Young entrepreneur talks about the future of IT in Papua New Guinea

The establishment of digital posters is one of the biggest breaks for young IT entrepreneur, Emmanuel Narakobi, since setting up his company Masalai Communications in 2001.

The 29-year-old, (pictured left discussing digital posters with business associates in Malaysia) who turned his back on a lucrative legal career to get into IT, is, however, confident that IT has a big future in Papua New Guinea.

Narakobi, of mixed East Sepik and Morobe parentage, is a graduate lawyer of the University of PNG who was bitten by the IT bug.

He wears many other hats apart from Masalai Communications such as being general manager of Narakobi Lawyers, president of the University rugby union club, and president of the Port Moresby Rugby Football Union.

He is adamant IT can contribute to business efficiency, and contribute greatly to dissemination of information to and from villages.

Digital posters are a new, dynamic and captivating medium in PNG for products and services to be advertised to consumers, which Masalai is running in major Port Moresby supermarkets such as SVS, Stop N Shop, Boroko Foodworld and Andersons Foodland,

Other major projects Masalai has undertaken are data/voice cabling for the four-storey Post Haus in Boroko; data/voice cabling for the National Fisheries Authority in Deloitte Tower; SMS voting for Ice Discovered on EMTV; and the concept of email to SMS for Australian mobile phones which never really took off.

Right now the company is working on touch screens for customer feedback for ANZ Bank and looking at a number of e-commerce initiatives.

“I started Masalai in 2001 and I used to work from my bedroom with a dial up connection,” Narakobi remembers.

“My interest in IT and initially websites first came from seeing the Trading Post newspaper in Australia in 1999, so I thought to myself, ‘what if we had a website like that newspaper in PNG?’.

“I started the http://www.pngtradepost.com.pg/ website and then set about teaching myself how to design websites from a HTML for Dummies book.

“The Trading Post website, due a lot to my lack of attention, has not developed as much as it could have but this was what led me into website development.

“I met a friend called Phillip Korare who worked in Datec at that time and he taught me a lot of the basic HTML programming to get started.

“Masalai itself then came about from meeting two like-minded friends; we thought that we knew something about IT so we decided to give it a go.

“I was actually still in Legal Training Institute after law school and I decided that I wanted to do something different which could make a difference.

“I know that sounds really cliché but my friends and I really believed that.

“They both have since gone their own ways: one is in London now and the other is Brown Omotosho of Nichtosh.

“Brown and I are still very close and we still do a lot of projects together.

“He specialises in electrical and data/voice networks.

“And just so you know, we have started on redeveloping the Trading Post website.”

Masalai’s progress over the years has been like the proverbial tortoise; however, with the great support of his family and friends, Narakobi is proving that “slow and steady oftens wins the race”.

Masalai’s bread and butter is website development, its Content Management System for updating websites without any need for programming skills, and website analytics with Google.

Its major clients include Coca-Cola Amatil, PNG Ports Authority, National Maritime Safety Authority, Internal Revenue Commission, PNG Events Council, National Fisheries Authority, NASFUND, PNG Gas Project, Autonomous Region of Bouganville, Independent Public Business Corporation, Pryde Furniture, Ela Beach Hotel, Supreme and National Courts of PNG, Pacific Assurance Group and many more medium to small clients.

Masalai has done over 30 websites since 2001 and this year has already picked up about 20 jobs.

“I think you go through a lot of different feelings,” Narakobi says about being a young Papua New Guinean with his own IT company.

“I feel a lot of freedom in what I think and can do; I think that would be the big benefit.

“I guess I’m only restricted by my cash flows and dreams really, so it feels good knowing that.

“Of course, with that freedom comes the responsibility I feel of doing something that changes the country, hopefully, and doing it right.

“I also do feel a lot of pressure to get things right and it does hurt when I fail at anything or I fail clients.

“I currently have six staff with me: three of them are freelance contractors.

“Freelancers help keep down my costs and also allow me to source from a wider pool of talent, so I’m not stuck with one creative type of model.

“It helps me to source the best talent for any given project.

“But I am now looking at increasing my staff numbers this year so I could end up with about 10 by the end of this year.

“I feel fortunate to have met the people in my team, they have been a great support in getting us where we are today and obviously we still have more to do in improving ourselves and our skills and services.”

Narakobi feels strongly that more people in PNG must have to have access to IT.

“IT is a broad area and if you separate it into offline usage and online usage, then you can understand better where we are at in PNG.

“IT’s aim is to share information which means that an online PC or a networked PC in an office will have more usage and demands from the user.

