Amelia Earhart jigsaw continues 70 years on

The year 2007 marks the 70th anniversary of one of the greatest unsolved aviation mysteries of all time.

The mystery – that of American aviatrix Amelia Earhart – intimately involves Papua New Guinea as Lae was her last port of call before she disappeared somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, went missing in July 1937, after leaving Lae for the longest stretch of her around-the-world flight.

The mystery and a long fruitless search –costing many millions of US dollars - had begun.

Today, 70 years after her final takeoff – from Lae in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe Province – the mystery is still to be solved.

World attention was focused on Lae in 1937, and continues to this day, when it was the last port of called for Earhart before she disappeared.

Old Lae residents used to recall entertaining the couple in the Hotel Cecil the night before their departure, and then seeing them off the next morning.

Their plane was so overloaded with its eight tonnes of fuel that it was still barely clearing the waves as it disappeared from sight, flying east along the Huon Gulf coast on its way to Howland Island, 4600 kilometres to the north.

On such occasions Lae-ites, regardless of class or social position, felt they were part of history.

Today, a plaque to her memory stands at the Amelia Earhart Park, opposite the famous old Lae airport.

Up the hill from the park, at the Melanesian Hotel, the bar is named Amelia’s after this great woman.

For the last 69 years, hundreds of rumours and theories – some practical but most the products of overfertile imaginations – have kept the memories of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, alive for millions of Americans.

One of the popular crank theories is that Earhart and Noonan were on a spy flight for the US government and were captured by the Japanese and executed, something that has been vehemently disclaimed by the Japanese to this day.

Some have searched the sea, believing the plane ran out of fuel.

Others think she survived a crash landing but died on a deserted island.

The conspiracy-minded claim Earhart survived and lived out her life under an assumed name as a New Jersey housewife.

There are even bizarre, out-of-this-world urban legends that she was captured by aliens on a UFO.

To US aviation buffs, she is still ‘Amelia’ and they talk about her as though she only went missing yesterday.

The 39-year-old pilot took off from Oakland, California, on June 1, 1937, on what was reported to be her last record flight.

Slim, almost boyish, reminding one of Katherine Hepburn, Amelia Earhart had been setting records for 10 years.

In 1932, she had set a solo record for her Atlantic crossing and earned the nickname of ‘Lady Lindy’, because her slim build and facial features resembled that of Charles Lindbergh.

A year later, she married New York publishing magnate, George Palmer Putnam.

A university graduate, Earhart spoke five languages.

When not flying, she spent most of her time on welfare work in the Boston slums.

Never satisfied with her records, she was always planning something greater.

This was to be IT – the ultimate in long distance flying!

She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world!

Navigator Fred Noonan, senior navigator of Pan American World Airlines, was considered as good as any in the United States.

He had already crossed the Pacific 18 times, directing the flight of the company’s famed China Clipper.

Their aircraft, a twin-engined Lockheed Electra, fast and sophisticated for its day, was well suited to the task.

They had reached Darwin, Northern Australia, 40 days after leaving Oakland.

Possibly to save weight for the long over-water legs to come, they had then unloaded their parachutes.

From Darwin, it was a short trip over to Lae.

New Guinea was the departing point for the most grueling leg of the flight – near 4600 kilometres over water to Howland Island, the longest ocean crossing ever attempted.

Their destination was a speck of sand and coral in the mid-Pacific 2.5 kilometres long and just under a kilometer wide.

The Lockheed was to be the first aircraft to land on its newly-constructed airstrip.

“Even with a first class navigator on board, it would be an incredible feat to find the island by celestial navigation and dead reckoning alone,” wrote Australian aviator and Earhart researcher Terry Gwynn-Jones in 1977.

“With an error of only one degree in reading, they would miss the island by 72 kilometres.

“Thus it was that the US government stationed the fleet tug Ontario half way along the route and the Coast Guard cutter Itasca at Howland.

“Besides voice communication radios, the Itasca had a radio direction finder and a radio beacon that could be picked up by the aircraft’s Bendix radio compass.

“Once the Lockheed got to within a few hundred kilometers of the island, the Itasca could guide them in.

“Or so it seemed!”

Earhart maintained radio contact with New Guinea, and then later the Itasca and Ontario, until this was lost.

Her last words were: “We are in a line of position 157-337. Will repeat this message on 6210. We are running north and south. We have only a half hour’s fuel and cannot see land.”

The message blasted through loud and clear over the radio of the United States Coast Guard ship Itasca.

The woman’s voice betrayed anxiety.

Quickly, the operator switched to the 6210 kilocycle band and waited for her call.

It never came.

Her silence was shrouded by the crackling of static interference out over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, was missing.

The times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan’s 1963 classic The Times They Are A-Changin’ well applies to what is happening to Papua New Guinea’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) landscape.

Back in 2005, when mobile phones were still in their infancy, I spoke to Pacific Mobile Communications’ managing director Noel Mobiha about the use of mobile phones and the Internet.

How times have changed since then with the arrival of new kid on the block Digicel, however, we lag behind in Internet with the outdated and exorbitant Tiare Gateway.

“…you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.”

Below are excerpts from the article that I wrote in July 2005 for the 30th anniversary of our Independence:

Many technical innovations have hit Papua New Guinea since Independence 30 years ago.

Record players were replaced by cassette players, which were in turn displaced by CD players.

Radio, once the most-powerful form of communication in pre-Independence and immediate post-Independence Papua New Guinea, was literally killed by video and then television.

How true were the words of that famous 1970s pop song ‘Video killed the radio star’!

The cinema (haus piksa) – once popular all over the country – has become as extinct as a dinosaur.

However, the Internet and digital mobile phones are probably two of the biggest technical innovations that have hit Papua New Guinea since September 16, 1975.

Pacific Mobile Communications (PMC) – 100 per cent owned by Telikom – is the only licensed provider of Internet and digital mobile phone services in the country.

Its two sections are mobile phones and Internet gateway

Internet hit Papua New Guinea big time in the late 1990s while digital mobile phones became a hit in 2003 and wiped out its predecessor, the more-expensive analogue mobile phones.

The number of digital mobile phones has, since 2003, eclipsed standard telephone line users.

PMC buys its Internet telecommunications capacity from Telikom and in turn makes it available to users.

“We connect to the Internet outside PNG and distribute the capacity to the four ISPs (Internet Service Providers) which are Datec, Daltron, DataNets and Global Internet,” explains PMC managing director Noel Mobiha.

“They are our partners in the Internet business.

“They sell the service through dial-up or lease line, on our behalf.

“The Internet growth in the country is limited by the available bandwidth from Telikom.

“However, this picture is going to change in September when more capacitators are provided by Telikom.

“We expect to double the current capacity we have in September.”

Mr Mobiha agrees that Internet growth is limited in Papua New Guinea to mainly those in the urban areas and with a good education.

“The growth (in Internet usage) is linear,” he says.

“The factors that are limiting growth are firstly bandwidth cost is too high, secondly because of costs and affordability of computers, and thirdly because of low literacy levels.

“These are the key factors hindering the growth of Internet in this country.”

To help alleviate these, PMC – as a community service obligation (CSO) - is investing in the universities to build a Papua New Guinea education research network (ERNet).

“That we hope will give us a subscriber base that is more information literate – an information society - for the future of the country,” Mr Mobiha continues.

“Because we believe that if we don’t invest in education and research, our future is dim.

“We are giving a grant of K250, 000 per year to assist develop this network, which will tie all the universities together.

“They will be bound under the agreement to provide support services to national high schools and lower education.

“In other words, they will serve as hosts and schools can dial in under them.

“That’s what we’re doing as a community service obligation (CSO) project.”

PMC launched its GSM900 service in May 2003, under the trade name Bee Mobile.

The digital GSM brought Papua New Guinea on par with the majority of countries in the Pacific region and the rest of the world, who have digital mobile networks.

Before that, few Papua New Guineans had the expensive analogue mobile phones, and the thinking among expatriate consultants was that digital mobile phone usage wouldn’t go pass the 20,000 mark.

How wrong they were, as Papua New Guineans took to the new ‘toys’ with glee, and the number of users is now near the 70,000 mark.

“Initially, there were 3000 subscribers,” Mr Mobiha says.

“The network was designed for a ceiling of 20,000 users: 12,000 in Port Moresby, 4000 in Lae, and the balance around Madang, Goroka and Mount Hagen

“Mobile phone growth was then very slow.

