The NeceMoon Album | Chapter 3: Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets
Author: Necemon Yai
Date: 2018-04-23T23:00:00+00:00
Description: The NeceMoon Album Technologies and Strategies to Keep Moving Forward By Necemon Yai Chapter 3: Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets Featuring Antoine Mian, Nnenna Nwakanma and Olivier Madiba TheAlbum.NeceMoon.com
Publisher: Evasium

The NeceMoon Album

Technologies and Strategies to Keep Moving Forward

By Necemon Yai

First edition

Published by Evasium ®

April 2018

London, UK

TheAlbum.NeceMoon.com

The contents of this file are protected under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

License
This file is free to distribute and give away to as many people as you would like.
I only ask that you do not sell it or publish the content onto any website.
If you use any quotes from this document, give me credit and link to the original file.
If you write a book and I quote you, I will give you credit and links too.

© Necemon Yai
necemon@gmail.com
www.necemonyai.com

All Rights Reserved.

Version 1.0.7.235

To the ones I lost, to the ones I got back

For each one that gets lost, ten get laid back

Table of Contents

Introduction      5

For All Practical Purposes      8

Chapter 3: Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets      9

Starting a New Job: 12 Tips for a Brilliant Outset      10

Your First Job is Like Your First Girlfriend      13

5 ‘Good Reasons’ For Which You Will Not Be Hired (by Nnenna Nwakanma)      17

GE FAQ : 3 months in the Cyber Pearl      19

5 lessons I learned from my internship at General Electric      21

12 Years Of A Dream Challenging Reality (by Olivier Madiba)      22

[Interview] In The Bubble Of Olivier Madiba: "my goal is to reach my maximum human potential and to help others to do the same"      30

The Paradox Of Teachers In Africa : Rare And Yet Poorly Paid (by Antoine Mian)      32

Gamification: 5 Peculiar Concepts That African Schools Could Actually Use      33

Africa: ICT in Education for Entrepreneurship and Employability (by Antoine Mian)      38

4 important revelations that could certainly accelerate the educational revolution in Africa      40

Africa, Cradle Of Humanity And Entrepreneurs (by Antoine Mian)      44

[Interview] In The Bubble Of Antoine Mian: "if one is not passionate, they miss out on life"      46

HELP! They Are Going To Steal My Project!!! (by Nnenna Nwakanma)      48

Final Reminder      49

Conclusion      50

Share The Album with Your Mates      51

Introduction

About The NeceMoon Album: what is this all about?

The NeceMoon™ is a Blog about Technology and Strategy. The Album is The Best-Of, a compilation of the most popular articles on The NeceMoon™.

The main objective of The NeceMoon™ is to share tips and insights on a sensible range of topics, in order to let others learn from my mistakes and successes, and hopefully to make things easier for the next person.
The main objective of The Album is to promote an optimal access to that content. The Blog format does not always do justice to techno-strategic content. Originally, Blogs were designed in a journalistic spirit and are more suitable to chronological events and (more or less trivial) discussions around daily news. Even if the usefulness and the importance of an analysis persist in time, it becomes almost impossible to find and difficult to consult, as more articles keep stacking.
That is why the best articles have been cherry-picked, reviewed and arranged in a logical order that better matches the layout of a book. The Album is free of charge.

The NeceMoon™ can be accessed from NeceMoon.com (or necemonyai.com/blog)
The NeceMoon™ Album can be downloaded in various file formats, in full from TheAlbum.NeceMoon.com (or necemonyai.com/Blog/page/The-Album.aspx). The available formats are PDF, EPUB, MOBI/AZW3/KF8 (Amazon Kindle) and MP3. Furthermore, the various chapters and volumes can be downloaded independently/separately, according to your interests.

About the Author: who is Necemon Yai?

I am a Software Development Engineer extensively involved in Microsoft .NET technologies. Full time developer. Part time digital artist, strategist, essayist and entreprenerd. I majored in computer science from NIIT, Christ University and Swansea University (Master of Engineering, Computing).
At the time of publishing this, I have worked for a Europe leading E-Commerce company, a major UK financial group, the General Electric global corporation and a few tech start-ups that you probably never heard of.
Over the past decade or so, I have been running The NeceMoon blog, where I describe my experiences, my observations and my reflexions. I mostly talk about Technology and Strategy. Here I share my most popular articles.

About the Contributors: who is in your War Council?

I invited the best writers in my network to include some contributions in this book, especially some of their most relevant insights in terms of Technology and Strategy. These top authors are, Ahou The African Chick, Antoine Mian, Cyriac Gbogou, Darren Mart, Edith Brou, Holty Sow, Israel Yoroba, Jean Luc Houedanou, Jean-Patrick Ehouman, Karen Kakou, Monty Oum, Nanda Seye, Nnenna Nwakanma, Olivier Madiba, Vanessa Lecosson and Yehni Djidji.
Along with their respective writings, you can find links to their own web pages. In addition, most of these contributors introduce themselves and provide you with some tactics in our exclusive interviews that you will also find in this book.

About You, Dear Reader: who is this book for? What’s in for you?

In The Album, there are 9 chapters organised in 2 volumes. Each chapter deals with a specific topic. You don’t have to read everything. If you are interested (to one extend or another) in one or more of these topics, you would possibly appreciate the related chapter(s):

Volume 1: Moon Light (softcore)
Chapter 1: Strategy and Tactics
Chapter 2: Digital Marketing and Web Visualisation
Chapter 3: Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets
Chapter 4: Quick Wins, Tricks and Tips
Chapter 5: Transition - Extra Thoughts and Sharp Fantasy

Volume 2: Full Moon (hardcore)
Chapter 6: Software Development and Engineering
Chapter 7: C# .NET Programming
Chapter 8: Epic Prototypes, Classic Projects, Historic Genre
Chapter 9: Research and Case Studies

If you want to, you can download and read only the chapter(s) and volume(s) that you are interested in. Several file formats are available on TheAlbum.NeceMoon.com
(or necemonyai.com/blog/page/The-Album.aspx)
All the Web links in this document are working, feel very welcome to click on them.

For All Practical Purposes

The NeceMoon Album, Chapter 3

This document contains the Chapter 3 of The Album: “Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets”. If you care, 8 other chapters are also available. Depending on your interests, you may download, (re-)read or share any of the various chapters and volumes independently/separately. The PDF, EPUB, MOBI/AZW3/KF8 (Amazon Kindle) and MP3 formats are available.

