Recycled computers have their place - they're great for those with limited means to access ICT. Yet they can often be more harm than help, especially when they're dumped as e-waste or retard local hardware innovation and sales.

Second hand computers for sale

Which is why it seems that Uganda is having so much difficulty banning used computers. They came out with a blanket ban on second-hand PC's last year, with a deadline moved back to March 31, 2010.

Now State Minister for Trade Tourism and Industry Gagawala Wambuzi told The EastAfrican that Uganda is adopting a more targeted approach.

Hopefully this means they'll be looking at the quality and usage model for used electronics - allowing in technology that's actually current and meant for resale, and banning e-dumping.

Are you looking for a new information technology job in Senegal, Ghana, or Uganda? Then check out Google's openings across the African continent:

Google Africa Jobs

Google is expanding our Business Development team in Africa. Associates are self-starters who will work closely with the wider Google team on new product initiatives and key strategic relationships.

In order to succeed in this group, you must be entrepreneurial, creative, open-minded, and adaptive. When interacting with internal and external clients, you need to be persistent, action oriented, and highly collaborative. You are a top performer who possesses good judgment and has a deep interest in the internet technology industry, Google products, and Africa.

• Account Strategist - Johannesburg
• Agency Relationship Manager - Johannesburg
• Business Development Associate - Accra
• Business Development Associate - Dakar
• Business Development Associate - Kampala
• Geographic Supervisor - Nairobi

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Had I told you in 2000 that Kampala, Uganda would host a TED-type event sponsored by UNICEF and a growing IT incubation center, with notables like New York Times reporters and founders of the World Wide Web, you would've laughed me out of the room with a parting, "In Africa? Hahahahh!"

No one is laughing now. In fact, I'm applauding the organizational skills of Jonathan Gosier and his Appfrica Labs in pulling off TEDxKampala. Just listen to the presentation lineup:

Making ICT history in Africa

Simply put, the event was incredible! Stephen Boyera of the World Wide Web Foundation offered the keynote talk, while Ron Nixon from the New York Times dropped with arguably one of the most interesting talks of the day where he presented his app Ujima which tracks spending too and from African countries.

Solomon King of Node Six gave a moving talk on how he became a ‘famous citizen journalist’ for simply blogging about his experiences during the Kampala riots. Paul Bagyenda of Digital Solutions offered advice for young tech entrepreneurs, while Paul Asiimwe of Sipi Law Uganda talked about the importance of intellectual property law and digital rights to protect content and content producers.

Or better yet, you can check out videos of the event. Wait, think about that for a moment - you're watching what happened just a few days ago hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away in East Africa. Just the very act makes me want to laugh with happiness - this is Africa's ICT arrival:

If you're disappointed you missed TEDxKampala, then check out Africa Gathering Nairobi - technophiles, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and innovators talking about positive change in sustainable development and technology across Africa. They're convening December 21-22 in Nairobi, Kenya, to highlight emerging technology that is relevant to Africa - get your tickets now!

Someone asked me, so what about NITA-U, what is special about it? I don't understand this whole hussle. Lets look at it this way;

What is the mandate of NITA-U? To coordinate, promote and monitor IT development within the context of national, social and economic development. This implies that the body shall in effect be in charge of steering the entire nation when it comes to IT.

As you may already have seen, IT is becoming a key player in all our activities today. Banks are able to avail you money from any branch because of IT, ATMs do what they do because of IT, you can pay the National Water bill from any town and it is instantly updated because of IT, you can study distance learning cheaply because of IT, money transfers are possible because of IT, all these and more are issues that touch us as laymen on a daily basis.

This actually implies that this body will play a visionary role and needs to be well constituted and not turned into a political/financial playing ground.

Read More: Why NITA-U Matters

Congrats to ict@innovation for launching the first East African Regional FOSS Business Models Course that seeks to answer the key question of "How can African IT-businesses make money with Free and Open Source Software?"

This advanced course will bring together over 20 experts from universities, training institutions and private sector in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. Its main goal is to form a corps of trainers and advocates who are equipped to spread the word on Free and Open Source and its potential for IT-companies in Africa. The course inter alia builds on more than eight practical case studies of African IT companies, who use FOSS to generate income drive innovation, add local value and provide legal, low-cost and high quality software solutions to businesses and administrations in their countries.