“Consultants thought that usage wouldn’t grow, and that the 20,000 ceiling would be reached by December 2005.

“The 20,000 ceiling was reached in December 2003 – two years ahead of what consultants predicted.

“The network has grown to more than three times what it was designed for, with currently 60,000 to 70,000 subscribers.

“We didn’t do anything to cater for this.”

“We have now reached a stage where we are logging 2700 new customers per month.

“That’s going to change to more people once the network expands.

“It’s going to grow, this (mobile phone) technology.

“What we see now is ‘going forward’.”

•For feedback and comments, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763/72580278.

The Hunt for Amelia Earhart

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email recently from Douglas Westfall, a book publisher in Southern California, USA, regarding a new book about the hunt for famed American aviatrix Amelia Earhart.

Apparently, Westfall caught my January 2007 piece on the Earhart saga in The National, and saved it until he got in touch with me and sent me an electronic version of the new book (e-book).

The year 2007 also marks the 70th anniversary of one of the greatest unsolved aviation mysteries of all time.

The mystery – that of the disappearance of Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan – intimately involves Papua New Guinea as Lae was her last port of call before she disappeared somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, went missing in July 1937, after leaving Lae for the longest stretch of her around-the-world flight.

The mystery and a long fruitless search – costing many millions of US dollars - had begun.

Today, 70 years after her final takeoff from Lae, the mystery is still to be solved.

Old Lae residents used to recall entertaining the couple in the Hotel Cecil the night before their departure, and then seeing them off the next morning.

Their Lockheed Electra was so overloaded with its eight tonnes of fuel that it was still barely clearing the waves as it disappeared from sight, flying east along the Huon Gulf coast on its way to Howland Island, 4600km to the north.

Today, a plaque to her memory stands at the Amelia Earhart Park, opposite the famous old Lae airport.

Up the hill from the park, at the Melanesian Hotel, the bar is named Amelia’s after this great woman.

The just-released new book co-authored by Westfall and the late Richard K Mater, The Hunt for Amelia Earhart, tells the story of the 16 days following Earhart’s disappearance.

The US Coast Guard with the US Navy and nine ships, 66 aircraft, and some 3,000 men searched over a quarter of a million miles for the Electra and survivors.

The book contains seven first person accounts.

It has a man from most of the ships including a Navy man on the deck of the USS Lexington aircraft carrier (still alive) and an airman (also still alive) from the USS Colorado.

They all give such great detail within their account of the search.

The book has 260 illustrations including 160 photographs over - 100 unpublished - plus the diary of Associated Press reporter onboard ship James Carey.

The book has four hooks.

1) It's a first person account piece, with unpublished diaries, interviews, and memoirs.

There are seven first person accounts in the book, from the young men who were on the Earhart Search, three of whom are alive and the rest have family who can be contacted for interview purposes.

One of these young men was James Carey.

He was a student at the University of Hawaii, who was working at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and was a representative for the Associated Press.

His complete diary, photographs, and letters are included within the book including: a letter to Carey from AP’s Clark Lee, and a letter to Fred Noonan from AP’s Russell Brines.

Other than some web access, none of these materials have been published before.

2) It's a hero piece, what the boys did for Amelia.

“And I have seven of the boys; it's a real flag waver,” Westfall boasts.

Nine ships, 66 aircraft, and 3,000 US Navy and US Coast Guard men searched 260,000 square miles of open sea plus 24 islands within a 600 mile range of Earhart's target: Howland Island.

The book contains the accounts of sailors and flyers who in their early 20s were risking their lives on the Earhart Search.

“Two of these boys are still alive and can be contacted,” Westfall says.

3) It's a new theory piece, different than the two primary theories.

The splash-and-sank theory of Nauticos who have spent some US$3 million on three ventures to search for Earhart's plane at the bottom of the Pacific at 18,000 feet.

The book has the Lockheed man who built the aircraft, who is still alive, and can be contacted in Southern California.

The crash-landing theory of TIGHAR who have spent somewhat less on five trips to search for Earhart on Nikumaroro (Gardner) Island.

The book has the Navy flyer who flew over Gardner on the Earhart Search, who is still alive, and can be contacted in Utah.

4) It's a history piece, the story never told, with unpublished photos, charts, and maps.

A surprise ending where the Japanese officially tell Washington DC that they are out looking for Earhart, but never report back.

Two days after they would have picked her out of the sea, they attacked Beijing, China, on July 7, 1937, the start of the Pacific War.

Four-and-a-half years later on December 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they bombed Howland Island - some 1900 miles southwest of Hawaii.

There were only a few shacks, four boys, and a three-tube radio on the essentially deserted island at the time.

The Japanese had investigated the island, six months before Earhart was to arrive.

The Hunt for Amelia Earhart. By Douglas Westfall and Richard K Mater. The Paragon Agency Publishers, 2007. 262 pages. ISBN 1-891030-24-8. Email: Paragona@Pacbell.net . Website: http://www.specialbooks.com/.

ICT in Papua New Guinea: Blind leading the blind

The Government still seems to have no clear directions for its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) policy, if this week’s National Budget is any yardstick to go by.

This is despite the Government allocating K20 million specifically towards the ICT policy in the 2008 National Budget.

There is no clear indication yet if the ICT monopoly held by Telikom – particularly in its outdated Tiare Internet Gateway - will be broken.

As an aside, a couple of weeks ago, I sailed to Salamaua on the MV Rita and almost everyone on the boat was using mobile phones at sea to call their loved ones in Lae or around the country.

Competition is good, anyone will tell you, except a handful of narrow-minded Government Ministers and politicians.

And ironically, National Planning and Monitoring Secretary Simon Tosali, at the National Budget lock-up which I attended on Tuesday this week, indicated that mobile phone competition had made a huge contribution to the growth of the Papua New Guinea economy this year and would continue to do so next year.

Digicel’s entry into the local mobile phone industry to compete with Telikom and its subsidiary B-Mobile has sparked a 0.7 per cent boost to the growth of Gross Domestic Product this year.

During the last six months, Digicel has invested about K450 million in the country and generated 300 regular jobs with about 4,000 indirect jobs around the country.

It also generated substantial revenue from its sale of mobile handsets and call credits that went into the local economy.

I have said before, and will say it again, that the ICT monopoly in Papua New Guinea, exorbitant telephone and Internet costs, as well as lack of knowledge about ICT all contribute to the massive digital divide in the country.

Papua New Guinea will continue to remain light years behind the rest of the world if we do not jump on the ICT bandwagon in this globalised world.

The digital divide within the country is an enormous barrier to the ability of the people to participate in and benefit from the digital economy.

Access to Internet, adequate infrastructure, human capacity building and appropriate policies on ICT are central issues in addressing the digital divide.

Success in this globalised world is predicated on ICT knowledge and successful knowledge-based economies will be based on the efficient and widespread use of ICT by all sectors within any given country.

It’s a classic case of “the blind (Government) leading the blind (people of Papua New Guinea)”.

And in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!

Our leaders in Government should know that the greatest problem the country faces in the area of ICT is the Telikom monopoly through the Tiare Gateway.

A former Papua New Guinea resident now residing in New Zealand highlighted this very point in an email to me this week.

“I was interested to read your views in the online edition of The National,” he said.

“After 17 years in PNG, the online papers are one way to remain in touch with what’s happening there.

“Although you make some good points in that article, there was no mention of the greatest problem PNG faces in this area: the Telikom monopoly through Tiare.

“It’s all very well to have a limited broadband locally but the true benefits are achieved with an international network.

“The tiny ‘pipeline’ linking PNG with the rest of the world means outside communications are too slow and their charging policies restrict most people from utilising them.

“Whilst I am able to implement a VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solution in my home and talk to friends in UK for free, I can’t use it to reach friends in PNG (unless they work for The World Bank).

“A caring government would axe the monopoly, allow the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to actually compete and enable the people to use the technology.

“Telikom is a government ‘cash cow’ and that’s the reason they don’t want to open everything up.

“They’re billing Internet connections as a toll call whereas, elsewhere in the world, it’s a local call.

“Many people over here (New Zealand) never turn it (Internet) off!”

Telikom – through the Tiare Gateway - is the only licensed provider of Internet services in the country.

