November 23 2009: Our first day in Uganda was quite heavy. We started with a live radio interview for Tim at Sanyu FM at 7:45am! (thanks Reinier for the link to the full interview!). Sanuy FM has a great view over Kampala because it is at the sixth floor of a high building. This is a major issue when the lift is out of order like we experienced. For a fatty french man like me, I thought that I would finish my life between the fourth and the fifth floor!
The rest of the day was dedicated to attend the Linux User Group meeting hosted at UNICEF (see also the Uganda LUG official site). It is a great occasion for me to thank again Reinier, Kyle, Simon, and Jon who did a great job in the organization of this event and also worked hard to meet our constraints in terms of agenda. This meeting was great for many reasons. First, it was very exciting to see all these passionate young entrepreneurs in the room, and to hear about projects happening all over the country. Lots of very interesting discussions, particularly on topics the Web Foundation is interested in like languages, illiteracy and so on. It was also a good opportunity for me to introduce the Web Foundation mission and objectives. The format of the meeting, with lots of group work was also very productive.
A special note also for Kshitij Gheewala, who was the facilitator of the meeting and did a great job!
The second good thing for me was to meet with Dr Sharad Sapra, the head of UNICEF in Uganda. It was a surprise for me to find him here, as i thought he was still in New-York, driving the communication team. I knew him indirectly as the guy behind RapidSMS which was presented at a workshop that I organized in June 2008 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He just moved to Uganda with part of his team few months ago. All in one, this meeting was really good for me, and i was impressed to see so many activities happening in the ground. We also established good contacts for the future, and were able to organize side meetings.
The rest of the day was dedicated to a press conference and a reception at the Sheraton. The press conference was also interesting. Lots of journalists (around 20) and an incredible number of good questions. We answered questions for more than an hour, where only 30 minutes were scheduled.
Finally the reception closed this heavy day! I want to thank here Daniel who did a great job in organizing this event, as well as Pierre and Babra, and the sponsors (Brussels Airline and Crane Bank) which make it possible. See a wide range of photos from the reception
