We all know I'm a big fan of technologies and gadgets... so when I read last week in the New York Times that one of the more innovative genetic mapping companies (23andme) had reduced the price of its Genetic Mapping service (which many companies sell for up to $2-3,000) from $999 to only a few hundred dollars, I decided it was an amazing amount of information and education to be able to get access to for that amount, so I took the plunge and signed up.
A day later, FedEx delivered a Spit Kit to my house, which requires about 10 minutes of spitting into and mixing together with a solution, and your DNA sample is ready to send back! And off it went to Los Angeles, California to a laboratory today. Funny enough, the FedEx Pak they provide specifically says "do not send liquids" on it :)
So in 6-8 weeks, I'll know where my ancestors are from, whether I'm genetically lactose intolerant, whether or not I love broccoli because I can't taste the bitterness in it, and whether or not I'm a bit more likely than average to get certain diseases or be susceptible to certain conditions in my lifetime, along with dozens of other interesting facts. For less than the price of a university course in genetics, I can view and learn much of the world's most up-to-date knowledge on the relationships between genes and personal/medical conditions personalized to my specific genetic data. How cool is that?
You can make a case against "messing with your life" this way (I had an interesting discussion about this with someone just the other night), but I think that given the great power we have as humans to be intelligent and understand life in a way that no other species can, we then have a responsibility to use it to maximize the potential of our lives. Right? I guess it's also just a bit of an extra motivation knowing that you're slightly more at risk than average to do something about it! (from 1-2 times more or less likely than the generally population, in most cases)
I'll check back in with the results in a few months!
I headed off in the morning to the Australian Science and Math School, hosted at Flinders University. The school is only a few years old, and is built with an open concept -- no classrooms, but instead a number of large spaces with desks and chairs that reconfigured in many different ways to foster teamwork and collaboration. We had a large group - about 50 teachers and school leaders, and had a really interesting day -- when I showed the "Are you listening?" video, a whole bunch of students gathered upstairs in the area overlooking where I was speaking to watch - I think they were really curious that so many teachers were learning about their way of using technology!
After a fantastic dinner by the water with a group of curriculum developers, I headed to sleep -- because I had to catch a 6:40am flight to Canberra!
I made it to the nation's capital early in the morning, and it was freezing! 0 degrees but it warmed up as the sun rose... I had a few hours to fit the gym and have lunch before heading to Canberra University -- the group in Canberra decided to have an evening workshop (4-9pm) with dinner. Although everyone had a full day of work before showing up, we still had a lot of active participation, and after wrapping up at 9 and getting back to the hotel around 10, it was time for sleep for another 6:45am flight back to Sydney for the last workshop of the trip!
Arriving in Sydney in the morning, with my 32kg on-the-dot bag faithfully appearing on the carousel, I headed off to Parramatta right on time, and arrived 3 minutes before the workshop was to begin! We had the biggest crowd of any session -- around 60 people, and so a lot of the interactive sections took a lot longer than usual, but they had great ideas and a large group of schools approached me after and wants to deeply engage their entire district with TIGed, which is exciting! After wrapping up and chatting with a bunch of the attendees, I was off to one of my favourite hotels in the world -- the Westin Sydney, to relax, enjoy their great gym, and have dinner with Jenny, who had the whole series of workshops organized, to debrief on the experience (yum, Tasmanian lamb!). After that, I met up with Jarra and Nick, and headed to Micky's for dessert (Banana Pancakes and Ice Cream!) to catch up and for me to celebrate the completion of 10 sessions in 11 days in 5 cities!
I'm writing this now on the flight to Vancouver -- I managed to get right to sleep after lunch on the 10am flight, which will hopefully mean I can work through the North American day and head to sleep at a proper time tonight. Saturday, we head to Quebec City for the World Youth Congress to meet TIG members from all over the world. I've also agreed to head to Brisbane on the 19th to speak at the Queenland Government's e-learning summit, and after that, I'll be ready to just settle down at home and enjoy the rest of the summer in Toronto :)
Now that I've been away a full week, I forced myself to carve out some time to reflect on the intensity of the time so far before kicking off the second stretch.
As always, our summers at TakingITGlobal are quite busy -- generally for the education "industry", most conferences are held during the summer when teachers have school holidays. This summer, as a follow-up to my keynote at last October's ACEL (Australian Counsel of Educational Leaders) conference (which was apparently quite good even though I was quite sick at the time), I was invited to be a "Traveling Scholar" for ACEL, presenting 5 full-day workshops on TakingITGlobal to school leaders and teachers across Australia. In addition, I started off the trip by keynoting a leadership conference at Melbourne Grammar School, and today keynoted the International Middle Years conference in Adelaide... so I've made quite good use of two weeks!