The four Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - Datec, Daltron, DataNets and Global Internet – buy their Internet telecommunications capacity from Telikom on wholesale.

The ISPs in turn sell the service through dial-up or lease line at hugely-inflated prices.

The Internet growth in the country is limited by the available bandwidth from Telikom.

University of Technology electrical electronics and telecommunications lecturer Elias Mandawali says people within Telikom are not doing enough research into new technologies in telecommunication systems.

“There is a lot of confusion in the World Wide Web (WWW) applications of Broadband Internet and the telephony Broadband Internet offered by the Public Switch Telephone Network ( PSTN ),” he said.

“The Tiare runs on the old 4 kHz frequency and bit rate at 64kbps, which is too narrow for Broadband, and one will find that the information can be lost or congested.

“We have to educate Papua New Guineas to use the latest WiFi-function telecommunication networks on the World Wide Web.

“This will enable triplay bandwidth … and is the answer to PNG’s ICT policy.”

•For feedback and comments, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763/72580278.

You know you're a Papua New Guinean when:

*You can have cordial 4 breakfast.

* You have Buai for Lunch.

* You still live with your parents even though you're 30.

*U bring your boyfriend/girlfriend to the house and everyone's concluded that you are married!

* You wear board shorts to cruz in town even though u r not going 4 a swim (KBS 2 the max!).

* You share one cigarette with five other people.

* Your Mother gives your father Black eyes.

* You have about 3 families living in one house.

* Still keep drinking even though you can barely talk and walk.

* At any major function, instead of a plate, your food comes in a plastic container.

* You run into a mountain of Slippers blocking the front door.

* Your staple diet is rice and tin fish or Ox & palm.

* You have a huge gap between your first two toes, (excessive thong wear...).

* Swimming pool is filled with people wearing t-shirts, (Females).

* You can sprint barefoot on sharp stones and rocks.

* You wake up and go straight to work or classes.

* At crossings, u r supposed 2 wait 4 the car to stop b4 crossing, not the other way around.

* Your first and last names are the same. (John John).

* You have a perpetually drunk Uncle who starts fights at every family gathering.

* You call a friend - (squad).

* Every time you greet someone he says "YOU"?.

* You have sat in a 4-seater car with up to 8 other people.

* You can speak with your face - eg. Twitch like a rabbit to ask, Where you going?"

* Your Grandmother thinks Vicks Vapor-Rub is the miracle cure for everything> (including broken bones ....).

* You're getting a hiding and your parents yell at you as to ,"Why you are crying for?" ("you karai lo wanem ah ......").

* You've been shamed and belted up by your Mother in front of schoolmates at the Supermarket.

* You're a Tycoon on your payday by shouting everyone and scab money off people till the next fortnight.

* You invite people over for dinner and your family all of a sudden says the grace.

* You've had an afro at some stage in your life (boys AND girls) and thought you looked cool.

* You're at your Aunties and see your 6 year old cousin doing household chores.

* Your Aunty visits and she's talking to you at the same time as looking in your pots for food...

* You go to your village rich and come back poor.

* You have lap laps for curtains in your house.

Now, stop laughing and send it over to other Papua New Guineans!

Kalamanagunan Primary School gets a timely boost

Kalamanagunan Primary School at Kokopo in East New Britain province is the proud recipient of K1100 from Kokopo Micro Finance (KMF) project.

The money is a loan that the school secured through the KMF facility to help it promote its making a living in agriculture project.

This money will be paid to OISCA School for additional seedlings and other agriculture-related projects that the school is promoting as part of its community-based curriculum.

The loan was made possible through a school account that was opened with KMF in April 2007.

The purpose of this move is inline with a board decision that is aimed at making the school self-reliant rather than depending too much on board funding for its school projects.

Kalamanagunan has been involved in numerous development projects like poultry, backyard gardening, brick making, ice block making, roasted peanuts and a few others as part of its making a living program.

The school has been working closely with other education institutions like OISCA, Vunamami Farmers, Kokopo Secondary School and Woolnough Vocational as part of its community based projects to make learning more appropriate to today’s needs.

Kokopo Micro Finance board member Henry Tavul said it was time students were encouraged to adopt “education for Life” principles rather than “education for employment” as this was no longer true today.

A strong advocate of micro enterprise/informal sector training programmes, Mr Tavul believes this is the way to go today if we are to celebrate 32 years of “real independence in PNG”.

“The move that Kalamanagunan has taken is more inline with the Education 10-Year Development Plan and it is good that schools are taking the initiative to develop such programs,” Mr Tavul said.

“This type of loan is the first of its kind by the district micro finance to be given to a school in the district and province.

“I believe this is also a right move in line with capacity-building exercise in the institution that the district and province has been embarking on.

“I encourage other schools to follow suit and make learning more realistic for our children.”

After completion of this loan the school intends to get a bigger loan that they can use to increase production of bricks under rural technology areas of learning Grades 7 and 8.

Headmaster Mark Petelo, in accepting the money on behalf of the school, thanked his board and Kokopo Micro Finance for their support and pledged the school would do its best to pay off the loan to enable them to get bigger amounts in future

Youngsters become young stars at Kokopo Secondary School

Kokopo Secondary School in East New Britain province is undergoing a quite revolution as its students become real-life entrepreneurs.

To see the determination of these youngsters to be young stars, especially at a time when so many of their peers all over the country are sinking into a quagmire of poverty and unemployment, gives you so much optimism for the future.

Kokopo Secondary School is indeed a parable for the youth of Papua New Guinea.

These young men and women – Grade 9, 10, 11 and 12 students - are into various businesses such as vegetable growing, tailoring, trade stores, poultry, cooking food, laplaps, meri blouses, coconut oil, baking, and many more.

They are trained by their teachers in all facets of small business such as producing, buying, marketing, selling, bookkeeping and banking.

They are independent and no longer rely on their parents for school fees and pocket money.

Young female Grade 10 student Catherine Kereku – in something out of the ordinary - designs, builds and then sells coffins in her own workshop.

Justin Malana, another female Grade 10 student, is the sole breadwinner for her siblings after their father deserted them and the subsequent death of their mother.

Male Grade 10 student Angelo Buak – who is into selling iceblocks, baking and sewing – recently used some of this money to buy his own personal computer.

Female Grade 10 student Coran Dan, whose vegetable garden is a walk-in market for customers, has made over K3000 this year.

These are just a few of the many success stories from Kokopo Secondary School.

The enthusiasm of these young people for business and life in general greatly touched and moved a group of visitors to the school last week.

The Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) programme is offered as an integral part of the school curriculum at Kokopo Secondary School to create awareness of and promote entrepreneurship to students, their parents and the community at large.

The SIYB programme, run by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) through the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC), was first introduced to Kokopo Secondary School in 2003 by SBDC-accredited master trainer Henry Tavul.

“He (Tavul) successfully trialed and pioneered the program with a class of about 100 business studies students who graduated with a certificate,” said Kokopo principal Patrick Jerome.

“The success immediately had a positive impact in the school, which resulted in having SBDC training 24 teachers to be trainers in 2004.

“Since then the program has taken root in the school and has grown bigger and better.

“It is our strong desire to pro-actively participate in the government’s nationwide programs in the drive to alleviate poverty in PNG by teaching young people to learn and adopt business culture at a young age.”

Tavul recalls that the SIYB programme was treated with suspicion by both students and parents when he introduced it at the school in 2003.

“They (students and parents) were not very enthusiastic,” he remembers.

“They were looking forward to white collar jobs.

“Now, they can see that they have something to fall back on if they don’t get a white collar job.”

The history of the SIYB programme at Kokopo Secondary School goes back to 2003 when it became a secondary school.

Its Business Studies Department took a huge step to add more value to the courses offered by inserting SIYB into the curriculum.

“So far, we have trained more than 400 students,” said school’s SIYB coordinator Alfred Bare.

“The majority of them are SYB certificate holders and the rest of them are IYB certificate holders

“The criteria used to assess were purely based on the training outcomes: precise and realistic business plans and tests at the end of the program.

“Some went for further studies and some went hack to their villages and lived meaningful lives, starting up their own micro businesses.

“This is what it means to be self-reliant and participating meaningfully in our economy.”

The school’s head of business studies Adrian Balagawi believes the SIYB programme is the way of the future “to be taught to the students in all high and secondary schools.