To get them, just click on any of the links you like below or go to TheAlbum.NeceMoon.com
(or necemonyai.com/Blog/page/The-Album.aspx)

The NeceMoon Album (complete)

Volume 1: Moon Light (softcore)

Chapter 1: Strategy and Tactics

Chapter 2: Digital Marketing and Web Visualisation

Chapter 3: Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets

Chapter 4: Quick Wins, Tricks and Tips

Chapter 5: Transition - Extra Thoughts and Sharp Fantasy

Volume 2: Full Moon (hardcore)

Chapter 6: Software Development and Engineering

Chapter 7: C# .NET Programming

Chapter 8: Epic Prototypes, Classic Projects, Historic Genre

Chapter 9: Research and Case Studies

The Album is available in French as well at Album.NeceMoon.com
(or necemonyai.com/Blog/page/L-Album.aspx)

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Corporate Worlds
and Emerging Markets

Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets

Featuring Antoine Mian, Nnenna Nwakanma and Olivier Madiba

Starting a New Job: 12 Tips for a Brilliant Outset

By Necemon

1. Right from the start, look for quick wins, and do your best to achieve them. You have to find something you can do as soon as possible to show some quick positive results. This will lower the pressure you feel and help you get more confident. Also, it is important to secure these early wins because they help to build your momentum and establish your credibility. But make sure you know how your new company defines a win. Whenever possible, it is also important to choose a victory that will be important to your boss.

2. Behave as if you are still being interviewed
Different workplaces have different practices when it comes to probationary periods. Some use this time to provide you with extra training and support from a mentor, and, of course, to ensure you’re up to the job. Think of your first few weeks as an extended interview. Show up every day thinking you need to prove you deserved to be hired. You'll work harder, work smarter, won’t take anything for granted, and in a short time you will confirm your level.

3. Start demonstrating and documenting what you promised on your resume
Whatever you sold them during the interview, your mission is to demonstrate that you are really going to do it. For example, if you said you were a computer security expert, first check that their website has no basic vulnerabilities. And take notes on your accomplishments, your main contributions, and the positive comments you receive. This information will be useful during future performance reviews and salary negotiations.

4. Understand your goals
In the first few weeks, make sure you understand why you were hired and what your goals are for the coming months. This can help guide your efforts in the coming weeks.
Work with your boss. Schedule a meeting with your boss as soon as possible and tell him that you would like to produce an exceptional job. Ask him: "How can I help you? What can I do to exceed your expectations?" Use this initial meeting to establish what success would look like in the first period. It is possible to start a new job without knowing precisely the objectives that directors expect, but it is wise to enquire, while taking into account one's strengths and limitations.

5. Write your knowledge base
Setting good habits and getting organized from the start will make your life easier down the line, especially since a lot of new information is coming your way. Do not rely on your memory to retain everything in the long run. Create a new file from the software you would feel most comfortable with from the first day and use it as a journal for the large amount of information that you will certainly receive at the beginning, which will increase over time, and which will certainly become useful to gather your observations, your ideas and questions. Adds keywords to facilitate future searches. Organizes information by sections, subject, areas of activity, think about "how to use this information in the future" or "why would I look for it?". Describe what each division does, which is responsible for what, the acronyms used within the company. Draw processes and hierarchical diagrams. Soon it will be your working documentation, a bit like a wiki of everything you know about your work and the related subjects.

6. Get to know your team
After surviving the first day in your new position, your next task is to make sure you become a valuable member of the team. Try to find out how long each team member has been in the business, what they do, what positions they have occupied, where they have worked in the past and what is the hierarchy. You should approach these questions subtly, trying to slip them into a general conversation rather than throwing a ton of questions at them at once.
Take the initiative to introduce yourself. If the pace of work is accelerated, they probably won't have time to come to you. Start with your team, the people you work with directly. It is also in their interest that you take a good start, since your work will directly affect theirs.

7. Manage expectations
Essentially, what to avoid is to create too many expectations. Be realistic about what you could achieve, especially in the first few months. Do not expect constructive comments to come to you spontaneously. Sometimes people do not communicate expectations clearly (you have to ask directly, clarify, ask again).

8. Trust yourself to execute and develop the new skills you need
It's easy to feel overwhelmed when you start a new job, and you might be worried about not functioning as expected. But remember this: those who hired you knew what they were doing. They want you and only you: remember that they have specifically picked you among many other candidates. Your approach may be different, but the company could change and grow richer, it's ok to bring in your special skills and attributes.
To help you start to acquire more skills in your new role, create a learning plan by listing the skills you will need for this position and identifying any improvements that may be required. Learning these new skills should be your goal during your first few months.
Find people to help, volunteer to help in an area where you would like to improve. Do not hesitate to ask for help. If you do not know how or where find the information you need, you might lose time if you look for it yourself. Get in touch with the colleague or team that specializes in that area.

9. Study the strategy behind your efforts
Consider your current tasks as a piece in a puzzle you have to solve and build, with your team. Think about how you could take advantage of your current responsibilities. Think about the skills you could learn, the visibility you could acquire, the contacts you could create. Every task, every project and every job can lead to other opportunities.

10. Find a way to differentiate yourself
Works hard to be known for something specific (specialist of a technology or domain). Could you be known as the one who answers the fastest or who is always ready to offer help?
Choose a valuable mission that truly benefits the company and other employees, and strive to excel at this mission.
It is important to be seen doing these things. Do not hide your talents and contributions, and remember that business is not a place for false modesty.

11. Reinforce your connections on social networks
Once you're officially in the role, it's important to update your title on your own social media platforms and start following your new company and colleagues. When you meet new people, reinforce relationships by finding them on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Stay in touch with your former colleagues. This may seem contradictory, but the first week of a new job is the perfect time to contact colleagues from your previous companies. Get back to them and ask for recommendations on LinkedIn. The best time to get referrals is when you are not looking for work.

12. Never forget why you were hired : to help advance the goals and mission of the company.
What is your job, really? Your job is to make your boss’s job easier, to help your boss succeed. Always keep this in mind, even if it is not written in the job description. It is possible to achieve both your goals and those of the company, that's what you should do.
See your boss as a person you help, not as someone who tells you what to do. The more you help them achieve their goals, the more you will be valued. Moreover, you will see that it is easier to work hard when you know that you are helping someone (rather than obeying him). And you'll enjoy your work even more. It's much more fun and rewarding to help than to comply with the instructions.

Your First Job is Like Your First Girlfriend

By Necemon

Several of my readers have expressed some anxiety when it comes to getting their first chance. Many think they are hopeless, as they have never done it before. By not having certain socio-emotional skills and languages on their "psychological resume", they feel like they have an obvious flaw, as if applying for a job were like asking someone out.

Given their lack of experience, others worry that their first opportunity will be a complete failure because they wouldn’t know how to handle it.

So let's talk about that first time.

Your first one

The one in which you dive deep without really knowing what to expect, the one that blends happiness and apprehension at once. The only problem is, the odds that your first connection is also going to be your last one are pretty slim. Right, nobody likes to think about their project being temporary. Beginning by telling yourself from the start that you will end up splitting up, that's not very romantic. But again, pretending that it's not a possibility doesn’t do you any good either.

Don't take it the wrong way, I'm not saying you should start each project with the idea that it is doomed to failure. Quite the opposite, you should enter it with the idea that you will appreciate every moment. You will enjoy a lot, you will learn a lot and it will make you stronger. So yes, your first experience may not be the last one, but it's not something you have to fear. Appreciate it for what it is, enjoy every instant.

Your first break up

Okay, the first experience probably will probably not be the last one, but how do you know when it's time to move out?

If you ask this question to 10 people, you will get 10 different answers. For some people, it's after 3 to 5 years. There is no single answer that applies to all cases, but there is a great deal of research showing that there are a few key signs that signal it's time to move.