“So in PNG, the most-networked PC’s and the most PC’s hooked onto the Internet are the ones in businesses.

“Papua New Guineans today are a lot more familiar with IT and what it can do for them.

“More people now through Internet at work have email addresses now as opposed to back in 1999.

“But IT usage now is primarily in the business world so the social and personal aspect of IT has not been developed enough yet in PNG.

“The only way for people to personally interact on the net is in their work time.

“Why?

“Because the total costs for accessing the Internet at home or personally through, say your mobile phone or a PDA is prohibitive or non-existent, and that is a direct consequence of the pricing hurdles set by ISP’s and Telikom’s Tiare Gateway.

“Businesses bear a lot of costs for IT now and they can afford to, even though it is expensive, but until the cost for personal access and overall access of Internet is lowered, we will continue to lag by 5-10 years behind the rest of the world.

“So two things need to be done.

“Firstly, Internet prices need to drop so Internet penetration rates can be increased; and secondly, entrepreneurs and businesses need to show consumers how their daily lives can be improved and be more efficient with IT initiatives, and I mean initiatives that can touch everyone in PNG from the cities to the villages.

“The future is bright and since we still have a long way to go, the only way is up so to speak.

“Internet prices will drop and the different forms of accessing the Internet will increase, whether it be from a PC at home, a PDA at a restaurant, your laptop at a hotel lobby or your mobile phone in your hand.

“This is inevitable with the way the rest of the world has gone, but for us it is only a question of how quickly that happens?”

For further information, visit the website http://www.masalai.net/ or call Emmanuel Narakobi on telephone (675) 323 6266, mobile (675) 683 6231, or email emmanuel@masalai.net.

Melissa Aigilo is Papua New Guinea's leading woman writer

Melissa Aigilo does not hide the fact that she is passionate about writing and its role in shaping Papua New Guinea.

At only 24, Aigilo is currently the country’s leading woman writer, with a book of poetry, Falling Foliage, published in 2005.

A collection of short stories and another anthology of poetry await publication.

This immensely-talented and intelligent young woman has a big following, especially among high school students, and her work is even being studied in the USA and Australia.

Her mentors, especially University of Papua New Guinea literature lecturers Dr Steven Winduo and Russel Soaba, extol the virtues of their protégé.

Soaba compares her writing to that of the great English woman writer Emily Dickenson.

However, as I found out, Aigilo is a quietly-spoken young woman who shuns the limelight to dwell on writing.

“My one book is called Falling Foliage,” she tells me.

“I also have my poems which are recorded on CD and tape in the International Library of Poetry in America.

“Falling Foliage was published in 2005.

“I’ve written two books so far which haven’t gone in for publication.

“One is a collection of short stories and the other is an anthology of poetry.

“ABC has a website where my poems have been aired.

“The University of Melbourne analyses some of my poems in their literature classes.

“Since my book was published, a lot of high schools and international schools have been ordering a lot.

“I think they’ve run out of copies at the university bookshop.

“I can see the support there.”

In saying this, Aigilo empathises with the women of Papua New Guinea, saying that they are not given enough support to air their voices.

“If only other women writers were given that same support, we could change the face of Papua New Guinea because writing is a very powerful political tool.

“Women have as much to offer as men and their views and opinions need to be expressed.

“Some important issues (concerning women) are still not addressed by today’s government and need to be looked at seriously.

“It is my very strong belief that women are the backbone of society.

“So I’m calling on people in authority to give women a chance to voice their concerns, politically, and socially, through writing.

“We have a lot of women writers, but the problem is not identifying them and assisting them to bring out their work.”

Aigilo graduated from the University of Papua New Guinea in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature degree.

She was at university from 2001 to 2005, including a year studying law; however, she found that she preferred the solitude of writing to noisy courtroom antics.

Before campus, Aigilo attended St Joseph’s International Primary School, Marianville Girls Catholic High School, and then Port Moresby National High School.

She is the eldest in a family of two sisters and two brothers.

Her father, former Police Commissioner and graduate lawyer Peter Aigilo, played a significant role in her opting for a life of writing.

One of her poems The Guardian, published in a recent issue of the literary publication Savannah Flames, is dedicated to her father.

“My dad is my mentor,” she says.

“He’s my strength.

“As a woman, I can say that.

“I like writing anything to do with prose, poetry, short stories, drama, plays.

“I think when I began to learnt how to write, I came up with ideas.

“Basically, because my dad is a lawyer, he emphasised reading and he is a reader himself.

