ICTworks by Inveneo

What are you doing at work today? You should be on the Chancellors Court at the University of Nairobi to experience the second year of Maker Faire Africa.

MFA2010 is bringing its celebration of the “African Inventor” to Kenya, at the University of Nairobi, to feature the creative talents & business acumen of Africa’s most innovative young inventors.

This vibrant network of entrepreneurs have the knowledge, the resources and the opportunities to forge a unique foundation for a modern African manufacturing space. They are a fellowship of creators who believe making is the most efficient form of manufacturing, and that manufacturing is the route to establishing an African middle class.

Join them August 27th to 28th and experience the power of making, or at least follow MFA2010 on Twitter.

Now what could be more surprising than a Malawian blogging about ICT in his country while studying in Japan? How about the high quality of Clement Nyirenda's ICT Blog posts? As a frequent reader, I've always had a few questions I wanted to ask him, and recently got the chance to quiz Clement on his life and work.

Clement Nthambazale Nyirenda in Japan

1. So how does a Malawian wind up in Tokyo? How did you get a Japanese Government Scholarship?

Many people, both Japanese and non-Japanese, usually ask me the first question. My interest in Japan dates back to the early 80s during my primary school days. Just like many developing countries, Japan's high-tech products such as cars and motorbikes are very common in Malawi. At that tender age, it was my wish to study in the country that produces all these products.

This interest, however, died down when I doing my undergraduate studies in Electrical Engineering at the University of Malawi. After completing my undergraduate studies, I saw at least three yearly invitations for the Japanese government scholarship applications but I did not bother to apply because I was scared of language problems. Besides that, some people told me that life in Japan is very tough for foreigners because Japan is a closed society.

Instead, I got a scholarship from the African Network of Scientific and Technological Institutions (ANSTI), a UNESCO project, which enabled me to pursue a Master's degree in Computer Engineering at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa from 2004 to 2006. My work involved the application of fuzzy logic in communication networks. It was during this period that I realized that the Japanese have been doing a lot of exciting work in the field of fuzzy control for many years.

As my MSc research was drawing to a close, I sent an email, attaching my CV, to Professor Kaoru Hirota, a seasoned researcher in fuzzy control, at Tokyo Institute of Technology, expressing my interest to study under his supervision. He encouraged me to apply for the Japanese government scholarship at the Japanese embassy in my home country. I applied for the scholarship through the Japanese embassy in Zambia, which was also responsible for Malawi at that time.

In July 2007, I attended interviews along with 4 others competing for one slot. Two days later, I received a phone call from the Japanese embassy in Zambia, notifying me that I was successful. In April, 2008, I arrived in Tokyo to study in Professor Hirota's lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology, initially as a research student for 6 months and later as a PhD student for 3 years. I am now in the second year of my PhD. If all goes according to plan, I will graduate in September 2011.

2. Coming from Malawi, Japan is a massive culture shock. What's one difference related to ICT4D that surprised you?

Yes, Japan is huge culture shock. And true to the words of some people that I met when I was an undergrad, Japan is still a closed society, more especially in the Tokyo/Yokohama area. In the Kansai area (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe) area, people tend to open up a bit more. It is, however, very interesting to see deep cultural values persist despite industrialization.

In terms of ICT4D, there are many surprises, but the biggest and perhaps the most fundamental one concerns the bandwidth of the Internet connections. Here in Japan, I have a 100Mbps fiber connection in my apartment, for which I pay slightly more than $40. On the other hand, the cost of dial-up Internet at one of the major ISPs in Malawi ranges from $12 to $70, while basic 64kbps and 128kbps wireless connections cost US$250 and US$480 respectively. If in Africa we can have access to extremely cheap and fast Internet, there would be many opportunities in the ICT4D realm.

Making Clement happy is easy

3. Did your family join you in Tokyo? If so, or not, how has that impacted your studies? Would you advise others to bring their family when they study abroad?