One of the hardest parts of life is discerning the pointless attempts from the decisive struggles, deciding whether to walk away (adapting to reality) or to try harder (and when insisting, to what extent that would be reasonable). It is a silent battle. No one understands how you really feel.

But if it ends, the separation does not cancel out the good things that have happened. On the contrary, everything you learned during that first experiment could help you prepare the next one. Growing up is sometimes a painful process but you become more confident and more experienced.

Getting ready for changes

Meeting and spending days with a person or team for weeks, months, years.
Seeing them and exchanging with her almost every day, sharing, and evolving together on common projects.
Seeing them more often than your own friends, more often than your own family (especially if you live far from your hometown).
And then, just stop seeing them. Overnight. This is the change.

You will need to get out of your comfort zone and out of your routines. Adaptation, the ability to become accustomed to new environments, and to new conditions with speed and ease, it is not just an important skill, it is essential.

Moving on to something better

You would not be able to reproduce this first experiment in the same way, you should not expect to find the same thing elsewhere. You have to be open to new experiences and new people. Do not be so stuck in the past to the point of not appreciating the present. You were lucky to have meet that interesting opportunity, but it does not mean that there would not be other opportunities equally interesting, and why not, even more interesting, if you open yourself to the idea of studying them.

You cannot recreate that first connection exactly, but you can find much better.

Begin by acknowledging that there is nothing special about the first one. It is true that it was a wonderful time and you discovered many things, but people tend to romanticize, to idealize, even to glorify the first time they experience something. There is probably nothing special about your first experience beyond the fact that it was the first one. Remember that you are biologically wired to place your first experiences on a pedestal. You certainly do not want to let this mentality to get in the way of enjoying the present.
There is a good chance that you will remember this so-called first experience in a somewhat exaggerated manner. As a result, this may lead you to some inappropriate comparisons. Comparison causes conflict. Conflict causes anxiety. Anxiety causes fear. Fear prevents you from thinking. There is no intelligence where there is fear.

Learning experience : getting stronger

Instead of seeing the first times as perfect situations, view them in terms of experience, it was practice to some extent. Analyze and value what you have learned about yourself, about others, about your abilities, your affinities and your ambitions.

Your first job is like your first girlfriend

The similarities of the contexts are indisputable. On the other hand, there are also some differences. Let us explore these differences before separating. Let us emphasize the case of employment, or it is easy to imagine everything that can go wrong during the transition. There are 2 fundamental questions that you want to ask yourself before you leave.

Did you learn all that you could ?
Before you leave a job, consider the set of skills you would like to present to a future employer. Works long enough to show that you have evolved through concrete achievements. Depending on the industry and the type of work you are doing, it may be possible to standout, to demonstrate your skills and the successful execution of a few projects. In any case, it is always better if you can present or describe a strong track record to those who are likely to recruit you.

Did you sign your next contract ?
The key recommendation is not to leave a position until you have the next one lined up. It is important to have the safety net of a new position because you never know how long it will take to find something that really suits you. Moreover, it is harder to find a job when you are unemployed than when you are employed.

Getting far away from here...

Everyone ends up leaving their first job, whether it happens after 2 months or after 40 years. However, certain steps must be taken in order to leave properly and professionally, in order not to burn any bridges.

When checking out:
- Schedule, negotiate your handover and final dates
- Organize your projects, documents, and other files for other people to use easily.

Keep positive relationships with them until you leave. You'll probably need their recommendations.

Staying in touch. Your former employer and your co-workers are now members of your professional network, so make sure you stay connected with them, for example on LinkedIn or Twitter.

To conclude, we can't stop students and yuppies from thinking of themselves as the stars of history, but we can remind them that the early contacts constitute the first chapters, not the final chapters. Your first love, the one you must protect at all costs, is yourself. You do what you think is best for yourself, and if it doesn't work, you say "never mind, at least I would have tried."

5 "Good Reasons" For Which You Will Not Be Hired

By Nnenna Nwakanma

I have been wanting to put these thoughts down since end of 2011. Quick story, I am running a training for West Africa and also doing some recruitments. For one post, I was interviewing candidates in the morning, and for the other position, interviews were in the afternoon. So I had a full day of people trying to convince me and the panel I was heading that they were the right persons for the right tasks!! Then 7 PM rolls round and I am back in my hotel room, trying to ease off. And someone knocks.

"Madam, I see you have been interviewing people, please can you also interview me"? First, I am shocked, then insulted, and really offended. But my "other brain" says: "Cool down and get to the bottom of this".

So I feign interest and I ask: "Please what is your name, what is your academic qualification, what are your skills, and what kind of job are you looking for?"

That was the beginning of a long story. Let's cut it short and make it simple. ALL the reasons the gentleman gave me for which he should have been considered are "good reasons" for which nobody ever gets hired.

Most common reason: I need a job.

Okay, so YOU need a job. The NEED is yours. Here is the summary. Your problem is not my problem. That you need a job is your issue not mine. There are millions of people saying the same. I get such lines at least 5 times a week. It may seem a bit callous, but your need is yours, not mine. That you need a job is no reason to hire you.

Reason 2: I need more money.

Quick answer. "Same here". I need more money. In fact, as an employer, I most probably need more money than you do. My social, economic, fiscal, and life responsibilities certainly outweigh yours. So in terms of cash needs, mine is greater than yours. Give me a break.

Reason 3: I am not enjoying my job, I need excitement, enjoyment, adventure.

Seriously? Go start your own stuff then! Do what you like. Choose when to wake up, only do stuff that are exciting. Never accept an assignment unless there is adventure attached to it! Nobody will hire you to make you happy. They will hire you to work. Sorry, but your employer's interest comes first.

Reason 4: There is no future in this country. I need an escape.

And you think I am stupid? If I started off like you, do you think you will be here asking for me to hire you? It was because I believed in a future, and I committed to making the then-present better, that you are coming up to me and thinking I will be the one to offer you a better future. You are not looking for work, you are looking for escape. Odds are, when I invest in you, you will either jump ship at the first sign of difficulty or disappear once you find another escape. I am looking for someone to solve problems with, build, construct and ensure a better present and promising future. I do not provide platforms for escapists.

Reason 5: I like you. You are such a wonderful person. I want you to be my boss.

Over the bar!! Because I change planes, gave a tip, I speak with respect and I keep to time. Or maybe because of the dressing or the "fashionable" things you see around me. You most probably saw me after or off work. It is a mirage. You need to work by me to see the "entrepreneur" me. I work long hours, do reports that run into 100s of pages. I lose sleep. I stretch myself!! You better wake up!!

*****

So you are asking, "what are the good reasons" for which I can be hired. I will be brief.

Every employer is looking to solve a problem. I will hire you if you can provide a solution or can work towards providing the solution

If you, by your own skills, will bring me more benefits than I am currently getting. If you can make me richer, you are welcome

If you are resourceful person. Someone who is willing to research into solutions, make trials, accept failures and help colleagues do better

If you have a skillset or knowledge or capacity that I do not have

If your network is larger, more promising and more interesting than mine.

