Sunday, December 30, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Be Aware of the U.S. sanctions on Sudan, esp. IT sector!
The original flyer distributed to the GA or IOI2002, Korea.
…to buy essential computer software ?
…to inscribe to internationally renowned IT courses ?
…to possess a machine faster than 100 MHz ?
Dear Member of the General Assembly of IOI,
With this flyer, I would like to bring to your attention the current situation in my home country Sudan.
Since the Clinton era, (1997) Sudan has been suffering the severe consequences of US sanctions imposed on the IT sector.
The sanctions prohibit all companies that are subject to the U.S. Export Administration Laws and Regulations from exporting software and hardware to Sudan. These restrictions apply to most of the major software and hardware producers such as Adobe, Apple, Corel, IBM, Intel, Macromedia, Microsoft, Oracle and SUN Microsystems. By these regulations, Sudanese citizens are barred from purchasing, downloading, and importing essential computer software in use in offices all around the world, such as all Microsoft office products (Word, Excel, Access, etc), Acrobat Reader, Photoshop, Freehand, Corel Draw, Oracle database software, and many many more.
The sanctions extend to companies and learning centers offering IT courses and certificate programs. Learning centers such as New Horizons or Prometric are not allowed to include Sudanese citizens in any of their training programs, which include most of the familiar certificates like all the Microsoft certifications (MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, MOUS), Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) or Certified Lotus Professional (CLP).
By these two types of restrictions, Sudanese citizens and with them the country of the Sudan as a whole are hindered from technological progress.
Dear member of the GA. While I am writing this text, I am fully aware that neither you nor I have the means to directly change the current unfair situation. But both you and I do have the means to increase the awareness of more people about the situation, and by doing so, we might nevertheless bring about a change in the long run.
If you have an interest to help us with our campaign, you can send an email to sudadev@gmail.com and we will keep you informed on any news.
You might also want to visit our homepage at www.sudadev.org, which will be set up in the very near future. This site will contain further details on the issue.
Thank you very much for your support.
Anour F. Dafa-Alla
Invited Observer of IOI 2002
Sudan
خطاب إحتجاج على العقوبات الأمريكية على السودان في الجانب التقني التعليمي!
تم نشره وتوزيعه على أعضاء الجمعية العامة للأولمبياد الدولي للمعلوماتية 82 دولة حينئذ، في أغسطس عام 2002
أعيد نشره الآن لأن لا شيئ قد تغيّر حتى اللحظة
هل تستطيع أن تتخيل أنك ممنوع من :
… شراء أساسيات البرمجيات؟
… التسجيل لدورات التدريب وإقتناء شهادات عالمية ؟
امتلاك آلة تزيد سرعتها من 100 ميغاهيرتز؟
عزيزي عضو الجمعية العامة للأولمبياد الدولي للمعلوماتية ،
مع هذا الملصق، وأود ان ألفت انتباهكم الى الوضع الراهن في بلدي السودان.
منذ عهد الرئيس الامريكي بيل كلينتون 1997 ، والسودان يعاني العواقب الوخيمه للعقوبات الاميركية المفروضة على قطاع تكنولوجيا المعلومات.
العقوبات تحظر جميع الشركات التي تخضع للوائح وقوانين إدارة التصدير الامريكية من تصدير البرمجيات والمعدات الى السودان.
هذه القيود تنطبق على معظم منتجي البرمجيات والمعدات الرئيسية مثل Adobe, Apple, Corel, IBM, Intel, Macromedia, Microsoft, Oracle و SUN Microsystems.
بناءً على هذه القوانين ، المواطن السوداني ممنوع من شراء ، تحميل ، وإستيراد ضروريات برامج الحاسوب التي تستخدم فى جميع المكاتب حول انحاء العالم ، مثل جميع منتجات مايكروسوفت أوفيس (Word, Excel, Access, الخ) ، قارئ أكروبات ، ادوبي فوتوشوب ، فري هاند ، Corel رسام، وقاعدة بيانات أوراكل ، والكثير الكثير جداً.
