Sam Gichuru discussion RISD ICT and Development

We held similar sessions with RISD (Rwanda imitative for sustainable development) ,  which is an Ngo based in Rwanda whose work is on policy’s and research geared towards the protection of natural resources, with an aim to reduce poverty .

brainstorming session with a team on social media and its impact in development aid

Sam Gichuru - Discussing ICT and social media with the team at CCOAIB

Sam Gichuru demonstrating use of microblogs to RDO http://www.rdorwanda.org

We held multiple breakout sessions with each organization for the next 3 days in Kigali, each morning routine involved being picked from the Gorillas Hotel and coming back to drop our bags late in the afternoon very exhausted, we covered around 6 organizations and still had a list pending that would have to wait for 2012.

The gorillas was a pretty good place to stay and was central to accessing Kigali, it’s actually a walking distance and we discovered this after paying huge amounts of money for cab drives.

For each break out session, we first did a brief analysis of each organization, measuring how well they adapt to new technologies, what technologies they used in running their day to day programs, and reviewing their current and future plan strategy on ICT.

Most organizations in Rwanda where quite ICT “savvy”, they had wifi connections, the staff had laptops and smart phones and most did use facebook but for personal use only very few acknowledge using twitter.

What seemed a-bit foreign was the use of this tools to facilitate communication within the organization and with partners, facebook was for personal use and after brainstorming and discussion we demonstrated how facebook can also work for the organization in keeping partners updated about project progress, and as a marketing tool to attract more donor funding or strategic partners, this included twitter and using phone videos, we demonstrated on micro blogging and digital story telling.

Sam Gichuru presentation on Social media with Oxfam Partners in Kigali - Sponsored by Oxfam Novib

At the end of 2011 we did a trip to Rwanda and Burundi , our trip was sponsored by Oxfam Novib, and we were to meet all the Oxfam partners and discuss their work and adaptation to ICT to enhance their service delivery.

First stop: Kigali, meeting with Oxfam partners, including RDO, Accord Rwanda, and about 10 other organist ions in a group meeting to discuss issues of ICT, some of the topics covered where

1. Where we are as Organisations working in the development space in east Africa
2. Use of crowd funding platform like the 1%Club to raise project funding
3. Use of Social media to report progress to development partners
4. Use of other micro blogging sites to keep partners updated.
5. Use of Skype and IM as a means of communication in the office
6. Use of phones /Short videos in digital story telling

The attendance on day 1 was great with allot of Q & A happening during a tea break, later breakout sessions where organized for each organized.

Had a great meeting meeting with RDO today, at their office in Kigali, discussing how to plan a 2012 strategy on use of ICT in the development space.

This blog will be added much later today, Watch this space

This is more of a diary than my usual blog, covers the fun part I get to have while doing my work – lots of thanks to 1% Club, Akvo, Accenture and the people I bump into on my trips.

Stay: As usual I have this big sabbaticals from blogging, well.. I hope am back, this time am in Amsterdam, tempted to go to Paris, but will see, but for now I have this awesome apartment organised by an amazing lady called Nguyen facing a canal in Amsterdam . (For you Kenyans the G is silent.. Nuyen)

Business: Had a great meeting with guys from Accenture Holland, was inspired by their enthusiasm about the Nailab and for giving me a listening ear, am looking forward to 2012.

Food: On friday we went to a dutch club, that played dutch music, that is after an awesome dinner with the 1% club team, this guys know how to have fun not to mention they got me to ate oysters for the first time.. not doing that again.. with a good shrink I willl forget how it felt sliding down my throat, otherwise I had a great time dinning out with the team and catching up

Fun: So we later went to a dutch club with dutch music.. this is the mugithi version and it was off the hook!… everybody knew the songs and sang along, I must have been the only black dude who was smiling like an idiot.. I was having too much fun, the club was about 600X300 Sqfeet.. making it look like two buses put side by side.. the only problem is.. it never got packed like our old matatus.. people kept coming in.. and by the time we left.. you could only shake your head no space for movement.. took 5 mins to take 5 steps, but that was part of the fun for me, to be in a complete dutch environment, ofcourse Jaap CEO spot a cheetah keeps claiming he never hangs out in such places..

More fun, Peter the CEO/Fonder of AKVO.org suggested a boat ride and after finding a boat.. we needed to look for a captain, ofcourse a few phone-calls and peter got Captain Frodo (yes like the Lord of the Rings), Luuk joined us and his lovely girlfriend. This was probably the best time in Holland, 3 hours in the water and flying our Dutch flag, below are some of the photos taken by our captain the rest will be on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/sam.gichuru – now heading to the office, will catch up later on some more blogging… I named this post the “flying dutchman” from Pirates of the Caribbean after spotting an amazing ship docked at the harbour from them days.

Below are photos for the boat ride :