“He used to read to me when I was younger, and that opened up my avenues for creating, so when I learnt to write, I put that creativity on paper.

“Writing is a form of liberation for me because I guess I’m a quite person.

“What I think and feel is expressed on paper.

“…some people keep journals.

“I find that poetry is like my journal.

“I am able to hide behind my words, and the style of poetry that I write is abstract.

“It’s a form of release for me.

“My saving grace!”

Aigilo could be described as a true Papua New Guinean, seeing her family connections.

“I’m from four provinces,” she elaborates.

“My mother’s part East New Britain and Morobe, and my father’s part West New Britain and East Sepik.”

Her future?

“I’ve always wanted to pass on my skills of writing to students, so while writing remains my No.1 passion, my second goal in life is to teach creative writing and literature.

“I look forward to writing more books, with the kind of assistance I’m getting from my lecturers and you in the media.”

Aigilo is blunt about her belief that writing is one of the most-important things in any society.

“I would say that, as I said, writing is a very powerful political tool.

“There are two forms of literature.

“The one that is oral is spoken and forgotten about.

“But the one which is written is preserved, and can be looked at to pave the way for the future in any aspect, whether it be social, political, religious.

“I believe that writing can change the way in which people think.

“The mind is a very complex thing.

“When you change someone’s mind, you are capable of changing a whole democracy.”

SCRIPTWRITERS

Imprinted
Letters so brashly written
Bidding attention
That's what you already have.
Words
They are hard to speak
So they come out as inscriptions.

You and I
Have something in common
You flaunt your inner self
On bus stop seats
And engrave your thoughts
On walls and dust engased shop windows
Scoring for yourself.

What would you like the world to imagine
When it reads your markings?
I create the images of a dramatist
In my mind and I envision you.
Would you remember my concealed scripts?
The way I know yours by heart
If you read them
Would you be able to fashion my personna
The way I mould your form

The words I read
Haunt me at night
Are you really out there

- MELISSA AIGILO

Florence Jaukae makes the world her stage

Everyone under the perennial-springtime climate of Goroka seems to know Florence Jaukae.

She has time for everyone, her smiles are contagious, and she is heavily involved in community affairs and charity work.

I know, because I spent almost five years working in Goroka for the Coffee Industry Corporation, and often passed her on her way to work at Frameworks Architects.

Such is the popularity of this 34-year-old woman that, in a male-dominated society such as that of the Eastern Highlands, Jaukae is a Ward 4 councillor in the Goroka Rural Local Level Government.

And she is known for her no-nonsense approach during council sessions!

However, it is with the seemingly-ubiquitous bilum, that she is making a name for herself, Goroka, and Papua New Guinea.

Florence Jaukae hit the world stage in Melbourne last March when the Papua New Guinea team wore her products at the Commonwealth Games.

The mean wore bilum ties and the women bilum dresses supplied by her Goroka-based company Jaukae Bilumwear.

It was a proud moment for her, more so, when Ryan Pini won gold for Papua New Guinea in that moment forever etched in time.

Another big break for Jaukae came in September 2006 when the Small Business Development Corporation arranged for her to travel to Hanoi, Vietnam, to attend an APEC seminar on supporting and enhancing capacity for women exporters.

Entrants in the Miss Papua New Guinea quest wore her dresses at crowing night last December.

Now, in a seemingly never-ending story, the Investment Promotion Authority arranged for her to attend an expo in Australia.

Indeed, Jaukae has made the world her stage, from very humble beginnings at her Kama village in Goroka about five years ago.

It was then that she started making and wearing dresses made like bilums.

The fad caught on in Goroka, the rest of Papua New Guinea, and the world is now Jaukae’s stage.

“We’re doing very well,” Jaukae says.

“SBDC has been very supportive and this has enabled us to get a loan from the Rural Development Bank.

“We’re got overseas customers, however, that I will not disclose because of increasing competition from other bilum dress makers.

“All I can say is that we’ve got a lot of interest from people overseas, mainly Australians.”

Jaukae Bilumwear involves about 50 women who spin and weave the wool to make dresses and other items of clothing at Kama.

“I buy the wool, give it to them, and they weave the dresses,” Jaukae says.

“They give the dresses to me and I find the customers.

“It is a labour-intensive industry.

“It can take up to two months to make a dress.

“That’s why the average cost per dress is about K300.

“The reality of it is that I don’t benefit.

“It is the women who make bilum dresses who benefit.

“About two-thirds of income goes to them while one-third comes to me, mainly to cover telephone and other administrative costs.

