BRIDGING DIGITAL-DIVIDE IN DEVELOPING WORLD:
‘IT consultants should present like Crusaders’

By Aloyce Menda

To become more effective in bridging the digital-divide in developing world, the Information Technology (IT) consultants should operate like crusaders rather than presenting like expensive experts. That was a word of advice from the director of information in the Tanzanian Commission for Science & Technology (COSTECH), Mr. Theophil Mlaki to 20 IT Consultants who accomplished a special training on new IT practices in Dar es Salaam recently.

The Netherlands International Institute for Communication Development (IICD) conducted the three-day training workshop in collaboration with COSTECH from September 01 to 03, 2005 at Learn-IT Institute.

Earlier during their training, the consultants examined major obstacles, which deter speedy development of the information society in Tanzania to eventually conclude that the bureaucrats worries over IT costs was a main hurdle.

Most bureaucrats, particularly the administrators in local government authorities are hesitant of IT applications and they have common fears to question: "Where is the money for bridging the digital-divide and building Information Society?" “How do we acquire the expertise to develop infrastructure and install the necessary Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)?”

The consultants said they face a tough challenge and dilemmas similar to what the policy architects at local and international level faces in changing the mind-set of bureaucrats and hard-line politicians toward modernization and sustainable development.

Local government councilors would like to question IT consultants, why their council’s budgets should be changed to allocate more money to IT solutions, while some dispensaries and schools lack essential facilities such as electricity, telephone and stable water supply. The consultants should be able to answer these reservations and prove that selfish interests are not behind their missions, says Mr. Mlaki. He points the Kinondoni District Council (KMC) in Dar es Salaam as an example of a local government authority, which adopted modern IT solutions after COSTECH persuasion.

“They had only two computers five years ago when we approached them… Today they have 100, most of them connected to the Internet,” Mr. Mlaki told the consultants.

In an exclusive interview, the workshop trainer from The Hague based IICD, Mr. Arjan de Jager, said worries over project funding is a common phenomena to all government bureaucrats regardless of whether they are in developed or developing countries. “But the consultants should convince them that ICT can generate income and become sustainable,” said the Dutch trainer.

He said, when he came to work in Tanzania five years ago, Internet Café were available only in Dar es Salaam, but today they are almost in all towns because people have realized their benefits. He believes that the Tanzania economy can sustain IT applications in all sectors, if sufficient training is offered to the people. “Development should be driven by people and not technology so training is important for all projects,’” said the IICD trainer.

Ms. Connie Shirima Francis, a trained consultant said she gained from the workshop important professional skills and became familiar with popular templates to identify, analyze and design user requirements in IT. Connie is IT consultant for Haki Elimu (www.hakielimu.org), a non-governmental organization based in Dar es Salaam.

Mr. Petro Pamba from the Christian Social Services Commission (www.cssc.or.tz) said he learned from the training how to prepare ICT project proposals based on business case, project brief, requirement engineering, information flow and analysis. Similar comments were gathered from Mr. Andrew Muga, the business development manager for the NPK Technologies Limited (www.npktechnologies.com).

Mr. Nitesh Parmar from Soft-Tech Consultants (www.stcl.com) said the training enable him to understand better classifying information and structured documentation of requirements engineering. Mr. Hamidu Mgaya, the principal surveyor and IT manager for the Dar es Salaam City Council (www.dcc.go.tz) concurred with Parmar and added that learned also new system development skills.

Mr. Mark Farahani, the ICT coordinator of the Kilosa District Council was among the trained consultants. He said Kilosa District has established a tele-centre with 10 offline computers used to train the local community about IT basics. “The tele-centre will soon be connected to the Internet by links to the existing Internet Café using PPP’s concept,” said Farahani appreciating the IICD and COSTECH training assistance. “This training will enable me to compose better IT project proposals for engagement of the Kilosa Communities in the use of ICT. Kilosa is a small town in a remote rural district about 300 kilometres west of Dar es Salaam.

Mr. Edwin Mugerezi of the InfoBridge Consultants (www.infobridgers.com) said from the training he learned new step-by-step procedures of analyzing and documenting system design. Currently his company is developing a data collection system, which will help users (data collectors) to gather data from the field, by recording the object position as X & Y coordinates from GPS. The coordinates together with the attributes are transferred to the InfoBridge Data Control via the mobile phone network (GSM). The data is thereafter transferred to the client computer, which must have GIS software installation for the data to be displayed instantly on the screen, said Mr. Mugerezi.

Mr. Vicent Ernest of the Vinice Productions Company Limited said the training was very useful to him because he learned new skills in writing project proposals, modeling techniques and requirement engineering. Similar comments came from Ms. Rachel Mwenda and Mrs. Achentalika Mahunda, the IT consultants of Kinondoni and Temeke municipal councils respectively.

During the training, Mr. Enock Mpenzwa of COSTECH, Mr. John Kyaruzi of the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) and Mr. Edephonce Nfuka of the University of Dar es Salaam’s Computer Centre (UCC), who a senior consultants narrated vibrant examples from their long experiences in advancement of the ICT sector in Tanzania. Participants tasked Mr. Kyaruzi to develop a list of “ IT crusaders” and create a dgroup for information sharing.
ENDS