“I believe if this course is accepted and implemented by the authorities as a productive module, it will enable our students to generate revenue by establishing micro-businesses at an early age.”

So what better judges than the student of Kokopo Secondary School themselves?

“…this project has contributed to my wellbeing and has prompted the desire to become a businessman,” said coconut oil producer William Toliman.

“It has built up a type of confidence on how to deal with money in real life situation.

“In this real commercial and business world, the application of knowledge is what matters.”

Iceblock, baking, and sewing tyro Angelo Buak comments: “I think this is one of things that can help to reduce crimes involving young people.

“Encouraging young people to start up similar small business like this one will enable them to concentrate on his/her own business, not the peers, so that they can feel the thrill of holding hot money in their hands and forget about breaking and entering stores, pick-pocketing and also to prevent them from becoming beggars.”

Vola Vinarang, a Grade 11 male student, is into making meri blouses women.

“I found out that this course is very vital for us young Papua New Guineans,” he says.

“We need to start saving now.

“This course, I believe, will make us students come out of our shells and explore how the world of money or business is.”

Another Grade 11 student, Muro Igo, believes the SIYB programme can help students become better citizens.

“I think this is a way in which students can excel and become good citizens of this great nation,” he said.

Tavul has the last word: “If you don’t have a job, create your own job!”

For more information on the SIYB Programme, contact Manager Peter Piawu on telephone 3235816 or email pdpiawu@sbdc.gov.pg or ILO Chief Technical Adviser Julius Mutio on telephone 3235816 email jmutio@hotmail.com.

ICT in Papua New Guinea

One of the staunchest supporters and critics of this column has been my good friend and University of Technology electrical electronics and telecommunications lecturer Elias Mandawali (pictured left).

Mr Mandawali is a visionary who has strong views about the status quo of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Papua New Guinea.

I often engage in tech-talk with him over the phone or through email and seek his technical expertise on the massive Information Revolution currently sweeping the globe.

Mr Mandawali will next month run a short course conducted by the Department of Electrical Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering Department at Unitech as part of an educational campaign to provide necessary information and education to IT sections in this country.

The hi-tech workshop - geared towards Internet Broadband fundamental concepts and implementations in Papua New Guinea – will cover topics such as Wireless Radio Systems Technology, Wireless Internet Access Technology and Application, Practical Computer Laboratory Sessions, and Powerline Communication Systems.

It comes at a time when a massive Information Revolution is taking place in this increasingly-globalised world as economies use ICT as a passport to what economists call the “New Economy”.

Mr Mandawali explains that the short course aims “to make everyone aware of the technology and to remind us here that this technology is taking the world by storm”.

“What does ICT means to you and I and the bulk of the Papua New Guineans?” he asks

“If we can firstly define the three words, we are then able to make good important decisions that will benefit the bulk of the Papua New Guineans, and then we can talk about making the policies on the ICT.

“If we blindly make a policy without understanding of ICT and its applications and if the policy does not suit us, then we have become ignorant in the technology and we can just forget the policy because it is going to be someone else that is going to benefit from the ICT.

“It is my firm believe that everyone must firstly be made away of the advantages and disadvantages of the technology so everyone can appreciate its implementation and support it in every means.

“Information – may include voice and data.

“Communication – means the exchange of information and the information must be received understood and be returned or replied and or transmitted.

“Technology – means the mechanisms which the information is communicated and the mechanisms which we can refer to in this explanation are the PSTN and the WWW as in the digital systems.

“By way of understanding and the proper meaning of the ICT, we tend to think of the ICT as transmission/reception of information technology in terms of ‘0’, and ‘1’ or bits.

“A bit can be sent via a transmission network or many bits can be sent via a transmission network.

“And so the ICT is actually the telecommunication network that provides a network in telecommunication engineering systems and network for the exchanges of bits which contains information of voice or data or mixture of both.

“By definition the two telecommunication networks - the World Wide Web (WWW) and Public Switch Telephone Networks (PSTN) - are not the same.

“These two systems are referred to as providing ICT

“The Broadband Internet provided by either system is not the same and is not equal.

“Therefore PSTN Broadband Internet cannot be called Broadband Internet because it is riding on 4 kHz which never and cannot become Broadband according to the telecommunication technologies.

“The Public Switch Telephone Network goes back as far as 1920s when first radio link was invented and used in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, and ‘80s.

“The ‘90s saw the emergence of digital technology where half-synchronous digital hierarchy was developed to replace the analogue 4 kHz voice frequency telephony systems used in history.

“In Public Switch Telephone Network, the frequency division multiplexing technology is used to send more than one signal through the main transmission network through cable or microwave radio relay links.

“One system is limited to a maximum of 960 channels only.

“The PSTN is provided on the circuit-based telecommunication network.

“The World Wide Web is based on the latest packet technology and the information is transmitted in bits of ‘0’, and ‘1’ digital bit stream and so the bit rate and the terms capacity tends to used in ICT to rate the information flow within the various transmission and user networks.

“With the present latest WiFi-function computer Broadband telecommunication network, the network and the last-mile solutions are brought closer to the user base to effect simple solutions on cost-effective simple-to-install networks and user components at the last-mile.

“The last mile is where WiFi-function wireless Local Area Network providing Broadband Internet becomes very effective at 54Mbps.

“Every WiFi function wireless local area network shall operate at 54 Mbps at 450 meters,
the latest IEEE 802.11 standard.

“The individual WiFi wireless local area networks are inter-connected via the IEEE802.16e standards.

“The WiFi-function mesh network configuration computer telecommunication network is illustrated in this article.

“The Wi-Fi Mesh Network Configuration is believed to provide unlimited Broadband Internet capacity on IP Address to anyone person anywhere and shall be done at homes on wired access points and on WiMAX and Wi-Fi standards and protocols as stated above.”

Those who wish to engage in tech-talk with Mr Mandawali or find our more about next month’s short course can contact him on email emandawali@ee.unitech.ac.pg .

•For feedback and comments, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763