Yes, my family joined me here in February 2009. Before they joined me here, I was always worried about their welfare in Malawi. I used to phone them almost every day. Now that they are here with me, I am relieved.

The good thing about Japan, which might not be the case in other countries, is that the government gives child allowance even to foreign children whose parents total income is lower than a certain threshold. As of this year, this allowance is 13,000 Japanese yen per child, which becomes 26,000 Japanese Yen for my two kids. Furthermore, foreigners, who are legally staying here, can also apply for government housing. Competition is very tough, but you lose nothing when you try luck. As I write, we are staying a government house, for which the monthly rent is 90% lower than the previous apartment. It is also more spacious.

I would certainly advise others to bring their family when they study abroad.

4. Did you find a community of Africans in Tokyo? If so, how is it different than meeting other Africans in Malawi - like are you friends with those you may have not noticed if you were living at home?

Compared to people from other continents, there are fewer Africans in Tokyo. I have good friends from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and many other African countries. Because we are very far from home, we behave as if we come from the same country. If we were in Africa, that would not happen.

5. How do you plan on transferring your PhD experience to your teaching at Malawi Polytechnic?

For the time being, it will generally be very difficult to transfer my PhD experience to my teaching at the Malawi Polytechnic. The major reason is that in my Electrical Engineering department, we only offer BSc programs. The knowledge that I acquired at MSc level was enough for teaching courses in these programs. With a PhD, I would love to work with postgraduate students, more especially research students in Communication Systems and Computational Intelligence, which are my twin research fields.

I am looking forward to seeing the Malawi Polytechnic launching a Masters program in Communication Systems in the near future. With that program in place, it will be easy to work with some of the students on Computational Intelligence based topics in Communication Systems. It is much easier and cheaper to employ lecturers in Communication Systems than in Computational Intelligence, which is still at a nascent stage. By the way, the latter is my major passion.

Advanced ICT swarm intelligence

6. What aspects of Swarm Intelligence and Fuzzy Logic tools can we apply to ICT4D?

Swarm Intelligence (SI) is the property of a system where collective behavior of simple agents causes coherent solutions or patterns to emerge. SI is generally inspired by the interesting aspects of social insect behavior such as self-organization, decentralized control and shape-formation, in order to solve difficult computational problems. Some of the major research directions are Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). ACO has been successfully applied to difficult discrete optimization problems while PSO has been applied to continuous optimization problems.

On the other hand, fuzzy logic, proposed by Prof. Zadeh in 1965, is a multi-valued logic derived from fuzzy set theory, aimed at dealing with reasoning that is imprecise. In contrast to Boolean logic, fuzzy values may have a truth value that ranges between 0 and 1. It manipulates linguistic concepts to help engineers to build intelligent control systems, expert systems, prediction systems and many other systems.

My research focuses on the development of SI based multi-objective fuzzy systems for communication networks mainly in the areas of congestion control, routing and self-organization.

In terms of application in the context of ICT4D, there are many potential applications. For in stance, I know a company which is already using SI in radio network optimization. As the uptake of mobile phone technology in the developing world continues to increase exponentially, SI optimization techniques, if adopted properly, may help to ensure that the quality of service is not compromised.

In future, as e-learning systems become more ubiquitous in the LDCs, even at community levels, adaptive collaborative techniques, which will enable different students or members of the community to choose different learning sequences, will become necessary. SI is one of the tools which can be used to create such systems. Simple fuzzy logic tools can also be customized for important ICT4D applications in telemedicine and health care information systems, mapping and protection of natural resources, forecasting weather patterns and pest outbreaks, and so on.

It is also worthy pointing out that, depending on the problem, fuzzy logic and SI approaches can be hybridized with each other or with other Computational Intelligence paradigms such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Evolutionary algorithms in order to combine their respective strengths.

7. With so few African bloggers, what was your inspiration to start writing? What African or ICT4D blogs or writers do you read regularly?

