Hello,
I did just discover your organization on eventbright looking for an inspiring event on eventbright. So I applied and now I’ll introduce myself
Here I am. I am a French-Tunisian, living now in Tunisia, but always thinking about my peers (migrants and son of migrants in Europe). As such I’m very interested in empowering local communities from Africa.
I’m also Consultant in Digital Project Management. I’m currently working as independant consultant for the Tunisian government. I’m trying to make the difference in my day-to-day tasks. Some of my projects may involve healthcare but I can’t be too talkative about it… I like my job and being able to contribute for a better Tunisia using IT/Digital technologies. Yet, I feel too narrowed and some initiatives of mine are simply out of scope…
So let me tell you a story that make me start a new project on my spare time. There is digital divide between the North and Africa. In a few words, we’re still too passive consumers of goods even digital goods from the North. Everybody know about it but it’s blatant when you look on the statistics.
When some googler do some stats on opensource developers and contributors all around the world he doesn’t even dare talking about Africa. It’s only after some african guy ask him politely why Africa is absent from his work that he did publish a complementary article to adress this issue. Yet, Africa is on the margin of the global IT community.
Yet, poverty or lack of equipment doesn’t explain alone this divide. Digital goods are the easiest one we can produce from the South and the marginalized communities in the North. After all computers laptops are more cheaper than factories. And opensource softwares are free as in speech and most in the time as in lemonade (no beer thanks for God sake.
When I met some local opensource contributors I understood that our IT industry and education is either old-fashioned or focusing on subcontracting low-value jobs European don’t want to do. Worst, our youth seems to not be aware of their own skills and abilities and accept their fate. Their self-esteem is at a low level and most of them are dreaming about migration to the North. The more brilliant ones are connected to global communities (from the North) chatting with Eric and Irene (sorry guys). Yet, they don’t even know each other. They’ve barely heard about Muhammad or Aissatou who are doing the same exciting kind of stuff. The ironic part is that when they’ll get into the first world, they’ll still be subcontractor paid in Euros but still subcontractors from the South. I know it since I come from this context.
So my project is about empowering this untaped highly skilled bunch of women and men to become more connected to this global opensource community. First step, I’m creating an online tool that will gamify opensource contributions and create a sense of community. Second, still thinking about it needs more people input from the ground.
regards,
Bader