Blog

Grand Challenges and Opportunities which is a Blue Ribbon Panel Report of the ETHIOPIA2050 is officially published and submitted to Government of Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. This report is prepared by a Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) consisting of an independent group of Ethiopian and Ethiopian-origin experts with diverse professional backgrounds. They bring deep expertise across fields as varied as economics, public health, statistics, education, population dynamics, technology, and urban planning. Together, they have formulated a transformative vision to proactively aid Ethiopia on its journey to a better future.

To proactively address what were identified as “Ten Grand Challenges and Opportunities” associated with this expected generational and historical demographic shift, an Initiative was launched to carefully examine, both the opportunities of demographic dividend and the associated risks. The approach in this Initiative was guided by the consideration of population as a central issue for both the challenges and opportunities side, because it is people who are the ultimate beneficiaries of development.

The BRP rests upon a collective vision that is part of the broader ETHIOPIA 2050 Initiative and focuses on the actions that policymakers can take, with broad support of the public. Their insights were generated after extensive and careful vetting of the transformative new ideas presented at an international conference held on December 19th and 20th, 2019 in Addis Ababa which included 450 Ethiopian/Ethiopian origin participants from 10 countries.

The world’s first primitive web search engine is started. on September 2, 1993. Known as W3Catalog or the CUI WWW Catalog, it was started by Oscar Nierstrasz at the Centre Universitaire d’Informatique (CUI) of the University of Geneva. This search site lasted for about 3 years before more modernized search engines began appearing.

A press revised by Ministry of Finance and Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) indicated that a total of 12 submissions, of which 9 are telecom operators and 2 are non-telecom operators and 1 incomplete are received before the closing date of June 22nd, 2020. According to the press release, the consortium of Vodafone, Vodacom, and Safaricom,  Etisalat,  Axian, MTN, Orange, Saudi Telecom Company, Telkom SA, Liquid Telecom, Snail Mobile, and the two non-telecom operators, Kandu Global Telecommunications and Electromecha International Projects.

Invitation for Submission of Expression of Interest (EOI) for Telecommunications Service Licenses is floated by Ethiopia Communications Authority (ECA) and  Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Finance (FDRE MoF) inviting telecommunications companies with proven experience with large-scale network deployment, operation and service provisioning to register their interest to participate in the award process for the acquisition of the two new telecommunications service licenses in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

The EOI  has to be in accordance with the guidelines presented in the document and must be submitted to the ECA and the (FDRE MoF)  before the date/time specified in the official EOI.  The official EOI is to be downloaded from MoF website using this link and/or from ECA using this link. Both the documents are identical.

Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space to monitor climate change and improve research in agriculture and drought preparedness. The satellite, named ETRSS-1, was launched from China on Friday.  Government officials, led by Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen and former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, witnessed the launch from the Entoto Space Observatory in the capital, Addis Ababa. Ethiopia plans to launch a broadcast satellite into space in the next three years.

"This will be a foundation for our historic journey to prosperity," deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen said in a speech at the launch event broadcast on state television. The launch of the Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite took place at a space station in China. Most international media like BBC,  Al Jazeera,  AfricanewsJapantimes, Quartzafrica, etc. reported the event.

This tutorial is in Amharic to give some guidance on how you can program a mobile application using Android for beginners and the whole tutorial is organized in step-by-step manner to be very simple to users. The background language is in Java and users required to have a JDK (Java Development Kit) and also the Android Studio to start programming. As every body knows, programming is not easy and it is usually time taking activity specifically for beginners. By following the tutorials one by one starting from Tutorial #1, anyone can start creating a working Mobile Application. This tutorial is used to guide you step by step how you can program using Android Studio a mobile application in Amharic. ይህ መልመጃ Tutorial እንዴት Android Studioን በመጠቀም  የሞባይል ፕሮግራሞችን መፃፍ እንደምትችሉ ደረጃ በደረጃ የሚያስተምር  ቪዲዮ ነው።  Click this link to read more.