Inveneo Certifed ICT Partner, James Wire of Linux Solutions was moved to tears by the opening ceremonies:

"On August 31st 2009, on a good Ugandan monday morning, I was invited to address the participants as the General Secretary of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa, I could hardly hold back my tears of excitement. Not only did I appreciate how far we have come, I also quickly made a mental comparison of how we used to previously confine our Open Source discussions to evening drinking sprees in dimly lit dingy pubs and now here we were in a state of the art four star hotel with Open Source being the reason. The two weeks training has brought together participants from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

The most unique aspect about this training is that all the content was prepared by Africans with African experiences in mind. This was intentionally done to ensure that the skills and knowledge passed on does not become a white elephant for the participants. With many African countries having lots of similarities in terms of society setup and management, I believe a lot of fruit will come out of this training."

See more about FOSSFA and InWEnt launching first East African regional course on Business and Open Source in Kampala, Uganda

To great fanfare the Seacom fiber optic cable from London to South Africa, was turned on this past Thursday. Offering 10,000 Mbps capacity to bandwidth starved East Africans, there was great hope that connection speeds would instantly jump once the cable was turned on.

Seacom fiber optic cable

But it seems that not only will bandwidth capacity remain spotty, it will also stay relatively expensive for a while longer. Seacom is not revealing which Internet Service Providers have signed up for the bandwidth, and none of the ISPs are lowering rates. As Twitter chatter and The Times confirms, they are only speaking of increasing bandwidth caps, and only in "coming soon" terms:

An executive of a leading Internet service provider, who would not be named, said: "There will be no impact on the consumer. International broadband is a small component of data consumption , unless you’re a huge corporation constantly moving data to Europe."

Frost and Sullivan ICT analyst Lindsey McDonald, said: “The changes will be gradual. We’ll most likely see better packages, higher speeds and more value in general as suppliers feel the need to compete."

So while Kenya and Uganda Internet users wait impatiently for bandwidth relief, Benin is experiencing a whole other undersea cable bandwidth issue. Theresa Carpenter Sondjo reports that:

In the wee hours of the morning, a ship dropped anchor and cut Benin’s undersea connection to the world. White collar workers in Cotonou and business men flipped, but the vast majority of the country (99% and counting) won’t notice any difference in their daily lives. Maybe bank transactions will be a bit tougher, but that’s par for the course here anyway.

And of course, there’s no way to be sure that the problem is the undersea cable. Or that it was an anchor. Friends of ours who work for Benin Telecoms have whispered it, others have refused to confirm anything at all. There is no official word (and may not be). Repair estimates for whatever has happened vary from 2 days to 2 weeks.

Until then, the few public satellite Internet cafes are being mobbed. Lines to use computers are out the door and down the block. And while its little solace to East Africa, may they count themselves lucky to have Internet bandwidth at all.

Here's an interesting data point on the growth of mobile phones in Africa - they may already outnumber light bulbs in Uganda.

New Ugandan light blub

This idea started with the cNet article For Uganda's poor, a cellular connection, where Dara Karr notes that 10% of Ugandas have electricity but 30% have mobile phones, suggesting that mobile phones could outnumber light bulbs.

From there Paul Boutin who asked if this was really true, could mobile phones really outnumber light bulbs? The response from Jonathan Gosier at App+frica gives us more detail.

He points out that in 2007 only between 5% and 6% of Ugandans had electricity, with demand growing at roughly 6% per year. Yet mobile subscriptions stood at 13% in 2007, and demand is expected to double by 2012.

We can assume that people with electricity have more than one light bulb, but people also have more than one mobile phone, and most phone usage is by pre-paid cards, not subscriptions. So from these numbers, I'm confident that the original postulation is correct: there are more mobile phones than light bulbs in Uganda.

Of course, mobile phone companies may have already realized this, what with phones advertised as flashlights, in this photo by Ken Banks of kiwanja.net

At Inveneo, we've never been big fans of second-hand computers. We often find that the maintenance and support of older systems is more expensive (greater Total Cost of Ownership) than buying new computers better suited to the needs of African users.

Second hand computers for sale

In fact, we often find that second-hand computers become e-waste, as James Wire saw during an ICT research study with secondary schools in Uganda

One school that I visited in particular, Mwiri Secondary School had received about 100 second hand computers as a donation from old students in the diaspora. I was shocked to find less than 10 of these computers working with the rest heaped like a man-made mountain – totally useless. Not even the keyboards could be redeemed. Ever since then, I fell out with the Second Hand PC bandwagon.

So we're excited to hear that the government of Uganda has banned second-hand computer imports, and that the Kenyan and Nigerian governments will keep duties and impose taxes, respectively, on second-hand computer imports.

Matt Berg, of Millennium Villages Project, and an interesting video on how MVP and Inveneo installed a large WiFi intranet network in Ruhiira, Uganda, to connect 5 clinics, 3 schools, and several other community institutions to the nearest Internet connection 35KM away:

Matt says, "The network is adding tremendous value by enabling free VOIP calls between sites and is also being used by the clinics to facilitate a central medical records."