*****

Conclusion, nobody will hire you because of you. I hire because of me. So next time you come knocking...

Think of me, not you.

GE FAQ : 3 months in the Cyber Pearl

By Necemon

What is GE?

General Electric is a USA based multi-national company, where I worked as an intern over this summer. This 100+ years old corporation operates in more than 180 countries with more than 300,000 employees. GE's broad range of products are from jet engines to power generation equipment, financial services to media content. The unit I have been working for was GE Energy.

How did that happen?

I heard about this internship through the International Development Office of my University. Among other things, they help students to find international academic and job experience. I got selected based on my resume and an interview which went pretty well. I briefly explained the technologies I was into and the kind of projects I had been working on.

The office was located in a state-of-the-art IT Park, known as the Cyber Pearl. I was about to start my first corporate project. It felt like I was getting in the IT industry for the first time. Kind of. After long hours of lonely coding from my student room, I was now in an actual work environment. It was somewhat different but I was ready. Technically there was not much else I could do because I didn’t really know what my task would be. I just knew it would be exciting.

What exactly were we doing over there?

I can’t disclose actual details about the project I had been working on but I would say that it has been a chance to improve my problem solving skills. I could sum it up in two words: "Fun Learning". Even though the technology context may have been an advantage from the start, it's quite clear that this internship involved a much wider range of skills throughout the project, including effective project management, time management, corporate culture and team collaboration, to name a few. I was learning and improving through my assigned tasks, and (perhaps more importantly) through my team feedback. Plus it was a pleasant experience because my teammates kept encouraging me to tackle ambitious tasks. it was challenging in a good way.

So... To make a long story short, what was the point?

As a wise man used to say, it's quite hard to learn swimming just from reading a book about it, there are some Truths that one doesn't easily perceive in a classroom setting, or while coding alone. It's been convenient to interact with brilliant professionals from the engineering industry, to learn from their experience and advice, and definitely, to explore the reality of large scale projects.

5 lessons I learned from my internship at General Electric

By Necemon

This article is a follow up to my previous article on my internship at General Electric. It’s just a short note to sum up some important things I learnt.

1.       Theory learnt in class is actually applied in the industry: there are some things that you learn in university you will probably never use again but other things you will use every day of your life. At the beginning I was like, who cares if the 7 layers of the OSI model are the application, the presentation, etc.? And who care about normalising the databases until it is in Boyce-Codd normal form? Actually a lot of people take those things very seriously.

2.       Documentation is important. I used to see it as a time consuming process that was barely worth doing. Now I understand how it increases teamwork efficiency.

3.       Technical skills are not the only thing that matter. Actually a lot of other things matter in the workplace like the business focus, the interpersonal skills, etc. But this experience made me realize the need to emphasise on personal skills like self-confidence and emotional resilience (coping with pressure and quickly bouncing back from setbacks).

4.       Follow the instructions. The discipline of doing what is useful and required, instead what sounds cool.

5.       Secrecy is the first law of magic. That one is pretty straight forward. The team work remains in the team. The corporate information should not be disclosed outside of the organisation.

12 Years Of A Dream Challenging Reality

By Olivier Madiba

To be realistic is to find a rational way to achieve a magnificent goal.

PS: This is neither a biography, nor a success story. This is just the testimony of an African entrepreneur for those who can inspired by it, here or elsewhere.

The Triggers

We are in the 1997 - 2001 era, the golden years of PlayStation 1, and I play two games that will change my life.

Yes, Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid 1. Two outlets of a shy and insecure adolescent's life (like most geeks of that generation). Two games that made me dream, wonder, travel (in my head). And more importantly, two games that made me say this sentence "One day, I want people to feel that way because of me. I want to see people holding game controllers, shouting, laughing, feeling strong, frustrated and happy because of something I would have created".

We are in 2003, I am 17 and I just graduated from high school. I join the University of Yaoundé 1, and cybercafés are fashionable in Cameroon. I want to get into computer science, hoping that one day I could go and work for Ubisoft or Square Enix in order to achieve the perfect RPG. I start to read on the Internet about how to make a video game and I frenziedly start scribbling my first game design notes.

February 2004: I post on JeuxVideo.com that I will build the perfect RPG someday:

jeuxvideo.com/forums/1-31-8247500-1-0-1-0-0.htm

Obviously, people laugh at me, not out of malice, but out of "realism". As you can see on the discussion forum, on that day, I challenged the whole world.

Playing with the cards we have, instead of crying the ones we don't have

I join Oniro, an online French community of amateur developers and I relentlessly read all the tutorials. Cybercafés consume around 2,000 CFA francs ($3/$4) out of the 5,000 CFA francs ($9/$10) that I am sent weekly as pocket money. I have never eaten so much bread with chocolate before (100FCFA bread, 50FCFA chocolate).

2005, I fail (many of) my classes in college and I have less course material to study during the repeated years. I work on Aurion so as not to get depressed and not to think about my life of non-stop school and personal failures.

I post adverts around the Yaoundé city centre stating that I'm looking for people who want to make video games. People think that I must be under the influence of some very powerful hallucinogens, but let me proceed in my delusion.

From 2004 to 2008, I live the worst years of my life. Non-stop school failures in a mind-numbing educational system. I realize that my parents do not have enough money for me to study one day out of the country (death of the naive Ubisoft dream). Besides, they have so much trouble paying for these college classes that I keep failing. Every day, I can feel the specter of poverty that is narrowing around me.

This is also the period when I leave my bubble and I enter the sphere of collective negativity. I spend my days complaining (and listening to people complaining) about the lack of job opportunities for new graduates, about the ethnic conspiracies, about the social injustice, about the neocolonization that nip any hope in the bud, etc. In short... There's nothing else to say, my life was ruined before it even started.

2008, I owe my wake-up call to two things:

- (1) When you are a student in Cameroon, you certainly have a "back-up" uncle who helps you out with 10,000 FCFA or 15,000 FCFA when you are at your worst. One day when I went to see him he kept me waiting from 8AM to 5PM in his office (I had not eaten since the previous day) and gave me 2000 FCFA. Instead of getting upset, I instantly understood the symbolism, he was showing me how he struggled to earn money and how his life was not easy. That day I told myself, "I no longer want to be just a consumer"

- (2) I spend one week of holidays with a friend whose father "succeeded". And while I used to tell myself that everything is about luck, connections, good schools (in other words, the national mantra of laziness and defeatism), I observe how this man lives. He gets up at 6am, works until 10pm even on Saturdays. On Sundays, he rests but keeps reading about his line of business. This man trains continuously to stay motivated and ambitious. I then have another epiphany: I have to train to become like that."

I dust off my AURION project. It will be my motivation to learn to be excellent even if I can't live from it, it will keep my mind active. This time I fix my beginner's mistakes by starting to write a complete scenario and design specifications before getting into "programming and other details". I also decided to delve into how to program your game from scratch (or almost) in order to no longer face the limitations of amateurish engines.