أمتدت العقوبات على الشركات ومراكز تعليم التي تقدم دورات وبرامج الشهاده المعتمدة ((Certification Centers . مثل مراكز التدريب New Horizons و prometric لا تسمح بإنضمام المواطنين السودانيين في اي من البرامج التدريبيه المعروفة التي تشمل جميع شهادات مايكروسوفت (MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, MOUS، شهادة أوراكل المعتمدة (OCP) او شهادة لوتس المعتمدة (Certified Lotus Professional).
بهذين النوعين من القيود ، يعاق المواطن السوداني ومعه بلدي السودان ككل من التقدم التكنولوجي.
ايها الاعضاء الكرام، أعضاء الجمعية العامة للأولمبياد الدولي للمعلوماتية. أثناء كتابتي لهذا النص ، كنت ادرك تماما انه لا انا ولا انتم نملك وسائل مباشرة لتغيير الوضع الحالي غير العادل. ولكننا نملك سوياً زيادة التوعية بمشكلتنا، بفعلنا ذلك، فأننا نستطيع إحداث التغيير على المدى البعيد .
اذا كان لديك اهتمام لمساعدتنا في إنتشار حملتنا التوعوية ، يمكنك إرسال بريد الكتروني إلى sudadev@gmail.comوسنحيطكم علما بأي مستجدات.
قد ترغب ايضا في زيارة صفحتنا الرئيسية في www.sudadev.org ، التي ستقام في المستقبل القريب جدا. هذا الموقع سوف تحتوى على مزيد من التفاصيل بشان هذه القضية.
شكرا جزيلا لدعمكم.
أنور فتح الرحمن أحمد دفع الله –المراقب المدعو للأولمبياد الدولي للمعلوماتية 2002
السودان
YouTube Arabic Tweetup! - ملتقى المغرّدون يلتقون: صوت..صورة ومحتوى
Taghreedat مبادرة تغريدات
Saturday, December 15, 2012 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM (AST)
Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC), Doha, Qatar.
Event overall organization: Very good.
The venue was super cool...with free high speed internet. Most of the attendees are non Qatari coming from 15 different countries. (Muaz Jubrani's put it nicely at TEDxSummit).
Twitter presentation, by Kaveh Gharib, Twitter, Inc., was sort of eye opening for most of the attendees in my opinion, notes:
- Mobile generated contents are exploding ... Over 1 billion tweets in Arabic every 2 months. But, most of it in Arabizi ("Arabic by English"). Arabish or Arabizi : read here Arabic chat alphabet)! This is not useful for them!
- Video contents is going massively, however, without subtitles or Metadata, it’s useless, they made the case about a very popular Saudi film ,when they muted it, put voice over in different language, and so on...
Qatar Foundation Presentation
They have plans like Eithra initiative , they wrote on the brochure (initiative for supporting Arabic digital content) , but I couldn't allocate any details about it on their website: http://www.qcri.com/
Samy Almubarak - Second from left- (Typical serious Sudanese guy, coated with Qatari culture, However, I knew his Sudanese authenticity when he apologized that the event start will delay 15 minutes, or maybe 30 minutes :D) he has done a great job on hosting the entire session.
Mena and Samy , Samy and Mena co-founded Taghredaat initiative... Congrats folks! You've done it!
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi.
But they were busy after the event and went for dinner with the speakers.So, I couldn't get more from them :)
Downside, there was no plans for networking for the attendees! especially many of them took a flight or drove a long way to come over!
Everyone went to different direction! I guess an attendees FB group or volunteer coordinators could have organized some dinner or Networking gathering post the event.
- Q/A session:
I posted the first question during the Q/A session to both Google and Twitter on why should they “fight” Arabizi? I suggested to grow it, and at the same time enrich the Arabic content (As volunteers do through TED Open Translation Project (OTP), Taghreedat , etc…). I gave them an example of Klingon (1) at OTP.
- Twitter representative got the question and answered that they won’t develop tools to translate that content into Arabic! I don’t know if they already have a tool or not. But I know about Google tool.