Malalo celebrates 100 years

Laukanu village kasali arrives in Malalo

 By MALUM NALU

It was one of those typically-beautiful Huon Gulf days on Friday, October 12, 2007, when we sailed from Lae to Malalo on Lutheran Shipping’s MV Rita for the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the historic Malalo Lutheran Mission Station.
It was a sunny day, not a cloud was in the sky, as if they did not want to spoil the celebrations.
Hundreds of people from all over Salamaua, Morobe Province, converged on Malalo that Friday for the centenary celebrations.
Work started on this icon - overlooking idyllic and historic Salamaua – exactly 100 years ago on October 12, 1907.
Surrounding villagers and guests from Lae, other parts of Morobe, and Papua New Guinea, converged on Malalo for the 100th anniversary celebrations.
The people of my mother’s Laukanu village rekindled memories of yore when they brought a kasali (ocean going canoe) to Malalo in a re-enactment of the arrival of the first Lutheran missionaries.
The people of Laukanu were among the greatest mariners of the Huon Gulf, making long ocean trips throughout the Huon Gulf to exchange goods, long before the arrival of the white man.
When the first Lutheran missionaries arrived in Finschhafen in the late 1880s, the Laukanu made the long sea voyage to Finschhafen, and helped to bring the Miti (Word of God) to the villages south of Lae.
The launch of the kasali celebrated not only the great seamanship of the Laukanu, but more importantly, coincided with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Malolo Mission Station - overlooking idyllic and historic Salamaua – on October 12, 1907.
The people of Salamaua and surrounding villages, who make up the Malalo Circuit, converge on Malalo last week for this momentous occasion.
It was a time for all to celebrate the important role the church had played in their lives, as well as remember the many expatriate missionaries and local evangelists, who worked through the dark days of World War 1 and World War 11 to bring the Miti (Word of God) to the people.
These legendary missionaries include Reverend Karl Mailainder and Rev Herman Boettger (who started actual work on the Malalo station), Rev Hans Raun, Rev Friedrich Bayer, Rev Mathias Lechner, and Rev Karl Holzknecht.
Rev Raun suffered the humiliation of being interned by Australian authorities during WW1 while Rev Holzknecht (whose family has contributed much to the development of PNG) suffered the same fate during WW11 – their only crime being Germans.
Rev Bayer was taking a well-deserved leave in his homeland of Germany when he lost his life on July 24, 1932.
The heart-warming and touching story of Rev Bayer and his wife, Sibylle Sophie Bayer, is told in Sophie’s autobiography He led me to a far off place.
Rev Holzknecht replaced Rev Lechner in 1939 and was there when World War 11 broke out and wiped out Malalo and its famous neighbour of Salamaua.
Missionary’s wife Helene Holzknecht accompanied her husband on all but the trips along the Black Cat Trail into the Wau and Bulolo valleys, ministering to village women and helping the sick she found in these areas.
The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 brought this idyll to an end.
Karl Holzknecht – being a German - was taken prisoner as an enemy alien by Australian authorities, leaving a pregnant and heartbroken Helene at Malalo.
Her eldest child and only daughter, Irene, was born at Sattelberg, on February 1, 1940, after Karl’s removal to Australia.
Helene and Irene were returned to Malalo, but were eventually evacuated after Japanese bombers attacked Lae and Salamaua.
Helene often talked of seeing those planes skimming the hills on their way to Salamaua, and the horror of the bombing of Salamaua.
Soon after their evacuation by DC3 to Port Moresby, Japanese aircraft also bombed the Malalo Station, destroying all the family’s possessions.
Reverend Karl Mailainder and Rev Herman Boettger started work on the Malalo Mission Station exactly 100 years ago last on October 12, 1907.
They had already checked out other places from Busamang to Kelanuc before settling at Asini at a place called Poadulu.
At Poadulu, work started on Malalo.
The local people were very happy and gave a large piece of land to the Lutheran Church.
The Laukanu people had two kasali so they sailed all the way to Finschhafen and brought missionaries’ cargo back to Malalo.
When Rev Mailainder was clearing land at Malalo, he had a surveyor, Mr Mayar, who worked alongside him.
Work had already started when Rev Boettger arrived and the station was established.
At that time, a church was made of sago leaves.
This was after the congregation membership increased to 500.
Work started on Malalo Mission Station on October 12, 1907, and the opening was on December 20, 1907.
In 1908, the work of confirmation started and work started on a new church building with proper roofing iron.
One missionary gave 1000 German Marks, while Munchen in Germany gave a big bell and a bowl for baptism.
Work started on the new church building and on January 30th, 1910, it was opened with Holy Baptism.
Malalo 100th anniversary organiser Elisah Ahimpum was pleased with the hundreds of people who turned up for the occasion, which also featured a cultural show.
Plaques with the names of all missionaries and evangelists who worked at Malalo were unveiled on the day.
Invited guests to the 100th anniversary celebrations include Evangelical Lutheran Church of PNG leader Reverend Dr Bishop Wesley Kigasung, Morobe Governor Luther Wenge, Lae MP and prominent Lutheran Bart Philemon, Huon Gulf MP and Health Minister Sasa Zibe, as well as Bulolo MP Sam Basil as the Miti filtered into his area from Malalo.
Unfortunately, not all were able to attend, with only Assistant ELPNG Bishop Zao Rapa representing the church and Mr Philemon and Tewai-Siassi MP Vincent Michaels representing the government.
However, that did not spoil the occasion, with hundreds turning up to witness celebrations marking the centenary.

Lae becoming overrun by potholes

The once-beautiful garden city of Lae is virtually being overrun by potholes.

All over the city, potholes – resembling moonlike craters – are appearing.

The bitumen in many parts of the city has disappeared and been replaced with dusty roads found in rural areas of the country.

Lae, in fact, can no longer be called a “city” if the terrible road conditions are anything to go by.

A case in point is the main Town bus stop at Eighth Street (pictured above) where the bitumen has all but disappeared.

“This place doesn’t deserve to be called a city,” said concerned Lae resident Philemon Nalusi as he pointed out the dusty track which is Eighth Street bus stop (pictured above).

“It’s more or less like an undeveloped rural area.”

Former residents of Lae would be astounded at the atrocious roads conditions if they were to visit.

The people of Lae are complaining that they don’t seem to have leaders who can push for the roads to be fixed.

The city is also falling into anarchy with law and order problems all over the city every day.

The need for MPs to have their own websites

I have been following with interest the feedback from the general public since the launching of the Ambunti-Drekikir website (www.ambunti-dreikikir.gov.pg) in September this year.

Since the launching of the website, there have been letters from far and wide in The National, particularly from people who said they couldn’t access the site.

The problem, as was later pointed out in an explanatory letter, was that the spelling in the newspaper story was wrong.

I was one of those who entered the wrong spelling on Google vainly looking for the website, but when I got the spelling right, I was able to access the website.

There was also a letter from a government officer claiming that he and his colleagues were not acknowledged on the website for all the planning work they did for the Ambunti-Dreikikir district of East Sepik province.

That all added to the hype generated by www.ambunti-dreikikir.gov.pg since it was launched by local MP and Correctional Services Minister Tony Aimo.

And the great thing is that rural Ambunti-Dreikikir – at a cost of only K10, 000 - now has global exposure as it tries to sell itself to the world as a potential tourist destination.

This “bush” area has been like the proverbial tortoise and beaten many of our “town” electorates to have its own website.

Ambunti-Dreikikir District is one of the six districts within East Sepik Province.

Dreikikir sub-district covers and is located wholly on mountain area.

Ambunti-Mayama covers the Sepik flood plains and mountains in the Hunstein Range/Frieda and Waskuk Hills.

It takes 45 minutes to travel by Cessna 206 aircraft from Wewak to Ambunti/Mayama and eight to 10 hours if you chose to travel by road or river.

The website features almost anything from the district and East Sepik province generally including its cultures and traditions, youth activities, development projects, cash crops, as well as the lifestyle of the people.

Okay, the website isn’t that fancy, however, all credit must go to Mr Aimo for being a visionary leader in this increasingly-globalised world, in which a massive Information Revolution is taking place as economies use Information and Communication Technology (ICT), as a passport to what economists call the “New Economy”.

Mr Aimo said at the launch that the Internet was the latest and most-convenient medium as an avenue to acquire maximum global exposure and publicity.

He said his district was considered as a “least-developed” in the country and his people could not sit back and wait for “miracles to happen” but to move forward with the available resources through aggressive promotion and awareness.

Mr Aimo said this was also one way for his district to seek assistance from overseas investors and donors for the district to continue being developed.

“Major corporate organisations worldwide are turning to the Internet as an alternate and effective marketing tool,” he said.

Mr Aimo said his district was now using the Internet to its advantage.

He also described the website as a way in which his people could move on with the changing times into the future as the Internet had exploded on to the global marketplace as a powerful business tool.

Our MPs should realise that we no longer live in an age of typewriters, telex machines, faxes and phones.

Computers, email and the Internet, as well as mobile phones are the way to go.

In the near future, as wireless networking (Wifi) comes into play in Papua New Guinea as in other countries, newspapers, radio and television may also become obsolete.

Each of our 109 MPs should have their own website to share information with their good voters, the people of Papua New Guinea and the rest of the world.

I’m sure they all have the money to hire a good writer who can also serve as a photographer and webmaster to develop and update the website.

Government departments, statutory organisations, non-government organisations, sporting teams, provinces, villages, families, individuals, and many more should also be looking at seriously building their own website if they don’t already have one in this rapidly-globalising world.

It is, however, quite ironic that the ICT monopoly in Papua New Guinea held by Telikom, and fiercely protected by our government and MPs, is a major deterrent to the development of ICT in this country.

Papua New Guinea will continue to remain light years behind the rest of the world if we do not jump on the ICT bandwagon in this globalised world.

The digital divide within PNG is an enormous barrier to the ability of the people to participate in and benefit from the digital economy.

Access to Internet, adequate infrastructure, human capacity building and appropriate policies on ICT are central issues in addressing the digital divide.

Success in this globalised world is predicated on ICT knowledge and successful knowledge-based economies will be based on the efficient and widespread use of ICT by all sectors within any given country.

If they are not ICT-savvy, they will not receive the benefits of globalisation and they will be left behind the rest of the world

•For feedback and comments, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763.

WiFi is the way to go for computers

Wireless networking, also called WiFi or 802.11 networking, is taking off in a big way throughout the world.

Papua New Guinea, however, has been very slow in catching up to this technology – that allows information to travel over the air – and which is very efficient and cheap in developed countries of the world.

For instance, in cities like Tokyo, Taipei and Singapore which I visited recently, you can use your laptop computer to access the Internet almost anywhere without the need for a wire connection.

