stay tuned for something different.

I personally just logged on to twitter this morning and as you can see i have been posting tweets regularly. However my internet is provided by Du and the post seems to refer areas covered by Etisalat.

Now, If it is in fact true, this is perhaps the silliest censorship i have ever seen due to the varied ways you can access twitter. As a last resort you could still use SMS. They would need to block sending SMS to the twitter number in the UK as well to achieve this, but i fail to understand WHY would they even want to?

If anyone has trouble accessing twitter let me know, i will be going out later and will test the site from one of Etisalats hotspots.

After a ton of frantic sms this morning from friends with ‘Is (insert social networking/torrent) site working’, i decided i would test how long it would take for me to see the message below.

I logged onto blogger this morning to post some thoughts on twitter business models, read the first blog entry from blogger about a staff member leaving. Clicked the blog link and was served up with the dreaded message.

Basically the first link i followed this morning was blocked. I am curious to actually see why the content on this site is blocked as it seems like a personal blog. The confusing part though, The blog Secret Dubai Diary is blocked but not Sex and Dubai?

Now, considering this proxy will be affecting most of the ‘Free zones’ with all the big name media companies (CNN, BBC etc.) and Internet/Technology companies (Cisco, Microsoft, Google etc.) how will this be affecting their business? There are bound to be sites that should not be blocked or sites that are blocked but could be used for legitimate reasons. An example would be a security professional checking known hacking/exploit archives or a journalist visiting ‘Political/Terrorist’ sites. I am certain it will cause some amount of frustration amongst the companies based here and possibly even hamper some media companies.

If you have been to a web site for a legitimate purpose and was blocked, feel free to post a comment or link to your blog post. You could also send an email to safesurf@du.ae to lodge a complaint.