Google MENA director in my opinion is an 'Old School' guy, he responded to my question as if I said: No to Arabic, Yes to Arabizi.
He came with long career in U.S. but he is not following what’s going on in the region especially who younger generations use the Technology, in my own opinion with my respect to him personally!
He came with long career in U.S. but he is not following what’s going on in the region especially who younger generations use the Technology, in my own opinion with my respect to him personally!
It seems to me that both Twitter and Google want to ' Fight' Arabizi! I see no point!
I would rather suggest developing this new and expressive language used widely by the newbie, teenagers, and many other Arabic/ Non-Arabic speaking. I think its mature enough to be one of TED OTP languages!
I think we can start one OTP translation into Arabizi and see how it goes! I’m ready for that, NOW!
Invited speakers:
- - Inspiring presenter from Taghredaat initiative, @ishadi uses wheelchair with a cheerful face, encouraged the attendees to volunteer and give back to the community; he got a job in Dubai out of his volunteer work. (Which is a real problem for foreigners in the gulf area)?
- Screening Super. Full the Lebanese filmmaker, Niam Itani and then she’s the second speaker, she was one of the winners of Youtube Film contest. She thanked Youtube after they gave their presentation.
- Third speaker from KSA , Abdul Aziz Shalaan, Telfaz11, about their growth on video production, they mainly targeting locally, but as KSA consumption is high due to good infrastructure and ' youth has nothing to do with their big free time' as the speaker mentioned , however, that content is only local as Twitter presenter pointed out!
Local means make it sort of FUN and Jokes, never be serious especially when it comes to governance and these taboos! This encourages production of extrinsic issues and ignoring the necessary intrinsic issues!
However, he talked about their business model, where they sell 'cultural values = Morality? Embedded' in their videos rather than placing sponsors logo on the video. They ask the sponsor about the values that they can attach with his brand. I think this is a cool idea!
Fourth speaker was from Jordan, Wael Atilli, Kharabeesh, this is my favorite pickup from that event... They do produce great content and the attendees liked it. He spoke at TEDxRamAllah but I didn’t capture his talk back then.
Downside is always: lack of freedom of speech! People can’t speak their minds in such gatherings! For instance the presenter from Saudi Arabia spoke in 2 sentences about the change happened recently in the area (The Arab Spring) but he sent us the feeling that I can’t talk more! Major problem in content production in MENA area, is Freedom!
What I disliked during the event:
No one…NO ONE, has mentioned the role of the volunteers working on translating TEDTalks…even in the brochure they only writing about translating TED (which is misleading and I asked some people about what Taghredaat did for TED..they said: They translated “everything”!).
I think we need to be clear about this. Their work didn't appear yet, our work - Translating TEDTalks into Arabic- is out there published and used everywhere…how come?!
I think we need to be clear about this. Their work didn't appear yet, our work - Translating TEDTalks into Arabic- is out there published and used everywhere…how come?!
What's I am thinking about Now/ Next?
- Study and research about those who presented to identify the next possible content producer in this Area.
- Brainstorm around how to provide a platform for that Next thing. Could be auto-extractor from any uploaded content that spread to a Wiki page, Storify, Auto-Tweet about that content, post on Blogger , aggregate pictures from Google images and Flickr , recommend similar content & put the links highlighted?! Just a thought!
I am trying content-against-ticket for the next TEDxKhartoum 2013 . It could be wiki text or sound, could be music, could be video interview, etc…)
The American Sanctions on Sudan:
During Google presentation about their products, I tweeted about ordinary Sudanese people struggle on using/accessing many Google services, like Hang-out, Drive, Android Market, can't download/update your Google chrome browser and that's due to the U.S sanctions on Sudan. I was really shocked that almost no one has paid attention to this!
I’m sharing an album about the trip on FB.
Thank you for reading J
Anwar Dafa-Alla, Khartoum, Sudan
December 17th,2012 , 2:16 AM
Twitter: @Anwarking
Friday, December 7, 2012
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