WiFi is currently only available in Port Moresby at selected buildings and “Hotspots” at hugely-inflated prices.

This contributes to the massive digital divide within Papua New Guinea and is an enormous barrier to the ability of the people to participate in and benefit from the digital economy.

Daltron is currently Papua New Guinea’s leading WiFi provider and has already “wired up” buildings such as Ela Beach Tower, Deloitte, Pacific Place, Monian Tower, Somare Foundation and Investwell House to use its Wireless Internet system.

Daltron’s Hotspots are located at places predominantly frequented by the well-to-do such as Latitude 9, Yacht Club, Golf Club and Crowne Plaza

“Other centres will be covered in due course,” Daltron promises on its website.

Many people throughout the world use WiFi or to connect their computers at home, and an increasing number of cities use the technology to provide free or low-cost Internet access to residents.

In the near future, wireless networking may become so widespread that you can access the Internet just about anywhere at any time, without using wires, but in the meantime, that remains a far-off, unaffordable and inaccessible dream for many Papua New Guineans.

One wireless router can allow multiple devices to connect to the Internet.

WiFi has a lot of advantages.

Wireless networks are easy to set up and inexpensive.

They're also unobtrusive - unless you're on the lookout for a place to use your laptop, you may not even notice when you're in a Hotspot.

A wireless network uses radio waves, just like cell phones, televisions and radios do.

In fact, communication across a wireless network is a lot like two-way radio communication.

Here's what happens:

• A computer's wireless adapter translates data into a radio signal and transmits it using an antenna.
• A wireless router receives the signal and decodes it. It sends the information to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection.
• The process also works in reverse, with the router receiving information from the Internet, translating it into a radio signal and sending it to the computer's wireless adapter.

The radios used for WiFi communication are very similar to the radios used for walkie-talkies, cell phones and other devices.

They can transmit and receive radio waves, and they can convert 1s and 0s into radio waves and convert the radio waves back into 1s and 0s.

But WiFi radios have a few notable differences from other radios.

They transmit at frequencies of 2.4 GHz or 5GHz.

This frequency is considerably higher than the frequencies used for cell phones, walkie-talkies and televisions.

The higher frequency allows the signal to carry more data.

WiFi radios can transmit on any of three frequency bands.

Or, they can "frequency hop" rapidly between the different bands.

Frequency hopping helps reduce interference and lets multiple devices use the same wireless connection simultaneously.

As long as they all have wireless adapters, several devices can use one router to connect to the Internet.

This connection is convenient and virtually invisible, and it's fairly reliable.

If the router fails or if too many people try to use high-bandwidth applications at the same time, however, users can experience interference or lose their connections.

If you want to take advantage of public WiFi Hotspots or start a wireless network in your home, the first thing you'll need to do is make sure your computer has the right wireless gear.

Most new laptops and many new desktop computers come with built-in wireless transmitters.

If your laptop doesn't, you can buy a wireless adapter that plugs into the PC card slot or USB port.

Desktop computers can use USB adapters, or you can buy an adapter that plugs into the PCI slot inside the computer's case.

Many of these adapters can use more than one 802.11 standard.

Once you've installed your wireless adapter and the drivers that allow it to operate, your computer should be able to automatically discover existing networks.

This means that when you turn your computer on in a WiFi Hotspot, the computer will inform you that the network exists and ask whether you want to connect to it.

If you have an older computer, you may need to use a software program to detect and connect to a wireless network.

Being able to connect to the Internet in public Hotspots is extremely convenient.

Wireless home networks are convenient as well.

They allow you to easily connect multiple computers and to move them from place to place without disconnecting and reconnecting wires.

For comments and feedback, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763.

Computers for our children

I’ve been inundated by queries from people all over the country wanting to know more about the revolutionary US$100 laptop for children that is becoming a big hit in developing countries all over the world.

To these many people, and especially the wonderful (and forgotten) children of Papua New Guinea, contact details of the producer of this technological marvel are provided below as our government and relevant authorities seem to be working at a snail’s pace for our children to reap the benefits.

It comes at a time when Papua New Guinea is struggling to bridge the digital divide and make computers affordable and accessible to our children.

The "US$100 laptop," a product five years in the making, is right now taking off in a big way in developing countries of the world including neighbouring Solomon Islands.

The XO laptop, as it's officially called, is produced by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation, a nonprofit organisation founded by Nicholas Negroponte, who also founded the MIT Media Lab.

The OLPC says that the XO laptop offers children a sense of ownership and ensures that they're no longer dependent on a corrupt or inept government to provide educational opportunities.

The OLPC Foundation aims to provide these laptops to millions of children throughout the developing world in order to improve their education and their quality of life.

The XO laptop was designed to be lightweight, cheap and adaptable to the conditions of the developing world.

While a US$100 laptop is the goal, as of September 2007, the laptop costs about US$188.

Originally the OLPC Foundation said that governments must buy the laptop in batches of 25,000 to distribute to their citizens, but a new program will soon allow private citizens to purchase an XO.

Starting November 12, 2007, the Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) program will allow U.S. residents to pay US$399 to buy two XO laptops - one for the purchaser and one for a child in need in a foreign country.

“Most of the nearly two–billion children in the developing world are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all,” the OLPC Foundation says on its website http://www.laptopfoundation.org/.

“One in three does not complete the fifth grade.

“The individual and societal consequences of this chronic global crisis are profound.

“Children are consigned to poverty and isolation—just like their parents—never knowing what the light of learning could mean in their lives.

“At the same time, their governments struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving, global information economy, hobbled by a vast and increasingly urban underclass that cannot support itself, much less contribute to the commonweal, because it lacks the tools to do so.

“It is time to rethink this equation.

“Given the resources that poor countries can reasonably allocate to education—sometimes less than $20 per year per pupil, compared to the approximately $7500 per pupil spent annually in the U.S.—even a doubled or redoubled national commitment to traditional education, augmented by external and private funding, would not get the job done.

“Moreover, experience strongly suggests that an incremental increase of ‘more of the same’—building schools, hiring teachers, buying books and equipment—is a laudable but insufficient response to the problem of bringing true learning possibilities to the vast numbers of children in the developing world.

“Standing still is a reliable recipe for going backward.

“Any nation's most precious natural resource is its children.

“We believe the emerging world must leverage this resource by tapping into the children's innate capacities to learn, share, and create on their own.

“Our answer to that challenge is the XO laptop, a children's machine designed for ‘learning learning’.

“XO embodies the theories of constructionism first developed by MIT Media Lab Professor Seymour Papert in the 1960s, and later elaborated upon by Alan Kay, complemented by the principles articulated by Nicholas Negroponte in his book, Being Digital.

“Extensively field-tested and validated among some of the poorest and most remote populations on earth, constructionism emphasises what Papert calls ‘learning learning’ as the fundamental educational experience.

“A computer uniquely fosters learning learning by allowing children to ‘think about thinking’, in ways that are otherwise impossible.

“Using the XO as both their window on the world, as well as a highly programmable tool for exploring it, children in emerging nations will be opened to both illimitable knowledge and to their own creative and problem-solving potential.

“OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program, nor is the XO a product in any conventional sense of the word.

“OLPC is a non-profit organisation providing a means to an end—an end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap into their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community.”

If you want to get in touch with OLPC, you can write to:
One Laptop per Child
P.O. Box 425087
Cambridge, MA 02142
U.S.A.

General information: http://www.blogger.com/information@laptop.org; Press inquiries: http://www.blogger.com/press@racepointgroup.com; Hardware, software, and technology issues:
technology@laptop.org; Information on specific countries: http://www.blogger.com/countries@laptop.org; Content inquiries: http://www.blogger.com/content@laptop.org; Volunteer opportunities:
volunteer@laptop.org; Donating to OLPC: http://www.blogger.com/giving@laptop.org; More ways to give:
givemany@laptop.org.

For comments and feedback, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763.

Making computers affordable and accessible to our children

The National recently ran an exciting news story about “US$100 laptop” computers being made available to children in the neighbouring Solomon Islands.

It caught my attention, and that of many other Papua New Guineans, especially at a time when our country is struggling to bridge the digital divide and make computers affordable and accessible to our children.

The "US$100 laptop," a product five years in the making, is right now taking off in a big way in developing countries of the world including the Solomon Islands.