Sunday - Wednesday: Melbourne
After the trek from Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne, I knew the first thing I needed to do to keep my sanity was to spend a good amount of time at the fitness center at the Westin. What a great idea - it helped me refresh, have a fantastic swim in the beautiful infinity pool, and after a brief stroll that was quickly canceled when the rain started, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour.
On Monday, I woke up nice and early and arrived at the charming greened campus of Melbourne Grammar, one of Melbourne's oldest and most respected private schools. To their enormous credit, they had invited students from a broad cross-section of Melbourne to attend the conference, in addition to a grade of their students. I was brilliantly introduced by one of their capable students, and my keynote was well-received - with more questions from students than we had time for. Following the keynote, a panel including a futurist, scientist, and Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, who cited my presentation several times as they discussed issues of leadership in the 21st century and challenged students to act on the issues they felt challenged by. In the afternoon, I ran several hours of hands-on workshops guiding a small group of students through the TIG site and beginning the Guide to Action as a tool for action planning.
Tuesday morning, I visited Kilsyth, a suburb of Melbourne, and ran a 3 hour workshop with a group of teachers across that region looking at TIG and especially with an interest in Health education... it was a good challenge because we didn't have Internet except for a very slow 2G connection, so I was able to get well prepared and experiment with some activities for the following days' sessions!
That evening, I traveled to Mooney Valley Racecourse (home of Australia's best race - the Cox plate, worth $3 million!) and presented our work at TIG to about 150 principals, who also had some great questions, and I enjoyed meeting a teacher who grew up in Mississauga and had spent his recent years enjoying and exploring Australia's wilderness.
On Wednesday, I spent from 9 AM to 3:30 PM with an enthusiastic group of teachers and principals learning about TIG, exploring global issues, and understanding how to fit our programs and ideas at TIG into the curriculum and everyday use in their classrooms. I also shared our Best Practices on Global Education resource with them... and then I was off to the airport, heading to my next destination: Tasmania!
Thursday - Saturday: Hobart, Tasmania
On Thursday, I woke up and did it all over again, in a beautiful setting amongst Lemon trees at Lateare Gardens in Hobart with a fire burning to keep us all warm and cozy from the cold outside! I think the goals of what we do at TakingITGlobal really connected closely with some people - one teacher was literally in tears sharing how wonderful she thought what we did was... it's really a special opportunity (as exhausting as it is) to be able to share our work with people that are also dedicating their lives to helping young people develop. I think sometimes we all forget the power and opportunity we have to impact the lives of others - and I feel like a few people really felt reconnected to that opportunity, which is really an amazing opportunity to be able to stimulate.
After a short 2 hour break to refresh and do some e-mail, I headed off to the Hobart Yacht club, where I addressed about 50 high school principals, who weren't able to attend the day's workshop because they were having a leadership retreat. I had to pack 90 minutes into a 30 minute before dinner speech, so I think it was overwhelming, but many of them were quite excited by what we do... and I had delicious local Salmon which was a bonus!
The next day was my main day off. I decided not to head off to my next destination right away, but to stick around in Hobart and see some of the beautiful wildlife Tasmania has to offer. So I signed up for a Tasman Island Eco Cruise - having no idea how much of an adventure it would be! After a scenic bus ride to Port Arthur, one of the main convict colonies from the 1800s, we boarded a powerful boat (675 HP) that they describe as a 4x4 of the sea. Initially the ride was quite smooth - and we discovered some caves and amazing rock formations on the coast. The "swells" were only about 1 meter, and so it was just like jumping waves on a boat at home.
However, once we got out to the Tasman Sea, things got a lot more interesting. The waves and the winds were coming strongly from an unusual direction, and 2-3 meter waves and swells gave us quite a ride! I had chosen to sit in the 4th row (moved from the 2nd) and for close to an hour, we jumped waves and it felt like we were on a roller coaster as we plunged down after riding a wave.... but I stuck with my seat - a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
We arrived at two areas with Australian and New Zealand seals, and at a cove where dolphins chased our boat around until we had to leave - amazing to lean over and watch them at the water and bow of the boat jumping up playfully! A number of albatross with their huge wingspans also provided us with an amazing show - watching them fish and gracefully glide across the sky with nothing around us but huge rock and menacing water... or what looked menacing in my book. In 1998, however, the water was so rough that in the annual Sydney-Hobart race, five boats sank and six sailors were killed.
On Saturday morning, before heading to the airport, I spent a few hours enjoying the Salamanca Market, with hundreds of stalls offering delicious local treats and art and coffee and everything needed to pass a few hours and take in the culture of a place!