From that period, 2008 to 2010, I had created a local tech startup : MADIA (starting from nothing, with college friends who were stuck like me). I have gained experience in people management, business management, accounting and computer graphics. 2010-2011, MADIA is running out of gas. We are struggling to keep the company afloat. No initial investment (therefore, no working capital), some customers paying with a minimum of 6 months delay (since they are being paid with some 3 years delay themselves), public contracts randomly cancelled, and a micro-finance agency that closed down while still holding our savings in early 2010. I also went through some great family and social pressures that urged me to try and find a job as a civil officer, or some similarly stable condition. I wouldn't mind, but I don't the credentials required by big corporations.

Psychologically, I could only survive this period of huge frustration because I was working on Aurion from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am every day when I am back to my small room on a hill in Biyemassi.

Mid-2012: I read an article about video game budgets. A studio which blew $4million into their "employee entertainment department". The budget of "small" games which requires anything between 4 and 5 million, just to be completed in basic conditions. The achievements of independent games, download sales, Kickstarter success stories. I tell myself that I can build a prototype with Aurion, and then ask people on Kickstarter to support me in making a semi-professional game.

I do a simple calculation on Excel to visualise what it would cost me to open a studio with 20 people in this country with ideal conditions. And I realize that, even if we hike all the costs, we would hardly need $1.5million to operate for 2 years, even if we include a $500,000 advertising budget.

At this time, I'm so broke, still living off my parents' money, that is 10,000 FCFA (15 €/20$) that my mother send me every week. I just want to be funded for 1 year to make a game demo, that would not be market-ready, but it would show a huge narrative and technical potential. I want 2 million FCFA (€3000 / $3650).

I have been neglecting the management of my company, which is stuck in Cameroon's heavy and slow system. I start to leave the office earlier to go home and work on Aurion. Obviously, no one understands me, and the pressures increase. I want to put forward a playable prototype ready to go on kickstarter by December 2012. I registered on the platform since March and I always saw the "Post your project" button, without ever clicking on it.

The prototype that demonstrates my game is pretty much ready. So I get on Kickstarter on December 19, 2012 to start testing the form interface in order to submit my project, and then... Existential punch in my face...

Because I am connected from Cameroon, I am not allowed to post my project on Kickstarter... Huge disillusionment, extreme disappointment, once again the world shows me that I was born in a country that is destined to non-stop failure. However I will spend Christmas with peace of mind, I did my very best, I do not regret anything.

From that moment, I start requesting funds all over the place. Online, I message Diaspora friends, aunts, uncles and project supporters, asking them to help as they can, whether it be with €15, €50, etc. I write the business plan (version 0) of Kiro'o Games within a week of frenetic writing. All my dreaming years blend on paper. I'm considering a budget for a small amateur team of 6 people with computers and survival wages for 1 year. I am looking for 12 million FCFA (21000$, 18000€).

Nobody really brings any concrete contribution. There were just micro-donations (which were very much appreciated indeed, they didn't have to) but no real investments. Some people didn't want to simply donate, they would have preferred to invest and own shares of the "real" game later.

A night of inspiration and intense reflection on how to go beyond this stage. How to escape from this feeling of labyrinth involving a scheduled and inevitable failure. We have foreseen that we need to evolve, without being afraid of responsibility and higher risk in order to succeed. After all, we wanted to play in the international league, so we had to think like international conquerors. I reviewed all my calculations and redesigned the entire investment system.

The Crowdfunding Equity of Kiro'o Games was born, a unique financial model in the business world, unmatched in Africa so far. Almost an economic "accident" according to some observers. It was a fusion of the Wall Street principles and the Bamileke tontine system of Cameroon. We added a legal process with certified e-mail validation.

Investors were still skeptical. People want to see visual prototypes, period. The usual Ouroboros, the snake that bites its tail. We want investments in order to do a job and we have to do that same job in order to have the investments. How to make professional graphics without paying a team? Without even the right equipment to draw correctly? In a country where there are not even "decent part-time jobs" that could help us survive (most of us were still living off parental funding)

August 2013: we are coming out of a few months of silence. Everyone was already saying that it was yet another dead idea in the bud. National legends even began to say that we might have planned to rip people off.

The next phase sounded like a melody of interactions, from August to September every week, every day we fed the Web with our visual models. We have written to the press around the world.

We also set up a standard e-mail for investment request, a video that tells our story and explains : "here is what we did with inadequate resources, imagine how far we will go with normal means".

Mid-August 2013, we confidently launch a funding campaign on Indiegogo. We are energized by less impressive games that have raised huge sums. We rely on our history, our potential, our journey. After all, video games and computers were born in garages. Players of our time will want to be part of this story.

The magic will not work. As far as most gamers are concerned, we are too amateurish and are probably a gang of African crooks on the internet (akin to the infamous Nigerian Prince scams). Epic fail with just 2% fund raising on Indiegogo.

I experience some humiliating moments on gamers forums, where we are accused of spamming communities, not to mention a mailing list bug, when we accidently emailed 15,000 American and European folks and got insulted continuously for a week. We had to disable the mailbox for this to stop (lol).

This experience makes us realize that the "la la land" video game "era is over. The Internet begins to slide on its dirtiest side: trolling. Our morale takes a hit, but we are already used to smashing walls. We will come back again when we are ready.

September 2013: An article in the "Le Monde" newspaper will baffle the most skeptical bystanders. This follows a first article in the video game section of their online edition. Concrete transactions and funding increase a bit.

The newspaper wants me to explain our business model beyond the game and they seem to appreciate our ingenuity. We earn a second publication in their Economics and Enterprise section. Stock purchases are increasing, reaching new heights, but the milestone of 100 shares sold is still unreachable.

Kiro'o Games office opens on December 2, 2013. That event drives an Internet Buzz. A 10-year epic journey has just ended. A success showing how we pushed the limits of our society to earn the right to be what we chose.

This was the beginning of another challenge: to actually complete the game. But we had our first happy Christmas for 10 years.

June 2014 - October 2014: We managed to set up our own game engine, the challenge is more complex than expected but it's all arranged and we see the game run for real. We publish pictures of the game and we have positive feedback, however the project's popularity has raised expectations. The "small" game that was planned initially must know fulfill these expectations, without falling into the traps of infinite improvements. We reassess the game specifications to increase the development time and improve the engine.

November 2014 - December 2014: The videos of the game are published online with concrete content. We show what has been done through a video that generates a buzz, the reactions are beyond our expectations. This also brings exposure to the international specialized press. We get our profiles on the biggest video games sites.

January 2015 - February 2015: For the Video Game press to be interested in the game and for gamers to support us, we can't just rely on videos. There is still this doubt that this startup living its first game does not know what it is doing. There is always this suspicion floating in the comments below the news. The game must pass an ultimate test that will seal or sweep our fate: it must be played.

The demo is distributed to the specialized press and it's an intense moment. The live sessions are raining, the test previews are 80% positive. They acknowledge that, even though we are not perfect, we do provide the essential factors: those who play have fun and are intrigued by history.

August 2015 - September 2015: The realisation of the game continues, the story progresses well, we do internal tests and the testers are "shaken up" by the scenarios. The gameplay is full of surprises, even for us. We discover new possibilities every day.

