Ndey,
This sounds like a fantastic opportunity and these are the sorts of projects that Africa needs as opposed to the multitudes that I have personally seen where millions are spent and at the end of the project, you wonder just what exactly was accomplished aside from lucrative jobs for the staff of the donor country and perhaps a scholarship or two for a handful of people.Does it not just break your heart how our young people have no opportunities to develop their potential?
Keep up the good work.
Jabou
-----Original Message-----
From: Ndey Jobarteh <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 3:44 am
Subject: Re: Sharing my expereinces and project in Ghana
I just have to share this experiences.
Please find attached the link to the project i am working on in Ghana at
present www.meltwater.com/mest. It is unfortunate that i completely forget to
send the link to the L before the deadline for the recruitment of trainers.
However we are also recruiting fellows, all these are taking place in the US at
present. It will nice to receive the CV's of good and crazy software developer,
professional entrepreneurs.
I just got back from ghana last week after a hectic months of setting up the
Trainee programme and recruitment of Trainees and local faculty. I must admit i
have never been inspired and challenged as i had these past months. Having gone
through over 300 applications of young graduates who are changing there own
destiny as well as the continent is really inspiring and words cannot express
that feeling. Our advert was in the papers in Ghana two weeks before the
recruitment process and this is just to say that there are many more young
people with potential out there.
I have interviewed young and crazy graduates who don't have a limit. These are
young graduates who in their own world developed game soft wares, nutritional
technology to solve nutritional problems, database software to address the
problems of access to data, search engine for Africa/africans to put Africa in
to the net, list goes on. These youths develop these things out of their love
for the country and the continent, out of a cry to solve the problems and
challenges they face as young Africans. Talking to them they will say "Ndey we
want to put Africa in the map, we want to show the world that Africans can do it
, we want to proof that you don't need to be in Europe to make it but it is sad
that no one listen to us, we never had the opportunity to be listened to and for
us to talk about all the crazy ideas we have". These are youths who identify
other youth as far as Kenya with the same skills but unfortunately they just
can't pull it through due to limited resources.
Talking to these young graduates who are full of energy, potential, drive,
stamina and as they tell their stories and achievement that no one knows about
with a big smile, i just could not help it. We were only able to recruit 21 of
over 300 applicants, it was one of the most difficult recruitment process i have
ever gone through. The most inspiring part of this was when they say to me " you
know this has been the most inspiring, fruitful and fair recruitment process,
after telephone interview, we were put into a group interview and after that we
interviewed individually, during this process we have meet with people whom we
share a lot in common and we are prepared to work together and see how far we
can go. Even if we are not selected we have build a strong network that might
change a lot of things and lead us to our goals, we have learn a lot from you
guys and we more understanding of who we are and how to go about things in life.
This is more than what we can expect"
A lot of these graduates in their small corner they have set up their companies,
consulting firms etc but lack the mentorship, finances to really move these
companies further in creating jobs, solving critical problems in the continent
etc.
The funny part was i remember calling these kids and interviewing them on the
phone without any notice they were shock and what they say to me when i meet
them was they now know how crazy we are as a company and what to expect. This is
fair process because lot of them were sceptical about their chance of getting
into the project because of the whole nepotism and favouritism in the system.
They said "we have never been to this kind of rigorous interview before". At
first when the Team went to Ghana for the recruitment process we were not sure
if we can get the best out of the telephone interview because the lines were so
poor but to our surprise we use the mobile phone and that works perfect. We
were four from the company and recruited a Ghanian, so we were five, three
people from the Norwegian office, one from the US office and final part of the
interview our CEO flow in to be part of it. It was hectic but inspiring and
challenging.
I just want to say that there is a lot happening in the continent, these young
people are moving the continent and they need our support and help. These youths
are so selfless, they are sick of what is a happening to the continent but what
you cannot take away from them is their believe that the continent will make it
and they will be part of that process.
I would like to hear from experience and professional African/black business
executives, software developers, entrepreneurs because we would like to have you
on our database and hopefully be able to fly you in for one or two lectures in
entrepreneurship, software development and to inspire these youths that
Africans/black people are also making it in the global market space. At a later
stage of this project we will fly in mentors who are world class executives and
i would like to see Africans/black people as part of this. At present all we
have is the world class white executives who have offered their services to this
project as mentors.
I work as a Project Developer in the company and I must tell you that this
project has been conceptualise from scratch by myself and no alteration was made
by the Company board, management or CEO, they all love this project and the CEO
was the one who had this idea of giving back to society as way of of
transferring the knowledge the company has and he as an engineer, a software
developer and an entrepreneur who has successfully build companies worthing
millions of dollars in the world market. This man said to me Ndey i have started
Meltwater in 2001 with 15000 Norwegian Kroner, a coffee machine, himself and
another person. Now Meltwater is a global company with 29 offices world wide and
one of the leading software developing and selling companies in the European
market and we just entered the US and Asian market.
I could go on and on about this experience because i am still recovering from
the energy i received from these young graduates. We were working from 7am to
3am and i never felt tired and how late it was. The whole team was just crazy
and challenged by these graduates. Most of these people in the Team, it is there
first time in Africa and this has been the best experience and also it change
their whole imagine of the potential Africa has. My CEO said to me " I will
repeat what you said to me Ndey when we employed you, you said to "If we are not
pretending about change in Africa, about giving back to society, about
transferring knowledge and seeing development as giving people the opportunity
to change their own destiny, then this concept needs no alteration from
management". He finally said you are right, there is no other way around it".
As the saying goes
The Struggle Continues!!!!!!!!!!1
Ndey Jobarteh
_________________________________________________________________
100’s of Music vouchers to be won with MSN Music
https://www.musicmashup.co.uk
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web
interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
________________________________________________________________________
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
|
