The Award (was: Representative)

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Sat, 23 May 2015 12:50:35 -0700

Hello,
At 11:14 23-05-2015, Dhiruj Rambaran wrote:
>Yes I can disclose I took part in an awards called "National ICT
>Excellence Awards" in 2011. I can also disclose that, approx 12
>months later, I wrote to the Ministry of ICT (specifically to the
>minister himself) telling him I now use the award as a Doorstop (to
>keep my door open.. it's handy because it's just the right weight).
>To this I received a phone call, to which I then answered that I'm
>thinking of putting my award for sale on Ebay "just to see how much
>it's worth" (if you get the sarcasm and what i'm trying to say....
>then good!!!).

I don't see anything wrong with you winning an award called the
"National ICT Excellence Award".

>The fact of the matter is I entered the awards for two reasons:
>
>a) I live in Mauritius and, in a land where you are judged purely on
>"letters after your name",

Yes.

Mr Sookun asked me about the expertise of a person who was introduced
as someone with a M.Phil. I did not know the answer to his question.

>However, I was still not comfortable taking part on this island. I
>already knew how rampant corruption is in Mauritius and how
>un-meritocratic the country is (hence why I have not worked a single
>minute in the IT sector in Mauritius for any company or mauritian
>contract. This remains true up until today), so I rang up the MICT
>and asked WHAT was the purpose of these awards. I was told, by some
>guy there, that "we are holding these awards to find IT talent who
>maybe are unknown to us, but living in Mauritius". I then found out
>that the judges were going to be mostly non-government people
>(academics some of them) and thus, It was at THIS point I decided to take part.

Ok.

>After some time an incident occurred (basically two ministries and
>two parastatals got together to form a group and proceeded to
>'attempt' to copy, in every aspect, my project

It is a well-known practice in Mauritius.

>b) It was xmas.. and I heard they were going to serve unlimited
>whisky, vodka, beer etc.
>
>c) I'm taking part again at some point.. because I have two empty
>spaces in my cabinet (the award is back in the cabinet now) and I
>want to fill those two spaces. Whether I can or not doesn't matter..
>i'll still be in for the whisky.

Ok. :-)

>Anyway, personally, I don't find a need to "look good in Mauritius".
>Mauritius is the mauritian people.. the public... and I have no need
>to look good for the mauritian people. This is being a 'gran noir'.
>The only reason I agree to interviews (mags etc... the latest one
>published 2 days ago in Business Mag... 13 interviews have been
>published so far I can disclose) is not to look good vis-a-vis the
>public, but to get the message to the whole nation, specifically
>government to "do not underestimate the power of e-commerce.. when
>$1 Trillion retail e-commerce sales is expect by 2018 in AFRICA ALONE".

If you are representing us it is good that you "look good in
Mauritius" so that you can explain to the public why a few us need
100 Mbps local access to the internet.

It seems that you read what I wrote previously as local
language. You are discussing openly with everyone on this mailing
list. Would a person who thinks too highly of himself/herself do that?

>I am trying to get the message out that business in Mauritius need
>not be isolated and restricted just to the island.. but we can sell
>to the whole wide world (as we demonstrated by selling nearly 11,000
>individual retail parcels, purely via e-commerce, from Mauritius to
>European customers). It was a test from my behalf to show an entire
>country that, even the tiniest of business can trade with the entire world.

One problem is that we do not hear of the above in the local
press. By the way, I was somewhat surprised by the lack of interest
in a presentation about e-commerce which you gave to university students.

>And this is the only reason why you'll find I "go public" sometimes.
>
>As for looking for a job or contract in return for silence etc.
>Well... i've never been employed by private or public sector, I do
>not have any contracts with government either. However, I do have a
>National & Global Retail E-Commerce Platform (singlehandedly built)
>which was conceptualised, built and went live starting from 2007..
>and I want the entire nation to use it, to sell directly to
>consumers around the world. My aim is to lift those who are never
>given an economic chance in mauritius... chances I NEVER was given
>in my younger life, simply because i was not the correct caste,
>didn't have the right surname, didn't know the right people, and
>REFUSED to bring myself down in front of anyone to get anywhere.

Some people might be uncomfortable to have a polite discussion about
the job or contract in return for silence. I am glad to see that you
were not uncomfortable with that question. I suggest looking at the
positive side. If the award can help us, why not use it if the
government considers it to be an achievement?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Sat May 23 2015 - 19:51:37 PST