Ungana-Afrika News > General News
General news reports from Ungana-Afrika's (in reverse chronological
order):
11.2005 Participarion and WSIS
We are presenting our projects and ICT support concepts at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis.
Ungana-Afrika representatives Toni Eliasz and Rudi von Staden are part
of the APC member community delegation, and are availalbe for all
questions and comments throughout the week.
11.2004 Participation in Mozambique ICT For Development
Conference
Ungana-Afrika was invited to make a keynote
presentation entitled "NGOs ICT Skills and Human Resources
Development" during the international "Knowledge
Economy and ICT4Development" conference at Maputo,
Mozambique, 9th November 2004. The purpose of the presentation
was to furnish the participants with understanding of the
issues related to non-profit ICT capacity building and an
introduction to the eRider support model. Additional topics
included an introduction to how Ungana-Afrika is utilizing
the eRider model in the region, and how an eRider model
could work in Mozambique. For more information, or a copy
of the presentation, please Contact
Us.
9.2004 Wireless 4 Development
Global Conference and Research
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What is Wireless Networking?
The electronic medium used to connect us to information
resources (sharing data between computers, other offices,
constituents, the general Internet, etc.) can take
many forms. Typically "wired" solutions,
that are limited to locations within reach of commercial/governmental
telecommunications infrastructure, are used. Wireless
technology, on the other hand, uses unlicensed radio
frequencies to transmit data. This offers more flexible
(and often less expensive) bottom-up connectivity
alternatives.
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Innovative communication methods, like
wireless, are uniquely applicable to the development community.
These technologies can help bridge some of the gaps in commercial
connectivity options for remote or under-serviced areas.
They also offer cost savings for localized network needs,
and new community-driven opportunities. Along with the conference
efforts in Denmark, Ungana-Afrika is working with other
local projects/initiatives that share these perspectives
(and are explore technical, social and regulatory considerations
of connectivity technologies). The goal of these efforts
is to help bring the benefits of connectivity to new places
and people in the development world. For more details, see
the following resources:
6.2004. eRider Training after Ungana-Afrika Welcomes
2 New eRiders
In early June, 2004, Ungana-Afrika welcomed
two new people to the team; Thale Letheo and Tshepo Thlaku.
Thale and Tshepo will be working as eRiders for Ungana-Afrika
internal eRiding projects in South Africa. For more information
about Thale and Tshepo, see the Our
Team page.
During the first two weeks of June, these
new eRiders underwent a training course to prepare them
for South Africa eRiding. This training was hosted at the
Ungana-Afrika offices in Pretoria and covered the fundamentals
of eRiding, various relevant technologies and went in-depth
into the consulting processes that are at the heart of eRiding.
Thale and Tshepo also helped contribute to the ongoing development
of this training and the relevant materials that are used
in Ungana-Afrika's external eRiding capacity building projects.
During the next few months these eRiders will undergo in-the-field
mentoring with experienced eRiders from Ungana-Afrika.
3.2004. Ungana-Afrika registers as an Independent
Non-profit Organisation
On March 19th, 2004 Ungana-Afrika held
its first General Meeting in which an organisational constitution
was ratified. This marks the transformation of Ungana-Afrika
from a project partnership (between OSISA and AIESEC) into
independent non-profit organisation in South Africa. This
change will afford Ungana-Afrika additional flexibility
in scale, governance and management.
Ungana-Afrika still draws upon the strong
support of OSISA and AIESEC and is funded primarily by OSISA.
1.2004. CMS from Finland to Help NGOs
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Ungana-Afrika has
received a grant of R 255.000.- from the Finnish
government to support activities in two Southern
African countries. The project is aimed at testing
and implementing Finnish open source CMS (Content
Management System) in local NGOs to help them become
self-sufficient in managing their websites.
Ungana-Afrika has
recently completed training in Midgard and will soon
be converting this website to run under a Midgard
host. After this pilot phase, Ungana-Afrika will explore
CMS implementation possibilities for NGOs in two Southern
African countries.
For more information,
read
the full press release...
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12.2003. Ungana-Afrika at the WSIS
The World Summit on Information Society took place
in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003, as hosted by the
Government of Switzerland. WSIS was an event that brought
together stakeholders with the scientific, technical, economic
and policy expertise. Their goal was to help world leaders,
the private sector, and the NGO community formulate and
implement a shared vision for utilizing ICTs to connect
marginalized communities to the Information Age.
This Summit was a great possibility for
the representatives of non-profit sector from all over the
world to meet and discuss the opportunities and challenges
that ICTs bring. Topics addressed included "ICT as
a Tool to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals"
and "Empowering All Citizens" to name a few. Toni
Eliasz from Ungana-Afrika took part in the WSIS events to
promote global eRiding movement, and specifically introduce
the Ungana-Afrika project of Southern Africa.
6.2003. New design for the Ungana-Afrika website.
We hope you find our new website interesting,
useful and easy to navigate. We added more information about
our project, new resources for NGOs, web version of our
Newsletters, team members' profiles and much more!
5.2003. ICTs in African Schools - Workshop for Practitioners
and Policy Makers.
This week-long conference held in Gaborone,
Botswana was organized by SchoolNet Africa and attended
by the entire Ungana-Afrika team. Many important issues
were discussed, such as the challenges of ICTs in African
education, curriculum integration, content and capacity
building, appropriate educational technologies in Africa
and achieving affordability and sustainability. Numerous
topics were of direct relevance to the activities and services
provided by Ungana-Afrika while others brought valuable
insight into other areas of importance (policy, networking,
etc.). Read more about this conference in our Second
Newsletter.
3.2003. Ungana-Afrika Cocktail Party.
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The official Ungana-Afrika project
launch was a successful social event. Taking place
in the attractive facilities of Gordon Institute of
Business Science, the cocktail party was attended
by representatives of the nonprofit as well as corporate
sector. Although the presentation of Ungana-Afrika
project received the guests' full attention, it was
CIDA choir's professional performance that was rewarded
with the most enthusiastic applause.
Image:
CIDA Choir performs at the Ungana-Afrika Cocktail
Party
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3.2003. Ungana-Afrika Induction Conference
 Participants
take part in a computer-based learning activity at
the Ungana-Afrika Induction Conference |
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A four-day conference took place
in the CIDA city campus in Johannesburg. eRiders from
the Ungana-Afrika team received detailed training
in nonprofit IT consultancy from international eRider
trainer Teresa Crawford. The program of this conference
was very diverse, and also included presentations
by representatives of other NGOs and corporate interests,
such as SchoolNet Africa, CINSA, CECS, CIVICUS, Sangonet,
Witel Africa, SA Telkom, SANGOCO, etc. Read more about
this conference in our first
Newsletter.
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Looking for a more historical background of Ungana-Afrika
or additional news? Please see or History
page or the In the Field news page.
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