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May 6th First Thursday - India, Africa, Europe and USA May 6, 2010

Hi All.

I have published the archive of First Thursday May 6th chat. I will copy and paste a few quotes from the archive (marked*) so you can see the times when the focus of the chat changed - I have no idea what time zone it refers to. The time reference will help you to find any bits you want to read in detail.

We started with informal greetings, then after ten minutes or so moved to a slightly more formal discussion between  Shubham Nagar (in Delhi), the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at InfoAxon, and Tobias Eigen (in Berlin I think), the founder and director of Kabissa http://kabissa.org.

* [15:58] <pam> In fact our idea of comparing rural Nigeria and rural India could be a great starting point 

Gradually they discovered a shared interest more specific to their own areas of work

* [16:21] <Shubham_Nagar> Tobias , do you offer any services to Africa NGOs or simply a communication platform?

Then  John Dada arrived

*[16:27] <John_Dada> Hi folks, our apologies, Chief of Kafanchan police has been visiting

We started to focus on some practicalities of rural Africa with John, and others from our UK-Nigeria team. It is often difficult to make the time to join the chat - as we heard from "the other John"
*[16:31] <JOHN_I> have i missed so much cos am a bit late due to some sort of stress from students

*[[16:33] <pam> we are about to let T and S learn the current realities of life in rural Nigeria

and with Zoneziwoh from Cameroon
* [16:33] User Zoneziwoh enters the room English.

 and Clement from Lagos
* [16:38] <Clement_Aigbogun> Hello all


Graham Knight (UK) rejoined us while we were discussing mobile phones
*16:41] <Graham> Hi Everyone. I' interested in use of mobiles. Some of you will know why

People discovered various useful areas of overlap (which will be followed up later through our usual emails, Skype chats, Thursday chats, or whatever suits people best). 

Areas of shared interest included:

*[16:49] <Zoneziwoh> in this case, JD, how lasting can the lowest fone qlty withstand, i mean an average of hw many calls b4 the battery runs flat

* [16:50] <Shubham_Nagar> hi John, i am curious to know about how NGOs (large , medium and small) solve their knowledge management needs. Yes, we are curious to know more about Nigerian market in this context but dont know where to start

*[16:54] <John_Dada> There are NGO networks and clusters around specifc issues, but wdespread internet access challenge makes networking quite a challenge,
[16:55] <Shubham_Nagar> international development is an existing area of interest for us to contribute as we already work with HIV AIDS communities in Africa

*[16:55] <Kelechi> Am interested in what solutions you might have, am very much inclined toward software developent and deployment

By now, in theory, we were getting towards the end of our chat. Then Pauline arrived. It was still early morning in her time zone.
*[17:00] <Pauline> Hi everyone, my name is Pauline and I work for a US NGO doing development in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Togo

As usual there was a flurry of agreeing to send emails as the hour long session drew to its expected end time.
*[17:04] <Shubham_Nagar> sure Pauline - shubham.nagar@infoaxon.com
[17:04] <Kelechi> We will followup on email S, nice chatting with you.
[17:04] <Shubham_Nagar> i will email John and pam
[17:05] <Pauline> Thank you, I will email you shortly
[17:05] <John_Dada> Thanks Shubham

And as usual there was still more waiting to be said
*[17:08] <pam> Graham at the meeting yesterday Bala was reporting on what he had learned about the sotoves from you and Clement

*[17:11] <Bala> Graham, I am thinking seriously of making a bucket stove

Most people had to leave but not everyone
*[17:17] <pam> who else is still here?

Clement and Pauline were able to chat longer
*[17:21] <Pauline> So I am a French Intern doing my masters in International trilingual management and I am doing a final internship for a US NGO near Washington DC. The foundation was created several years ago by Mark Noar, MD and recently evolved to enlarge its focus. We are interveneing in rural villages in Northern Togo for now and are focused on a coordinated development.

*[17:23] <Clement_Aigbogun> am the managin consultant of NiCan environmental technologies. based in Lagos

*[17:23] <Pauline> we are working on empowering members of remote rural communities throught education, agriculture ( the introduction of tea as a cashcrop), cottage industry (the conversion of kerosene lamps into solar ones, thanks Graham!), because we understood that without deveopping the cottage industry aspect there will vbe a continuous loss of community identty and cohesivenne.

*[17:23] <Pauline> we are looking for educational material and ways to empower people through education, so we can implement improvment on the long run

As usual in Nigeria power was causing problems
*[17:30] <Clement_Aigbogun> got problems wth power

Graham and Bala (from Fantsuam) rejoined the chat and and various topics were being raised.
*[17:31] <Graham> I wouild like people to find out about what biomass is to be found locally. It seems there is MILLIONS of ton

*[17:34] <Pauline> we are in contact with another NGO which is producing tea plants and would be interested in opening a nursery

*[17:35] <Clement_Aigbogun> pauline ls tell me about the tea

* Graham, Bala and Clement touched on their shared interest in the bucket stove and decided they wanted another Topic Thursday together (and agreed May 13th)

With that sorted, people left... except
*[17:57] <Pauline> Pam - it seems that there is only tou and me left
[17:58] <pam2> so.. wheww - hello Pauline ;-)

I was happy Pauline was still there so I could greet her better. She was the only person in the chat room that I did not already know. Obviously the better I know the individual people, and their overlapping interests, the easier it is to try and help everyone to get something useful from the session. Kelechi was also still there. He is another of the UK-Nigeria team in Fantsuam (NB People seem to use the place names "Fantsuam" and "Kafanchan" for more or less the same place. I was once told, by a man on a plane, that Kafanchan is the name in the regional language - Hausa -  and Fantsuam is the name in the local language, which is itself called Fantsuam. Sometime I must remember to check if this is true)

*[18:00] <Kelechi> yes, I'll be off now, its raining at the moment, however, I have another meeting shortly with my Staff

Then pauline left
*[18:04] <Pauline> Pam, I am going to leave the chat - but I will wmail you right after I have a look at your website

So -  the end of another First Thursday. My phone rang, I carried it out on the balcony and sat in the sun for a while - enjoying relaxation of a one-to-one voice chat after the concentration of typing in the chat-room.

Next "First Thursday" will be June 3rd. Next "Topic Thursday" is 13th for "Bucket (biomass) Stoves" and whatever else Graham, Bala and Clement have as a shared interest.  


Now back to local realities - and off to vote in the UK general election.

Pamela