The XO laptop, as it's officially called, is produced by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation, a nonprofit organisation founded by Nicholas Negroponte, who also founded the MIT Media Lab.

Why give a child a laptop when he might need food, water, electricity or other basic amenities?

To that, the OLPC says that the XO laptop offers children a sense of ownership and ensures that they're no longer dependent on a corrupt or inept government to provide educational opportunities.

The computer is a powerful tool for learning and collaboration, exposing children to a wealth of knowledge and providing opportunities that they would not normally have.

It also replaces the need for textbooks, which are expensive, easily damaged and less interactive.

In many parts of the developing world, people live in large family groupings.

The XO laptop allows children, parents, grandparents and cousins to teach each other.

In some communities with limited electricity, children have used the laptop's bright screen as a light.

The OLPC Foundation aims to provide these laptops to millions of children throughout the developing world in order to improve their education and their quality of life.

The XO laptop was designed to be lightweight, cheap and adaptable to the conditions of the developing world.

While a US$100 laptop is the goal, as of September 2007, the laptop costs about US$188.

Originally the OLPC Foundation said that governments must buy the laptop in batches of 25,000 to distribute to their citizens, but a new program will soon allow private citizens to purchase an XO.

Starting November 12, 2007, the Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) program will allow U.S. residents to pay US$399 to buy two XO laptops - one for the purchaser and one for a child in need in a foreign country.

The program's initial run will last two weeks.

To start, laptops purchased through this program will be given to children in Afghanistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Cambodia.

More laptops should be available for sale in the future, and more developing nations will be able to apply to join the G1G1 plan.

As of September 2007, about 7,000 laptops were being tested by children around the world.

Many governments have expressed interest in the laptop or verbally committed to buying it, but Negroponte said that some haven't followed through on their promises.

Still, enough computers were ordered - observers estimated more than three million - that full-scale production began in July 2007.

The XO laptop's design emphasises cheap, durable construction that can survive a variety of climates and the rigors of the developing world.

The machine can withstand dirt, scratches, impact and water while also providing long battery life.

Every feature is carefully engineered to conform to these standards and to minimise the need for maintenance.

To that end, the XO laptop has no moving parts - no hard drive with spinning platters, no cooling fans, no optical drive.

Unlike most commercially available laptops, the XO's display is readable in full sunlight.

Users can switch between color and black-and-white viewing modes to save energy.

The screen "swivels" around, making the computer into a tablet or e-book.

The 433 Mhz AMD processor and 256 megabytes of SDRAM are unimpressive by today's standards, but the XO has ample speed to run its lightweight, no-frills software.

The XO's processor is designed to be energy efficient, and several devices are available to recharge the battery, including an electrical adapter, hand crank, foot-pedal and solar-powered charger.

Rather than a traditional hard drive, the XO has a 1 gigabyte flash drive, similar to what's used in USB thumb drives, the iPod nano and digital camera memory.

Google will provide online storage services, and some communities or schools will have servers with large amounts of hard drive space.

The computer also has an SD memory slot to add more storage.

Like most new computers, the XO has an integrated WiFi card.

But it does have something most computers don't have.

The XO's green "rabbit ear" antennae boost the wireless card's range up to 1.2 miles.

The computer isn't dependent on a router being nearby either.

Instead, XO laptops can form a mesh network; any computers within WiFi range can connect to one another and share Internet access through a computer that's within range of a wireless connection.

The XO's durable, waterproof plastic shell has an integrated video camera, microphone, three USB ports and speakers.

Its keyboard can be adapted for different countries and alphabets.

The Red Hat software company supplies a version of the popular open-source Linux operating system.

Other software includes a Web browser (Mozilla Firefox), a word processor compatible with Microsoft Word, a PDF reader, a music program, games and a drawing program.

Certainly something for our authorities to consider for our children!

For comments and feedback, email the author at malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763.

Become an instant radio star on the Internet

Are you one of the many young Papua New Guineans who has always dreamed of having his or her own radio show?

Are you a recording artist hoping to have your songs heard by the masses?

In the old days, you would have needed to know a lot of people in the right places - or have lots of money - to get heard.

But now, thanks to the Internet and its instantaneous connection to millions of people, your dreams can become reality.

You can also create video Podcasts - also called videocasts, vidcasts and vodcasts - which combine the audio component of Podcasting with visual media.

Just as Blogging has enabled almost anyone with a computer to become a bona fide reporter, Podcasting allows virtually anyone with a computer to become a radio disc jockey, talk show host or recording artist.

Although Podcasting first found popularity within the techie set in developed countries of the world, it has since caught on with the general public.

Log on to one of several Podcast sites on the Web, and you can download content ranging from music to philosophy to sports.

Podcasting combines the freedom of Blogging with digital audio technology to create an almost endless supply of content.

Some say this new technology is democratising the once corporate-run world of radio.

Podcasting is a free service that allows Internet users to pull audio files (typically MP3s) from a Podcasting Web site to listen to on their computers or personal digital audio players.

The term comes from a combination of the words iPod (a personal digital audio player made by Apple) and broadcasting.

Even though the term is derived from the iPod, you don't need an iPod to listen to a Podcast.

You can use virtually any portable media player or your computer.

Unlike Internet radio, users don't have to “tune in” to a particular broadcast.

Instead, they download the Podcast on demand or subscribe via an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, which automatically downloads the Podcast to their computers.

The technology is similar to that used by TiVo, a personal video recorder that lets users set which programs they'd like to record and then automatically records those programs for later viewing.

Podcasting was developed in 2004 by former MTV video jockey Adam Curry and software developer Dave Winer.

Curry wrote a program, called iPodder, that enabled him to automatically download Internet radio broadcasts to his iPod.

Several developers improved upon his idea, and Podcasting was officially born.

Curry now hosts a show called The Daily Source Code, one of the most popular Podcasts on the Internet.

Right now, Podcasting is free from government regulation.

Podcasters don't need to buy a license to broadcast their programming, as radio stations do, and they don't need to conform to the US Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) broadcast decency regulations.

That means anything goes - from four-letter words to sexually explicit content.

Copyright law does apply to Podcasting, though.

Podcasters can copyright or license their work - Creative Commons is just one online resource for copyrights and licenses.

Although several corporations and big broadcast companies have ventured into the medium, many Podcasters are amateurs broadcasting from home studios.

Because Podcasters don't rely on ratings as radio broadcasters do, the subject matter of Podcasts can range from the refined to the silly to the excruciatingly mundane.

Podcasters typically cater to a niche group of listeners.

By Podcasting consistently on one subject, Podcasters not only assert their expertise on the subject matter but also draw a loyal and devoted group of listeners.

Podcasts are also used for informational and educational purposes -- self-guided walking tours, talk shows and training are all available through podcasting, according to Podcasting Tools.

Several companies are trying to turn Podcasting into a profitable business.

It is very easy to listen to a Podcast.

Once you master a few simple steps and search techniques, there are virtually no limits to what you can hear.

Recording a Podcast is almost as easy as listening to one.

Here's how the process works:

Plug a microphone into your computer ;
Install an audio recorder for Windows, Mac or Linux (free software for audio recorders includes Audacity, Record for All and Easy Recorder V5);
Create an audio file by making a recording (you can talk, sing or record music) and saving it to your computer;
Finally, upload the audio file to one of the Podcasting sites (FeedForAll has a tutorial on how to upload a file).

Some experts say Podcasting still has a long way to go before it catches on with the masses, but its growing popularity is undeniable.

It's possible that Podcasting will eventually become as popular as text blogging, which grew from a few thousand blogs in the late '90s to more than 7 million today.

Some Pod Casts are already providing thousand of downloads a day, and they're not just entertaining their listeners - they’re also doing business.

Back home, in a rare opportunity for local industry, business, students and for Papua New Guinea, the first-ever Datec Technology Expo today (Friday October 12) and tomorrow at the Crowne Plaza in Port Moresby will bring together everything technological to create PNG’s largest and most dynamic information and communication exhibition.

More than 35 international technology organisations will exhibit at the expo and many of those have taken up the offer to conduct seminars on their products and services.

See you there!

For comments and feedback, email the author at malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763.

Making free phone calls over the Internet

Since Arthur Somare, Patrick Tammur and the National Alliance-led government seem to be so keen on maintaining the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) monopoly, Papua New Guineans should be looking at other options to cheaply make telephone calls and use the Internet.