This memo ends here for now. Our entrepreneur life goes on, our minds are bursting with great plans and projects. Some exciting, frustrating, exhilarating battles to be fought in the future. Defeats, victories, even betrayals, new alliances, in one word: Life. Whatever happens, I just know we'll do as usual: finding our way.

[Interview] In The Bubble Of Olivier Madiba: "my goal is to reach my maximum human potential and to help others to do the same"

1. Quick (but effective) introduction of the personage and his achievements?

I am MADIBA Olivier, 32 years old Cameroonian. I have a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science obtained at the University of Yaoundé 1. I launched 2 startups (MADIA and KIROO).

I am currently CEO / Game Designer / Scriptwriter / Programmer at Kiroo which is the first video game studio in Cameroon.

2. What are your main goals in life?

My goal is to reach my maximum human potential in this life and to help others to do the same. I recruit those who want to improve things and who love the trip more than the destination.

3. What tools and techniques do you use to accomplish things efficiently?

I use a lot of software like Word / Excel actually, I spend my time writing and doing simulations. I also like to use paper and my pen to constantly draw what I think, it makes understanding easier.

4. Any recommendations for your juniors?

I would recommend going to www.kiroorebuntu.com, where I have compiled all my project management experience.

In terms of good reads, here are my favorite books:
- Warrior's Manual of Light
- Conversation with God (3 volumes)
- Shoe Dog (Biography of the founder of Nike)
- Creativity (Memory of the founder of Pixar)

5. What is the best way to contact you?

The best thing is to tweet something on my Twitter @madibaOlivier. I can't reply to everyone, but I read everything.

The Paradox Of Teachers In Africa : Rare And Yet Poorly Paid

By Antoine Mian

There is a quote that says "Everything that is rare is expensive". In sub-Saharan Africa, in that "Everything", it seems that we must include Everything but the teaching profession.

Indeed, the shortage of teachers that affects the whole world in general is particularly more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa. If we stick to the quote, this situation should have had the effect of raising the salary of teachers to attract as many people as possible in the profession. But no! On the contrary, it appears to be driving teachers' salaries down. In The Ivory Coast for example, in the schools, you can find benevolent teachers and volunteer teachers alongside state civil service teachers.

Often recruited by local communities and/or by NGOs, benevolent teachers with extremely low salaries (often less than 15000fcfa [$30/€23] per month according to a Regional Director of Education) hold classes, usually in rural areas. Alongside benevolent teachers, there are those who are called volunteers. To cope with the serious shortage of secondary school teachers, the Ministry of National Education and Technical Education recruited 3,000 of those in 2012. Paid at 100,000 CFA ($200/€150) per month, these volunteer teachers have held classes alongside colleagues often paid three or four times more.

Based on discussions we had with members of the Cabinet and the General Inspection of the Ministry of Education, it turns out that the good success rates on Ivory Coast examinations this year (33.58% in High School, 40.17% in Middle School and 67.03% in Primary School) are largely due to the presence of these benevolent and volunteer teachers. It is therefore clear that these two categories of teachers are important for the quality of education. However, while all of them strongly agree on their importance in the education system, they are less confident about their future. Indeed, when we start addressing the question of their future, everyone goes quiet, especially volunteer teachers.

With such a low salary and an uncertain future, how can we keep these teachers in their positions, whether they are benevolent or volunteers?

The situation in The Ivory Coast reappears identically throughout the Subregion. Thus, the main cause of teacher shortage in Saharan Africa seems to be related to the inability of education systems to retain them in the post. Indeed, quality education requires quality teachers while retaining quality teachers is another challenge in the education system. In sub-Saharan Africa, the job of teaching "on the field" is often neglected for the sake of juicy positions in ministerial offices, central government or private corporations.

If we want strong educational systems in our countries that strive to emergence, it becomes imperative to look into the motivation of teachers through a revaluation of the profession. Indeed, if Africa wants to build a good education system, it must invest in teachers by way of quality training, respecting their professionalism, rewarding and recognizing those who are effective and efficient and improving their morale and motivation.

Gamification: 5 Peculiar Concepts That African Schools Could Actually Use

By Necemon

Gamification is the transfer of game mechanics to other fields, especially websites, learning situations, work contexts or social networks. The objective is to increase the acceptability and the use of these applications by relying on our human predisposition to entertainment.

This design technique allows people to adopt certain behaviors, usually some behaviors that could be considered irrelevant or things they would not normally do: filling out a questionnaire, buying a product, watching advertisements or, as in our current instance: assimilating knowledge.

Therefore, by applying these video-game-inspired techniques to a classroom context, most courses can become much more interesting:

1. Progressive evaluation system

What's that?

Let's admit that the education system in Africa is currently rather demotivational.

From the beginning of the school year, and starting the first homework, the ambitious student sees himself with a perfect score of 20 out of 20, but from there, the only possible direction is the reduction of his points, depending on his mistakes. If he is really brilliant, he could stay close to the average of 20, otherwise in general his average score drops with each of his mistakes.

There is a sort of feedback loop that encourages failure: when you have a bad grade, you feel less motivated to study, so you study less, so you have more bad grades, and so on. Basically, the more you fail, the more you fail.

However, in games, we learn that progress encourages progress and that the desire to be effective is a much stronger motivator than the fear of failure.

Hence we could assess the students performance just as in video games, so that any given assignment would have an XP (Experience Points) value, and if all the students start with 0xp, and they earn points as and when they find answers, complete homework/quizzes, and progress from level to level.

In this case, each assignment or exam appears to be a reward, rather than a discouraging punishment.

Why is it cool?

It's a lot more fun to win things than to lose things. Plus, this methodology never leads students to a point where they feel that they have to give up.

The good news is that you do not even have to change how average grades are calculated. It is still the same total number of points, to be divided by the same number of tests.

For example, if there are 5 homework out of 20, that's 100 points. Instead of starting from 100 points and losing points with mistakes, we move to a perspective where each starter has 0 points, and depending on his performance at each test, he earns a few points: +10, +5, + 15, etc. Thus the pupil only goes up and not down.

2. Global bonus

What's that?

To extend the evaluation system described above, one can even add global bonuses, for example if one of the students reaches 200 points, the whole class gets a bonus of 10 points. Or if 5 students reach 100 points, the whole class gets + 2xp or a chocolate cake.

Why is it cool?

This kind of reward system encourages solidarity among students and encourages the best students to help their classmates.

3. Power to Impact

What's that?

One of the big challenges in the education system is about taking care of children who do not feel that their actions are relevant to their own lives. To feel that you have an impact, means to feel that you control your own destiny, and that your choices make a difference.

Students who do not feel this impact tend to believe that they have no control over their parents' choices about their education. Without this feeling of impact, it is almost impossible to feel motivated. Instead of making decisions about the future, one merely undergoes the events of life without having long-term goals.

The more you feel that you have the power to impact in your life, the harder you work, the more you are keen to engage in more ambitious tasks.

Why is it cool?

In fact, people with this sense of power are more resilient in the face of external forces outside their control that are disturbing their plans. They adapt more easily, overcome obstacles and proceed towards their goals.

