Re: Stage of development (was: Council Reports for the year 2015)

From: Vy-Shane Sin Fat <shane_at_node.mu>
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 22:30:47 +0800

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:45 AM, S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com> wrote:

> Hi Shane,
> At 05:56 24-02-2016, Vy-Shane Sin Fat wrote:
>
>> With all due respect Jules, I find your post rude and entitled. I've
>> noticed a culture of complaining in this mailing list. Is that how the
>> group proposes to be an agent of change? It's not going to work if the list
>> operates in a spirit of negativity and confrontation.
>>
>
> At the current stage of development it is not possible to change anything
> on the island. The following is from the outgoing US ambassador [1] to
> Mauritius: "Our democracy is 300 years old. Yours is 47". What is the
> local culture? Is the local culture similar to the culture of another
> country?
>

One could argue that culture is the hardest thing to change. Our democracy
is much younger than the United States', but we have one thing right now
that they didn't have for much of their history: The Internet. I know that
people like to diss Facebook in this mailing list, but I believe that the
Facebook generation of Mauritians will be much more open to change than the
previous generations.


> A official from an international organization told me that she is aware
> that, in developing countries, people saying anything which might sound
> negative are excluded. Getting a one-sided view causes a higher
> probability of failure as the problems are not taken into consideration.
>

Yes, being able to have a frank discussion is important.


> I had an conversation with a student from the Microsoft Student Partners
> about 10 months ago. The person commented (in private) that there wasn't
> any local person with experience for him/her to turn to for help.
>

I assume that the student is studying ICT? Meetups can often provide the
support network for ICT people. In Mauritius there is the MSCC of course.
Unfortunately the MSCC isn't very active online. An IRC or Slack channel
would have been very useful. I get more value out of the online channels of
some meetup groups that I've joined than out of their formal or informal
gatherings.


> Will it personally affect me if the island does not move towards the next
> stage of development? I doubt that. Will it affect anyone else on this
> mailing list? I'll leave it to the person to determine that.
>
> You have shared your experience for free [2]. Is there anyone else on the
> island with your experience who has done that? I don't think so. I could
> say the same [3] for Dr Naicken. I'll quote E (:-)): "changing mindsets
> should be at the top of the list" [4].
>

I don't mind sharing my experience. I can be pretty opinionated (not
necessarily a good thing) and have the propensity to get pretty
enthusiastic and evangelical about technologies that I think are awesome. I
don't co nsider myself an expert (an overused term, IMHO), but I'd be
delighted to talk shop if anyone is interested.


Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>
> 1. http://www.lexpress.mu/article/276477/icac-has-lost-all-credibility
> 2.
> http://lists.elandnews.com/archive/mauritius/internet-users/2015/03/0290.html
> 3.
> http://lists.elandnews.com/archive/mauritius/internet-users/2015/11/3978.html
> 4.
> http://lists.elandnews.com/archive/mauritius/internet-users/2016/02/5143.html
>
Received on Thu Feb 25 2016 - 14:31:21 PST

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