Last winter I was in Uganda working as a VSO Volunteer ICT Consultant / Support Officer for the Kabale District Local Government Office in South-Western Uganda. It was a very interesting experience for me but this, unfortunately, had little to do with the work I was doing at the District Office. What I found interesting were the observations that I could make first hand on the impact that technology has on less-economically developed areas and observations on how new technologies are integrated in to these societies.
I had only one case study to look at – my interactions in and about the town of Kabale and Kampala – therefore the posts about Kabale, Kampala and Uganda are mostly just my opinion. I’m making this disclaimer because I have the tenancy to extrapolate my observations to larger trends which I didn’t verify. Please keep this in mind when reading my about technology in Uganda.
With that out of the way, my first post on this subject …
One thing that gets me really excited is seeing people modify or extend objects with the intention of making these objects more useful to them. I think I first picked up this idea with my interest in Free and Open Source Software. I saw a lot of this type of thing while I was in Uganda.
Here’s an example of a mobile phone charging unit that has been modified to work as a Type C (European 2-pin) plug which is accepted by Type G (British 3-pin) plugs if you push something in the ground plug (a pen cap, a key etc) while inserting the plug into socket.
My cleaning lady charging her phone at my house - she didn't have electricity at her house.
As you can see the charger either had pins broken or was the wrong type so a plug was added to make it useful again.