So how to amplify this sense of power? Through games, obviously. Games that instill the idea that you control the future. In games, the cycle between choice and results is usually much shorter than in real life (and also much better indicated).

In games, the player tries something, he fails; he tries something else, he fails again, he continues to make new decisions until he succeeds.

Games teach that different choices have different outcomes and that everyone controls the choices they make. The philosophical implication is that life is not simply a series of things that just happen to you.

4. External motivators

What's that?

In Africa, in general, there are not enough teachers and not enough hours of classes a day to teach children everything they need to know. That's why we need children to stay interested and continue to learn voluntarily, even after leaving the classroom.

There is a solution that costs virtually nothing: alternate reality games.

An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is a multi-media game that deliberately blurs experiences perceived within and out of the game.

Immersive fictions that blur the boundaries between the real and imaginary world, they unfold both online and in real life, they spread through all channels: treasure hunts in the city, texting, posters, e-mails, websites etc.
(Marie Lechner - Libération)

More than a riddle game, ARGs are essentially a new way of telling stories. These are fictions that are played in real life, instead of being confined to the pages of a book or the images of a screen. Players can see the plot hatch and expand in real time. It's a much richer and fun interactive experience.
(Adrian Hon - Puppetmaster)

Basically, it is the encounter between a large-scale treasure hunt, implying the interactive unfolding of a story, and a community of players (or students, in this case).

Why is it cool?

We can use the information we want students to learn as keys to unlock more and more games. And while looking for this information, they will necessarily learn many other things at the same time. And if it's really interesting, they could even meet after school to continue the treasure hunt.

5. Unexpected connections

What's that?

The previous game is good but it requires a lot of preparation time for anyone who wants to arrange it properly... For those who want something simpler, there is a research game which is about choosing 2 unrelated interesting concepts, and find the connection between them.

For example: Africa and Deep Learning.

Each player finds a series of links that lead from one theme to another.

The game works well with Wikipedia. It's not just about scanning links, but they should also describe the connection between these links. All successful students earn experience points but the winner is the one who makes the connection using the fewest possible links, he obviously gets bonus points.

Why is it cool?

This exercise encourages curiosity and allows students to come across information that they would not have explored otherwise.

Also, encouraging them to take the shortest path is giving them the motivation to go back to information, to think about it, to explore new directions that derive from this information.

But more importantly, this exercise leads them to study the connection between information, that is, how ideas are related, which is a vital skill, even for adults, it is important to contextualize knowledge and to understand the importance of certain topics that do not interest them directly.

So for our example, if we want to find the relationship between Africa and Deep Learning:

Africa => Evolution => Artificial Intelligence => Deep Learning

Try to beat that...

Africa: ICT in Education for Entrepreneurship and Employability

By Antoine Mian

While facing the problem of youth employability, African countries today strive to improve the quality in their education systems by using ICTs. One of the lessons learned from the case studies in relevant countries shows that the integration of ICT in Education can be beneficial, not only in terms of Education, but also in terms of Entrepreneurship and Employability.

In Lebanon, the use of digital tablets in the educational system has enabled the creation of a digital ecosystem for the production of mobile terminals and educational content.

In Portugal too, the implementation of an ICT plan for education has led to the creation of local companies in the field of computer manufacturing, as well as in the creation and production of digital educational content. This state of affairs has created jobs and economic growth in the country.

The examples of Lebanon and Portugal are not isolated. In most Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay, computers and digital educational content used in the education system are produced locally. In some African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia and Kenya, ICT integration in education has led to job creation around content production.

The main advantage of such a policy is that it stimulates an absolute enthusiasm of all social groups around the integration of ICT in education. As a matter of fact, this policy encourages local entrepreneurship, which leads to the development of a digital ecosystem and the creation of jobs. It also makes it possible to constitute a critical mass of local human resources for the maintenance of the equipment, which plays a fundamental role in ensuring sustainability.

It is therefore indisputable that the policy of integrating ICTs into education in Africa, if it is well conducted, will not only have an impact on education systems. It will also have impacts on the economy through business creation and on the social life through job creation. Therefore, as the vice president of Intel said, a good policy of integration of ICT in education, beyond the aim on Education should have a focus on Entrepreneurship and Employability.

4 important revelations that could certainly accelerate the educational revolution in Africa

By Necemon

When we talk about academic training, a fashionable expression is to say that the established education system is defective - the current system is not defective, it is built in a great way. It's just that we do not need it anymore, it's obsolete. - Sugata Mitra

Ok, I cannot speak for everyone, but based on what I could see in West Africa and South Asia, here are some hypotheses to consider:

1. The accumulation of data in the head is often unnecessary

It is often about attending classes all day, every day and memorizing a lot of data. Students are often forced to absorb information, on the assumption that they might need it some day. The truth is, they may never need most of it.

There are some people who can quite easily stay seated still and take notes for 8 hours each day, and then 2 weeks later, they can recite everything they have written and memorized. But there is also this huge population of very talented people who cannot learn that way, especially since any relevant information is easily accessible if they ever need it...

As Sugata Mitra explains, you do not need to memorize anything. You can find the information when you need it. The role of the teacher is especially to guide the young minds to the right questions, not to give the answers, since the answers are everywhere.

2. Information is everywhere, just be connected

You just have to be connected, your brain can accept/give remote contributions. It is a fact that the value of your ideas is limited when you are isolated but there is one great hope: wherever I go, even if it is in a remote village or in the middle of the savannah, the very first thing that I ask or check is, do I have that little bandwidth that could give me some GPRS connection or something equivalent? And in the middle of jungles, I see that sometimes it says "connected". And then I know that everything I say can go everywhere and work exactly the same way. It's just a matter of time...

Lois Mbugua, Customer Project Manager at Ericsson Kenya, says connectivity is about opening up to the world. By connecting a village, students can communicate with other students and teachers around the world.

Her colleague Margaret Kositany adds that education used to be limited to what the teacher could tell the students, and the teacher was relying on a few text books. But now students have access to a lot more information.

In fact there is a very big difference between access to information and school. They used to be the same thing, now the information is available online for everyone.

A great example of this would be Coursera, a digital company offering open and massive online courses. According to Daphne Koller, co-founder, the idea is to enable the best universities in the world to put their courses online, so that anyone with an internet connection can benefit from having free access to a great education.

Coursera provides courses in computer science, social sciences, mathematics, statistics, economics, finance and many more. More than 200 courses are currently available.

Since the information is available to anyone connected, it means that if we give access to 10-12 years old children, they will acquire the knowledge if they want - as Seth Godin could deduce.

It would not work so well for topics that they are not interested in because...

3. It is much easier to learn when one is involved in activities that they enjoy

What I liked most about education in the West is freedom, students being free to choose the subjects they prefer and to leave out the options they do not like. There are very few restrictions, as long as one can earn enough credits through their selected courses.

The biggest advantage is that students are motivated to work, since they do what they really want to, as opposed to some systems where students are obligated to take on all the subjects on the curriculum, whether they like those or not. Being forced to learn things that do not interest them, they will probably forget those after the exams anyway.

