Dear SM
Comments below in italics
On 23/05/2015 23:50, S Moonesamy wrote:
> 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".
/You're right, there's nothing wrong in winning it.. but only if winning
it actually means something.. rather than just winning it "for the sake
of winning"./
>
>> 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.
/ If you're referring to the presentation I gave during the
Developer conf two months ago (it's the only one i ever gave in front of
uni students.. so i think you're referring to this), then there are two
reasons for this. (1) I was a very late announcement in the schedule. My
presentation was decided just 2 days before I actually gave it. Jochen
then alerted me that nobody actually knows I'm giving a presentation as
it wasn't published in the programme. Thus, in a sense, it was
impromptu... and (2) The official presentation title was "SQL Server
migration from a stand alone machine to the Azure cloud". It was never
about e-commerce. /
/However, the presentation was mostly attended largely by foreign
students (i think around 20% were mauritians), specifically from Nigeria
and, because Jumia (the most famous and largest Retail e-commerce
platform in Nigeria) has just recently received $500 Million in
investment capital, and also for the fact that I have been invited as
guest speaker at the "E-commerce Confex" to be held in Cape Town in Feb
2016, together with the CEO and Founder of Jumia (who has also been
invited as a guest speaker at this same conference), I could easily
relate to these students who all know this founder. Thus, for around 10
minutes, the conversation turned quite animated about "E-Commerce in
Africa", with the Nigerian students bursting out laughing when I told
them that it is possible Mauritius could overtake them in this field.
Their opinion was that Mauritius just don't understand enough about
global e-commerce. I couldn't disagree with them so I left it at that./
/However I will say this. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of
questioning and knowledge of one particular student (a nigerian) who
really knew how to ask me the right questions in regards to Jumia's
model of e-fulfillment, and whether it was scalable, sustainable, what
risks were present and how does Shoponline.mu tackle national
e-fulfillment. Frankly I was just thankful for the quality of
questions.//.. i enjoyed it!/
>
>> 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?
/ Though I won it.. and yes I do use it at times.. I nevertheless
know, in my heart, that I'm not at any sort of level to win something
like this. I did not program a probe to fly to Jupiter.. hence I'm not
that good of a programmer because I know I can't do it, I'm nowhere
near like Elon Musk.. hence I'm not an innovator because I can't build a
Tesla, I don't have the IQ of Bill Gates.. hence I cannot call myself a
good technopreneur, I did not invent C++ .. etc. Thus I am well aware
that I really don't know anything at all on a global level... hence
this is why I call myself a "general all-rounder". I just know bits of
things. /
>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>
>
Received on Sat May 23 2015 - 20:56:02 PST
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