“We’ve come a long way over the last five to six years.”

Jaukae, however, feels that the women weavers need a lot more government assistance, especially in marketing.

She also feels that women must have readily-available access to credit, training in business, and knowledge of computers in this day and age.

“Every woman can make a bilum,” she says.

“It comes to us naturally as Papua New Guinean women.

“The government must help us find a market because the benefits trickle right down to the unemployed mothers.

“It will also fight against poverty.

“This is a new industry we’ve created in the country.

“We don’t want flattering remarks.

“We want your help.

“Marketing is the problem.

“We are looking at the government to help us find markets outside of the country.”

The future?

“I want to see this become a big industry in the country, because it is an industry for the grassroots,” Jaukae replies.

“The government should also look at creating a national dress for the country, and of course, I’m putting my hand up for bilum wear!”

People who wish to purchase genuine Jaukae bilum products can contact Florence Jaukae on mobile (675) 6868994 or email jaukaebilumwear@hotmail.com.

Flower pot man is a university graduate

Chris Dally is familiar sight outside Gerehu Stop N Shop Supermarket, Rainbow Village, and other parts of Gerehu in Port Moresby.

The tall, dreadlocked Dally, 42, from Busamang village in the south coast of Morobe Province, ekes out a living by selling beautifully-crafted flower pots made from old tyres.

Many a house in Gerehu and Rainbow Village is decorated with trademark Chris Dally flower pots.

He fashions them himself at his Gerehu Stage 5 home and then takes them to Gerehu Stop N Shop, and Rainbow Village, where his biggest clientele is.

Dally averages K300 weekly, which is enough to put food on the table for his young family, pay the bills, and put his two children to school.

He is adamant Papua New Guinea would not have such a huge unemployment problem if people eat humble pie and go into such small business.

He is also proud that he is quietly contributing to the fight against pollution and global warming by discouraging people from throwing away and burning old tyres – something for which Papua New Guineans are notorious.

But, unknown to may people, Dally isn’t just a simple flower pot peddler.

The pithy saying, “never judge a book by the cover”, rings true for him.

Chris Dally is a graduate in Building Technology from the University of Technology in Lae and, before that, completed secondary education at Sogeri National High School.

It is with disbelief that former schoolmates of university and Sogeri, friends, and wantoks pass Dally under the shady neem trees outside Gerehu Stop N Shop.

He worked with a number of firms as a building designer before, literally, being run over by old tyres.

It was quite by accident, about two years ago, that Dally took up making flower pots from old tyres.

“I learned through trial and error,” he recalls.

“I had two old types, which I sold to some men from Pindiu (Morobe province).
“They found some faults with the tyres and came back to me demanding their money back.”

Dally fashioned the two tyres into flower pots and, lo and behold, “my neighbours said that they would buy the flower pots”.

“I saw that I could make good money so I continued.

“I make small pots, large pots, and hanging ones.

“Sales are very good.

“Everything I produce is sold.

“I can make up to K300 a week.

“I pick up old tyres all over the place.

“A lot of old tyres end up being burned.

“I try to stop people from burning tyres.

“At Gerehu Stage 5, where I live, I find a lot of tyres in the main drain which runs into the swamps behind Gerehu.

“I collect the tyres, dry them, mark them with chalk, and cut them out.

“I then make holes in the tyres, wire them up, thoroughly clean them up, and paint them.

“I can make six flower pots from an average-sized tyre, which I sell for K10 each.

“So you are looking at K60 from an old tyre!

“I can make K60 per tyre, and in one week, I can work on five tyres, which add up to K300.”

Dally is a crusader for self-employment and believes that there should be no such thing as unemployment in Papua New Guinea.

“I’ve passed on some of my skills to boys on the street and they are making their own money,” he says.

“There are a lot of ways for unemployed people to make money, rather than resorting to crime.

“I think people are just too lazy.
“A lot of people are also too proud to get into such small activities.

“For example, I have brought in some young boys, but they feel embarrassed standing out on the streets selling flower pots.

“Some of my ex schoolmates (from university and Sogeri) see me and they wonder what I’m doing out there, selling flower pots, but I don’t feel embarrassed.

“The problem with Papua New Guinea is that people don’t want to work hard.

“They just want to sit back and wait for handouts.”

Dally does get the occasional building job; however, he plans to stay on in the flower pot-making business.

“At the beginning of this year, I registered a business name,” he says.

“I’m just waiting for the certificate.”

People who wish to purchase genuine Chris Dally flower pots can contact him on mobile (675) 6952966.

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/.