Sunday - Monday: Adelaide, South Australia
Now I'm here in Adelaide, where this morning I keynoted the International Middle Years of Schooling conference, and was again introduced by a fantastic student duo! I gave out dozens of bookmarks afterwards, with many many people promising to check out the site and connect their students into TIG. I was also followed by an excellent presentation by Professor Erica, who gave a talk on creativity that linked really perfectly and built on top of many of the themes I covered.
Tomorrow I'm off to the Australian Science and Mathematics School to do another day-long workshop, and then heading to Canberra the next morning... I'll be sure to check in soon with more! And I'll be editing this entry in about 2 hours with photos once they upload.
I'm speaking tomorrow at PUSH, an interesting conference here in Minneapolis, MN
The first session that just wrapped up was quite interesting - Chandran Nair took us through a look at the world's problems and how many misconceptions there are about what can solve them. What I found striking was the comparison of world problems to spending on trivial/much less meaningful things:
Health & Nutrition ($13B) : Petfood Spending in the USA ($17B)
Water and Sanitation ($9B) : Ice Cream in Europe ($11B)
Education ($6B) : Cosmetics in the USA ($8B)
Jonathan Greenblatt, one of the co-founders of Ethos Water, also gave us a compelling look into the world of Water and how simple and cheap ($25/person) it is to solve. The one thing I don't get - on a $1.79 bottle of water, Starbucks (which acquired Ethos) donates 5 cents (10 cents in Canada oddly). They were founded on the basis of donating 50% of profits... I can't believe profit on that bottle of water is only 10 cents! (considering how much cheaper other bottled water is). Anyway, he now works with a new magazine - GOOD - which has a unique subscription model of giving away the $20 subscription fee to a charity of your choice.
How can this not inspire you with hope that the messages that captivate our friends in the U.S. voting this fall can be positive and not just negative? Messages that excite with the possibility of a positive future, not try to cast fear and uncertainty as the reason to select a person.
I'm very proud of them for ending the video with the simple message of "vote" - resisting the urge to squeeze it beyond need towards the candidate.
My apologies for this very geek-specific post. If you don't have a Dell m1330 laptop, you can ignore it!
My Dell XPS m1330 is my favorite laptop yet (I think it's my 10th in 10 years!), but Dell and Microsoft have made it far too hard to re-format it cleanly without Windows Vista Blue-screening on every second boot (caused by the AHCI setting in BIOS, but not providing AHCI drivers during install). It took me awhile to figure out how to do this properly, so I thought I'd share to help the rest of the Internet figure it out.
2) Run the file with a "-a" from the Windows commandline, which will put those files into the "C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage Manager" directory
3) Copy the files from the "Drivers" or "Drivers64" (64-bit Vista) directory onto a USB Key
4) When you install Vista from the DVD, pick the "Custom" option, then click "Load Drivers"
5) Click "Browse", and point to your USB stick. Load the drivers from it.
There is a very interesting process which I have been so privileged to observe from a front row seat. As I write, election results are being announced from difference races across the country, they are appearing slowly, but surely. I think it is important to give a context to how this election has been set up:
There are 4 different elections happening simultaneously: local council elections, lower house parliamentary seats [House of Assembly], the Upper House of parliament [The Senate] and the Presidency. There are 1 958 local council seats up for election in 1 958 wards around the country, there are 210 House of Assembly seats up for grabs, there are sixty senate seats and one presidential seat. Now each one of these positions has at least two candidates contesting, with some having as many as seven candidates (and in other cases more). So there are a lot of people involved in contesting for all the elected offices in zimbabwe.
The post-voting electoral process
The process itself, that has come about out of a series of negotiations between the government and the opposition over the course of the past 12 months has meant that significant changes have been made to the electoral law in the country. New law requires that every polling station counts their ballots AT the station – this is in order to avoid rigging or tampering with ballot boxes in transit to any other location. This has been done in accordance with the law in every case. In a ward, you can get up to 3 or 4 polling stations depending on population data. In a constituency, you can get as many as 15 wards. This means that per constituency you get about 60 polling stations.
