Ict@innovation: Free your IT Business in Africa/3-Assignments

= Assignments and Answers = TASK

Question 1. Do a quick investigation in your country of residence to determine the following;

a) Which government ministry or department leads in the use of Open Solutions

b) State the name of the most widely used open source software within government as a whole

c) The highest certified qualification offered by an training institutions in your country of

residence

Some examples from participants

a) Government ministries are:

- MINISTRY OF EDUCATION- Makerere university, Uganda martyrs university, and Ndejje university. Also among technical institutions

- PARLIAMENT OF UGANDA

- Uganda Chambers of commerce

- MNISTRY OF HEALTY- Mulago medical training

- MINISTRY OF ICT- POLICY AND IMPLIMENTATION DEPARTMENT.b) State the name of the most widely used open source software within government as a whole

-The most widely used are:

-Open source and Red hat Linux, MYSQL also for databases

c) The highest certified qualification offered by an training institutions in your country of

residence

-MICROSOFT IS STILL DOMINATING

a) State Information Technology Agency (SITA) www.sita.co.za

b) Ubuntu Linux is widely used especially at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) where desktops were migrated to the desktop version of Ubuntu.

c) RedHat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Ubuntu Certified Professional (UCP) are widely known as de facto certifications for server and desktop versions of their respective linux distributions.

a) Ministry of Science and Technology

b) The most widely used FOSS is Linux

c) Advanced Level Linux Professional (LPIC - 2)

a) Ministry of education: because FOSS will be much more applicable in schools and Universities. Some of the universities has already started using FOSS solutions like Fedora, ubuntu

b) No specific Open source software is in use right now widely. All offices use different solutions based on their specific need

c) If the question is about Open source certification, there is no institute that gives open source certification some have tried but failed. But there are vendor specific certifications CCNP, MSCEQuestion 2. Mention at least one best known active online community in your country whose objectives and activities are exclusively focused on the promotion and development of Business or ICTs in the country.

i) Its membership

ii) State its objectives and Activities

iii) Brief outline of its major achievements

Some examples from participants

The Business Place is a capacity building community assisting start up South African entrepreneurs launch their businesses. The Business Place combines powerful online presence with a network of walk-in centres for entrepreneurs furnished with relevant support and information services clustered under one roof. The website has a feature called Business on the Move which features success stories of entrepreneurs assisted by the community. The Business Place is also expanding and intends to spread its branches across the Southern African region.

Membership

The Business Place’s focus is strong on South African youth particularly the previously disadvantaged people of colour. However membership is not exclusive. Anyone who wants to start or grow a small business or micro enterprise can be served.

Objectives and Activities

The Business Place assist with the “know how” for anyone intending to start, improve or expand a business. The following are the primary objectives:


 * to make life easier for entrepreneurs and encourage entrepreneurship
 * stimulate local business, keep people in their communities and
 * assist local communities to reduce dependency on the government

Major Achievements

A study among 247 of entrepreneurs on the database in Johannesburg alone indicated the positive impact The Business Place has made since its establishment;


 * the Johannesburg Branch sees an average of 5 000 visitors a month
 * 79% felt that the Information Centre is friendly, accessible and helpful of the sample, 30 new businesses were started in the last year, and 103 existing businesses were assisted
 * These businesses generated 311 full-time jobs and 159 part-time jobs
 * Other branches report similar successes. The minimum estimated total turnover for businesses assisted is R17 784 000.