Furthermore, researches show that those who find the answer themselves retain it better than those who are told the answer. What schools should do ideally is to give children the motivation to get involved, to create an environment where children, driven by their curiosity, solve interesting problems, instead of simply memorizing answers to the problems that have already been solved.

This may seem unrealistic with regard to some traditional systems but...

4. It's not because certain things were done in a certain way in the past that we should allow this to continue.

The origins of traditional education come from the military to a large extent. They needed identical people, soldiers, administrators, etc. So they produced such a system. When the industrial revolution happened, they wanted identical people too in order to meet certain standards in factories and assembly lines.

So if we look at school that way, we note the fact that we process 30 or even 40 kids at a time, in a batch just like in a factory, while trying to maintain a common evolution for the whole group, often with the effect half of the class finds the classes too difficult while the other half gets bored.

And if you fail an exam, what do you do? We hold you back and we re-process you, it all matches the way a factory works. This methodology was really useful in the traditional context, but we don't have a shortage of factory workers anymore (on the contrary, unemployment rates have increased in some industries).

We take all these children and we force them to try to adapt to this really complex bureaucracy, but actually it is the system that should adapt to them!

When a kid doesn't conform to the system, he is pressured to fit into the system, as if there was something wrong with him. But in reality, the system is here for the kids, not the other way around...

Maybe things will change in the near future, maybe not. In any case, nobody says that it will be easy. There will be challenges, but revolutions destroy the perfect to enable the impossible.

Africa, Cradle Of Humanity And Entrepreneurs

By Antoine Mian

In addition to being the cradle of humanity, Africa is becoming the cradle of entrepreneurs. As a matter of fact, when it comes to the world rankings of the countries with the largest number of entrepreneurs, Africa plays the leading role!

While entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom and the United States are associated with start-ups, in some other countries, especially in Africa, entrepreneurship for freelancers is more of a necessity than a dream. Indeed, when there are not enough jobs available like in many African countries, you have to create their own opportunities.

Approved Index, a UK-based research network has just ranked countries with the largest number of entrepreneurs. This number is calculated as the percentage of the adult population that owns or co-owns a new business and has paid wages for three months or more. This study shows that countries with the largest number of entrepreneurs are going through a commercial revolution.

Approved's ranAfrica: ICT in Education for Entrepreneurship and Employabilityh 13.7% of the population, Angola 6th with 12.4% of its population and Botswana 8th with 11.1% of its population.

Note that in this ranking, Great Britain is 37th with 4.6% and the USA 41th with 4.3% of the population that are entrepreneurs.

Click here for the ranking of the 9 countries with the most entrepreneurs in the world.

[Interview] In The Bubble Of Antoine Mian: "if one is not passionate, they miss out on life"

1. Quick (but effective) introduction of the personage and his achievements?

Bi Sehi Antoine MIAN, I am a teacher-researcher in ICT. Currently Assistant Director of Techno Pedagogy at the Virtual University of Ivory Coast. From my experiences as Ivorian Web actor and blogger, I was able to integrate social media as Teaching Units into the educational model of the Virtual University of Ivory Coast.

2. What are the values that better define you?

My main value is the consideration that I must always have for the human person. Man is at the heart of all my actions. Whether it be educational or social actions, I place the Human Being at the center.

3. What tools and techniques do you use to accomplish things efficiently?

I work extensively on free software. I do it because I view myself as a demonstrator. Through me, teachers and actors in the education system must realise that, with open solutions, many problems can be solved in the context of ICT integration.

4. Any recommendations for your juniors?

Life advice: to be passionate about what one does. Because if one is not passionate, they miss out on life. Never stop learning and opening up to others, it costs nothing but it can provide a lot. Everything that one does must aim at the development of the human person. This must be put at the center of everyday concerns.

5. What is the best way to contact you?

Facebook, I would say.

HELP! They Are Going To Steal My Project!!!

By Nnenna Nwakanma

Lately, I have been interacting with some major project leaders.

1. These are people who are confident about their projects.

2. They generally avoid discussing these projects with others, for fear of having their ideas stolen.

3. But they still needed a trustworthy advisor... And finally they decided that it would be Nnenna.

After some "maximum security clearance" considerations and "highly classified" discussions, I noticed:

1. Most of these project leaders are amateurs.

2. Most of these projects have not yet been properly detailed/documented.

3. The leaders in question are not able to pitch their projects clearly within 5 to 10 minutes.

4. These project leaders want a face-to-face meeting with me. They think I can boost their chances...

5. It seems that the environment in which they want to operate is unknown to them, for the most part.

6. Those who know a bit about the environment have less than 2 years experience.

7. 80% of these projects tend to view their country as the whole world.

8. I noticed a glaring lack of feasibility study. They rarely take into account the parties that are already on the field. I have not seen any competition strategy.

9. These project leaders lack relevant connections.

10. Half of these projects are illusions.

Final Reminder

Chapter 3

Before we conclude, I just thought I would remind you that this document contains the Chapter 3 of the Album, and that 8 other chapters are also available. You may download, (re-)read or share any of the various chapters and volumes independently/separately, depending on your interests. The PDF, EPUB, MOBI/AZW3/KF8 (Amazon Kindle) and MP3 formats are available.

To get them, just click on any of the links you like below or go to TheAlbum.NeceMoon.com
(or necemonyai.com/Blog/page/The-Album.aspx)

The NeceMoon Album (complete)

Volume 1: Moon Light (softcore)

Chapter 1: Strategy and Tactics

Chapter 2: Digital Marketing and Web Visualisation

Chapter 3: Corporate Worlds and Emerging Markets

Chapter 4: Quick Wins, Tricks and Tips

Chapter 5: Transition - Extra Thoughts and Sharp Fantasy

Volume 2: Full Moon (hardcore)

Chapter 6: Software Development and Engineering

Chapter 7: C# .NET Programming

Chapter 8: Epic Prototypes, Classic Projects, Historic Genre

Chapter 9: Research and Case Studies

The Album is available in French as well at Album.NeceMoon.com
(or necemonyai.com/Blog/page/L-Album.aspx)

Conclusion

This is Good Bye. However, we can stay in touch. Feel very welcome to add me on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. If you also have any tools and tactics that help you achieve things efficiently, I would like you to tell me about that. My email address is necemon@gmail.com. You are more than welcome to write to me and report any possible mistake in this document, or to suggest any improvement, or to tell me about your favourite parts. However, if you don’t like The Album, don’t bother writing to me.

Anyways, I wish you all the best for your ongoing and next projects. Thank you for reading. And many thanks to Wikipedia, MSDN, IconFinder and FreeDigitalPhotos for the clarifications and the graphic resources. Special thanks to the Evasium Team. Thanks to all those who contributed, thank you Ahou The African Chick, Antoine Mian, Cyriac Gbogou, Darren Mart, Edith Brou, Holty Sow, Israel Yoroba, Jean Luc Houedanou, Jean-Patrick Ehouman, Karen Kakou, Nanda Seye, Nnenna Nwakanma, Olivier Madiba, Vanessa Lecosson and Yehni Djidji.
Thank you Monty Oum, rest in peace.

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