I was inspired to start writing by two Malawian colleagues, late Mangaliso Jere, who used to work for an ISP in Mzuzu, and Soyapi Mumba, a Software Development Manager in Lilongwe. Mzuzu is a city in Northern Malawi while Lilongwe, Malawi's capital city, is located in the Central Region. I used to enjoy reading their articles and ultimately decided to start my own blog. I wrote my first article in March 2006. Back then, I was using Google's Blogger. In 2007, I moved my blog to a self-hosted Wordpress blogging platform and, since then, it has kept on growing. I use the money that I make from adverts and other forms of sponsorships to pay for hosting and domain fees and, of course, my labor.

One thing that I like about blogging is that it links me up with some very important and exciting people like you, Wayan, from whom I learn a lot. There are many ICT4D blogs that I like to read, but the ones that stand out are http://whiteafrican.com/ and http://www.afrigadget.com/. I also like http://www.kabissa.org/, an ICT4D network of1500+ organizations active throughout Africa.

8. Anything else…?

I would like to thank you for granting me the opportunity to be interviewed.

If you too would like to be interviewed, let me know!

MobileMonday (MoMo) is an open community platform of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influential individuals fostering brand neutral cooperation and cross-border P2P business opportunities through live networking events to demo products, share ideas and discuss trends from both local and global markets.

The 5th Nairobi Mobile Monday Meet up will be happening at the iHub on August 16th starting at 6pm-8pm. On the list of speakers we have:

1. Chris Kiagiri, Google Kenya Tech Lead
2. Jane Del Ser, Jacaranda Health
3. Mbugua Njihia of Symbiotic

This is an excellent opportunity to network with other mobile developers/entrepreneurs/enthusiasts and discuss current trends. More details here

On August 18 at the NaiLab, Tandaa will hold its Third Symposium to explore will explore how technology, especially Internet and mobile phone based technology, can help Kenya and Africa address some of its most pressing challenges.

Adopting technology in Kenya's social, economic and political life, is no doubt a crucial strategy in achieving the goals in Kenya's Vision 2030. But Kenyans are not only adopting technology developed abroad, they are innovating right here at home.

Apps<4>Africa: finding solutions

The Apps<4>Africa challenge is one avenue that Kenyan developers have to create home-grown solutions relevant to Kenya and Africa. As the deadline for Apps<4>Africa approaches (Aug 30), the Tandaa Symposium offers developers interested in technology for social change an opportunity to interact with experts from the non-governmental sector.

Third Symposium Details

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
8:30 AM - 4:00 PM (GMT+0300)
NaiLab
Bishop Magua Center, 4th floor (next to iHub)
Ngong Road, opposite Uchumi Hyper
Nairobi, Kenya

RSVP for Tandaa Symposium on Technology for Social Change

Goodluck Jonathan, the President of The Federal Republic of Nigeria is now on Facebook, cementing its role as the leading social networking site for Africans. So far, 56,704 people Like This on Facebook - I'm only surprised that's not 5.6 million.

And to those who think this is just a shallow PR move by the President, he has a retort for you:

I want to assure you that your feedback and comments on this page are important. I read them and they have influenced government's policy.

On Monday, a young Nigerian named Tuokpe Onuwaje who is resident in California made a comment on this page expressing disappointment that though California has the 7th largest econo...my in the world Nigeria does not have a consulate there yet we maintain one in Atlanta, Georgia which has a smaller economy. This youth further informed me that Nigeria had a property in California which was abandoned in the 80s.

Upon receipt of this information, I instructed the Nigerian Ambassador to the U.S to visit the property immediately and report back to me with a view to reopening our consulate in San Francisco California. I am pleased to tell Tuokpe Onuwaje and all fans of this page that the visit was concluded today.

I am also looking at other request made here and will within available resources and time take action or respond to your questions.
Thank you. GEJ

Keep up with Facebook in Africa - befriend ICTworks today!

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