As per the report from CNN, consumers in African countries are paying some of the highest rates in the world for internet access as a proportion of income, according to a new report released by the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) Tuesday, Oct 22, 2019.  A4AI assessed 136 low and middle-income countries for their annual affordability report stating that citizens in a countries like Chad, DR Congo, and the Central African Republic must pay more than 20% of average earnings for 1GB of mobile broadband data where as 1GB of mobile broadband data should not cost more than 2% of average monthly income. By contrast, Egypt at 0.5% and Mauritius at 0.59% are considered to be the most affordable rates in the continent.

According to the same report, the average rate of 1GB  mobile broadband data across the African continent is 7.12%, of the monthly income and in some cases the 1GB costs more than a 20% of the average earnings.

WTDC-17 took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 9 to 20 October, WTDC-14 in Dubai, UAE from 30 March to 10 April, WTDC-10 in Hyderabad, India from 24 May to 4 June, WTDC-06 in Doha, Qatar from 7 to 15 March, WTDC-02 in Istanbul, Turkey from 18 to 27 March, WTDC-98 Valletta, Malta from 23 March to 1 April, and WTDC-94 Buenos Aires, Argentina from 21 to 29 March.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Council approved Ethiopia 's request to host the World Telecommunication Development Conference in 2021 (WTDC-21).  The conference will bring more than 5, 000 participants drawn from across the world, according to the report from the Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MinT).

I have published two books; Programming Principles (2009) and Evaluating eGovernment Portal Functionality in KM Perspective (2015) discussing some aspects in the area of Information Communication Technology.

The first book,  Programming Principles (2009), gives an overview what a programmer should consider for developing a software package to solve a particular problem. The Book describes a Software Process starting from requirement analysis up to delivery of the software and maintenance, Software Engineering Principles, Software Project Management Concepts, defines the managing process in Software project Management, discuss the software matrix, assess the risk involved in software projects including the management techniques and the mitigation. At the end, some practical examples are also included. Paperback: 152 pages, Publisher: VDM Verlag (August 12, 2009), Language: English, ISBN-10: 3639137957, ISBN-13: 978-3639137958

The second book is titled  Evaluating eGovernment Portal Functionality in KM Perspective (2015) : Evaluating and Enhancing Ethiopian E-Government Portal Functionality in Knowledge Management Perspective and I am a co-author with Wondaferaw  and Girum. Knowledge Management (KM) is an important consideration in e-Government portals to ensure that knowledge flows efficiently between Governments, individuals and organizations. A crucial aspect of e-Government portals that has not been addressed adequately is, the extent to which KM have been implemented and identifying the direction to enhance e-Government portal in KM perspective.

In this research evaluation model known as KM model for e-Government with three KM broad mechanisms for portals: Knowledge Collection, Organization and Application were employed. Using this model, evaluation checklist was developed based on analysis of the literature and best experience of other countries e-Government portal and used to evaluate ministry level organization e-Government portals with the objective of investigating the extent to which KM mechanisms have been implemented and to identify direction to enhance portals. Moreover, survey questioner and interview guide was used to investigate the degree of application of ICT for KM in research entities and its contribution to support e-Government portal enhancement. Paperback: 156 pages, Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing (March 23, 2015), Language: English, ISBN-10: 3659664650, ISBN-13: 978-3659664656

5G is the next - fifth- generation of mobile internet connectivity promising much faster data download and upload speeds, wider coverage and more stable connections.

It's all about making better use of the radio spectrum and enabling far more devices to access the mobile internet at the same time.

There are a number of new technologies likely to be applied - but standards haven't been hammered out yet for all 5G protocols. Higher-frequency bands - 3.5GHz (GigaHerz) to 26GHz and beyond - have a lot of capacity but their lower wavelengths mean their range is lower - they're more easily blocked by physical objects.

The world is going mobile and we're consuming more data every year, particularly as the popularity of video and music streaming increases. Existing spectrum bands are becoming congested, leading to breakdowns in service, particularly when lots of people in the same area are trying to access online mobile services at the same time. 5G is much better at handling thousands of devices simultaneously, from mobiles to equipment sensors, video cameras to smart street lights.

Most countries are unlikely to launch 5G services before 2020, but South Korea is aiming to get in there first and launch next year, with its three largest network operators agreeing to kick off at the same time. China is also racing to launch services in 2019. Read more on this on BBC.