One of these options, which will be discussed in this week’s column, is using the Internet to make cheaper telephone calls, thereby, bypassing Telikom and the expensive charges it has inflicted on us over the last 30 years.

Many Internet-savvy Papua New Guineans already make free long-distance computer-to-computer calls over the Internet using free software such as Skype.

In theory, Papua New Guinea should by now be on par with the rest of the world in ICT, however, the reality is we are still living in the “Stone Age” in the age of the Flintstones.

All over this increasingly-globalised world, a massive Information Revolution is taking place as economies use ICT as a passport to what economists call the “New Economy”.

I have said before, and will say it again, that the ICT monopoly in PNG, exorbitant telephone and Internet costs, as well as lack of knowledge about ICT and e-business all contribute to this digital divide.

Papua New Guinea will continue to remain light years behind the rest of the world if we do not jump on the ICT bandwagon in this globalised world.

Access to Internet, adequate infrastructure, human capacity building and appropriate policies on ICT are central issues in addressing the digital divide.

Success in this globalised world is predicated on ICT knowledge and successful knowledge-based economies will be based on the efficient and widespread use of ICT by all sectors within any given country.

If you've never heard of VoIP, get ready to change the way you think about long-distance phone calls.

VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a method for taking analog audio signals, like the kind you hear when you talk on the phone, and turning them into digital data that can be transmitted over the Internet.

How is this useful? VoIP can turn a standard Internet connection into a way to place free phone calls.

The practical upshot of this is that by using some of the free VoIP software that is available to make Internet phone calls, you are bypassing Telikom (and its exorbitant charges) entirely.

VoIP is a revolutionary technology that has the potential to completely rework the world's phone systems.

VoIP is already in widespread use in many developed countries of the world including Singapore, where I called my wife’s cell phone in Port Moresby and had a long chat with her over the Internet, in August.

Today, VoIP technology is allowing small businesses to secure the features and functionality of a sophisticated phone system for a fraction of the cost by using the Internet to carry voice traffic just as it does data traffic.

Above all else, VoIP is basically a clever "reinvention of the wheel."

The potential of this emerging technology - which will more than likely one day replace the traditional phone system entirely – is limitless.

The interesting thing about VoIP is that there is not just one way to place a call.

There are three different "flavors" of VoIP service in common use today:

ATA - The simplest and most common way is through the use of a device called an ATA (analog telephone adaptor).

The ATA allows you to connect a standard phone to your computer or your Internet connection for use with VoIP.

The ATA is an analog-to-digital converter.

It takes the analog signal from your traditional phone and converts it into digital data for transmission over the Internet.

You simply crack the ATA out of the box, plug the cable from your phone that would normally go in the wall socket into the ATA, and you're ready to make VoIP calls.

Some ATAs may ship with additional software that is loaded onto the host computer to configure it; but in any case, it is a very straightforward setup.

IP Phones - These specialised phones look just like normal phones with a handset, cradle and buttons.

But instead of having the standard RJ-11 phone connectors, IP phones have an RJ-45 Ethernet connector.

IP phones connect directly to your router and have all the hardware and software necessary right onboard to handle the IP call.

Wi-Fi phones allow subscribing callers to make VoIP calls from any Wi-Fi hot spot.

Computer-to-computer - This is certainly the easiest way to use VoIP.

You don't even have to pay for long-distance calls.

There are several companies offering free or very low-cost software that you can use for this type of VoIP.

All you need is the software, a microphone, speakers, a sound card and an Internet connection; preferably a fast one like you would get through a cable or DSL modem.

Except for your normal monthly ISP fee, there is usually no charge for computer-to-computer calls, no matter the distance.

If you're interested in trying VoIP, then you should check out some of the free VoIP software available on the Internet.

You should be able to download and set it up in about three to five minutes.

Get a friend to download the software, too, and you can start tinkering with VoIP to get a feel for how it works.

For comments and feedback, email the author at malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763.

How SMEs can benefit from e-marketplaces

Apart from having their own websites to sell their goods and services, Small and Medium Enterprises can also benefit from joining e-marketplace platforms.

The concept of e-marketplaces was quite foreign to me until I was introduced to it at an APEC e-commerce workshop in Taiwan last month.

An e-marketplace is an online space that brings together buyers and sellers to communicate, collaborate, and do business transactions.

You basically wander through the e-marketplace just like you wander through Koki or Gordons market, looking for goods and services, the difference being that you are in cyberspace on an e-marketplace.

The goal is to simplify the buying and selling process.

Usually, extra services are provided on an e-marketplace.

Overriding goals of joining include increasing revenue, and reducing costs.

China-based http://www.alibaba.com/ is a good example of a very-popular free e-marketplace which is primarily focused on SMEs.

You can buy and sell betel nuts on Alibaba.com, given that so many Asians chew betelnut just like us in Papua New Guinea.

Taiwan-based http://www.taiwantrade.com.tw/ is also a glowing example of an e-marketplace that readers of this column may want to visit.

Alibaba.com offers negotiation-based pricing, has won good reviews from around the world, and also offers premium/subscription services.

The current environment for e-marketplaces around the world is that they are still quite underused.

Common view is that adoption of a marketplace as a sales or purchase channel will change the way a company handles its sales and procurement.

It should bring productivity and sustained profitability to the bottom line.

Papua New Guineans should learn more about e-marketplaces to develop better-informed marketing strategies.

This also helps them to keep abreast of the changing business landscape.

So who owns e-marketplace platforms?

Sometimes, it’s an independent third-party, such as an industry association or government.

Sometimes, it’s an existing channel member.

Sometimes, it’s a co-operative of stakeholders with a vested interest.

Whoever it is, they are generally referred to as a “market maker”.

A typical e-marketplace will have over 100,000 members; therefore, the chance to increase business goes up.

E-marketplaces have basically three transaction models:
Aggregators;
Auctions; and
Exchanges.

Developments in Information Technology (IT) can be intimidating for SMEs, and e-marketplaces are a mystery for many.

But you often need only a minimal turnover to participate.

So why join an e-marketplace?

Large organisations expect suppliers to be available at these marketplaces.

They open up competition across geographic boundaries, creating greater competition.

More opportunities but potentially more competition in your own region.

Advantages of e-marketplaces include:
Access wider range of buyers/suppliers;
Faster purchase decisions;
Potential for partnerships;
Communication/administration flexibility;
24/7 convenience;
Access to information;
Improved customer service;
Dynamic updating of information;
Lower search and transaction costs;
Opportunity to differentiate from competitors in the same marketplace; and
Enter supply chain of larger firms.

Barriers of entry for SMEs include:
Lack of resources/knowledge;
Low IT skill level for many SMEs;
Lack of trust in the online world;
Lack of e-commerce readiness;
Lack of awareness of the benefits of e-marketplaces;
Lack of support from market makers;
Lack of industry/technological standards;
Understanding importance of integrating into larger supply chains;
Low web usage of buyers within an industry;
Short-term focus on benefits;
Difficulties in global trading (language/customs etc); and
Financial constraints (offering credit terms etc).

Both buyers and sellers have complained about crowding out of small local dealers, poor quality supplies, limited assistance by the e-marketplace in follow-up operations, insufficient specifications of technical features in bids; and unclear requirements for participation in auctions.

In sum, unrealistic short-term expectations are likely to lead to disappointment, effective planning of a participation strategy is important, and specific and realistic objectives should be set if an SME is to realise benefits.

I leave you with this letter from a good lady friend studying in Canberra, Australia: “Bro, good to know that you're doing all you can to publicise the IT world issue.

“I still stand on my point that leaders should be well educated...particularly on "Development Issues" in order for them to understand what you and I are talking about.

“I believe that it's their lack of knowledge about how essential it is (during this era) in terms of what goes on in the rest of the world that makes the rest of us suffer.

“I am learning a lot of good stuff about IT here at the University of Canberra but when I return to PNG, there is NO WAY...NO WAY I will be able to implement it effectively simply because the technology is not there.

“I dread the day I will return if you know what I mean.

“In terms of education, when my son was in Grade 1 at Goroka International School I was so amazed when he taught me how to use some programs that I had on my computer which I had no idea about.

“IEA (International Education Agency) introduces their students to the IT world as early as Early Childhood years, something that National Department of Education really needs to look into seriously.”

For comments and feedback, email the author at malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763.