[UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam|Strategy

[Polly Gaster]

Dear Felicien

I'm a bit concerned that you seem to think that references to the OKN's
difficulties in implementation can be seen as destructive to the AKN project?
For my part, and I'm sure all the other contributors, we are simply trying to
implement that component of networking that says "share lessons learned" - and
a lot of studies show that more can be learned from lessons where things
didn't go right than from the usual pretty "success stories", that's not being
negative. We all want to see AKN become successful, and are trying to help it
build onwards from real past experiences on the ground rather than repeat.

Perhaps the problem is that it seems a little strange having all this
discussion - and questions - when the AKN project is already written and fixed
and presumably implemented, but when it started we were responding to a brief
information on the list about the launch, which was the first we knew of it,
so naturally we were interested. In fact I think the discussion has been very
interesting, and has certainly enabled us to get information about the
background of the project, read the project document, and so on, that might
not otherwise have been so quickly available to list members. Perhaps,
ironically, the AKN participants have also got more out of it in terms of
constructive contributions than you would if you had done a standard circular
asking for contributions that we would all have put to one side till we had time!

I guess my only other question is: how are you getting on with implementation?
It was good to see that so many list members are actively involved, and I hope
you will keep us all up to date with progress and provide more lessons learned
(was a bit worried to see that the project document was for 2006-2009 but I
suppose those dates have been altered as you are only launching now).

Best of luck to all involved in AKN.

Polly   

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Polly Gaster
TICs para Desenvolvimento/ICT4D
Centro de Informatica da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (CIUEM)
Campus Universitario, Maputo, Mozambique
e-mail: polly.gaster at uem.mz
cel: +258-82-3264540
tel/fax: +258-21-485779
Skype: polly_gaster


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