When the voting is done in that polling station, counting for all four seats begins – the local council, the lower house, the upper house and the presidency. For each candidate, there is a polling agent present to preside over the counting and to contest what they may deem to be deviations from due process or law. A result is only official when all the polling agents agree to it; hence in the case where there are disputes, this can take a while. Now remember, that this is happening for every single ballot, and every candidate's representatives can argue their cause. When a final result is reached and agreed upon by all parties and everyone signs to confirm such, the result for that polling station is posted on the entry way to that station. The official result is then sent to the 'Command Center' of that constituency. So in each constituency, they would have to wait for all sixty or so polling stations to reach that agreement, and then send the results to a central place where they are collated, and again agreed upon by all the Chief Election Agents of the candidates [if they chose to have agents represent them] and then a final result is reached. So in these cases, you can imagine how long this process may take given that (i) this is the first time that this was done in Zimbabwe; (ii) as in a big sporting game, the world cup final or something, every possession is contested – the same with these elections.; (iii) in some of the rural constituencies [actually, in most of them] the roads are horrendous. In some cases, non-existent. So moving a distance of 30 kilometres can actually take as long as an hour and a half to two hours. So movement is slow and complicated. And there are no telephones or electronic communications.
So the process is a slow one, and I think most people are doing the best to get these results out as fast as possible.
I observed the process in three electoral constituencies in rural Matabeleland. In VERY rural places so I am writing about all of this from first hand experience. The polls closed Saturday at 7pm. In the one constituency we only got a final result (after the process above was complete and all agreed upon) on Monday morning. Another one only by Monday afternoon. Others are not yet complete.
The mistake most people are making is that they see the result outside one polling station, take that as the overall result and then cry "that results are out. Why are they not being announced" and are completely ignorant of the process that must be taken to ensure that all parties involved at that local level are satisfied.
Allegations of Rigging etc
The international news media is buzzing with stories about how these delays are being caused by the government trying to buy time and rig the election. I think that is all the elections I have participated in and observed in Zimbabwe, this has been the most free, fair and competitive election. There was almost no violence leading up to the election. For the first time, you actually had a lot of oppositions parties using main stream including government controlled media to campaign and having access to the electorate almost on par with the government [I saw almost, because the government always has the advantage of incumbency. If a government minister is commissioning a new project for example, that is a 'national duty' and not a political meeting so the electoral rules don't necessarily apply, but any smart operator would use that platform to plug for their cause]. This doesn't mean that everything about the period leading up to the election was fair, but I think the environment really has allowed for people to express their will.
Even the post-election process I feel has provided for much more fairness than before. What is really surprising to me is the extent to which immediately after the election was done, the main opposition (the MDC party led by Morgan Tsvangirai) went on a global media blitz claiming the election is being rigged and already setting up an environment for those who are either not really aware of the details of the process, or who are far removed from it to prejudge all that is happening. I was really surprised by this and think it to be a really sleazy tactic.
Rigging, if it is taking place, is not happening with people stuffing boxes full of paper etc. It is happening on very technical grounds where those who are least informed on electoral law and procedure don't know how to play the game fully.
Most people reading this will be surprised by what I am about to say, but in my observations, I saw the greatest cases of foul play [call it rigging if you will] coming from the opposition. And their methodology for this is very sophisticated. Let me try and explain…
When we were children, there was a tactic where if there was a dispute between us as kids playing together, lets say, one kid hits another, the initiator of the transgression would run to an adult and cry the loudest and claim they were hit. The adult would run out in response and to the surprise of everyone watching would lash out at the person who actually was smacked in the first place, but it was too late, the initiative had been lost by the 'victim'. It was a smart tactic which worked most of the time, but it left the person who was really hit feeling very, very unjustly treated.
A similar thing has happened in this election from what I have seen. The MDC has run out screaming that we've been cheated, there is rigging etc. they've smartly managed tog et everyone watching the wrong place while they smugly cook the books where they can. It's a very close election in most cases so every point counts. Let me give you examples of what I mean, without mentioning specific locations and situations as this could have legal implications.
The widespread belief is that the government will rig the election because it is so popular that it cannot win the election fairly. They say it will rig it because it has deployed civil servants to oversee the election. In reality, the people who have the greatest animosity towards the government are civil servants. Teachers, Nurses, Police etc. they are the lowest paid people in the country and yet have the most expected from them. So we found in 3 places, and I think this is a sample behavior of what you would find nation wide, whereby you had electoral officials, employed by the government trying to work things in favor of the opposition.
In one polling station, where a government candidate had won and the papers confirming this were signed at that station, the delivery note meant to go to the Command Centre with the result 'disappeared.' There was a recount and a revisiting of the whole process I've described, the result again came out in favor of the government. Again, the delivery note disappeared. Eventually, the culprit was identified and arrested and the processes repeated once again and the result eventually went through. In that constituency, the government representative for that seat won, and there were incredible delays in releasing that data over endless, undescribed technicalities. Eventually, representatives from the electoral commission from the region's capital had to be called in to settle it.
Another incident, there was a case whereby a person standing for office of the government had a comfortable lead in their constituency with a margin of over 1000 votes. Two wards were still outstanding [about 6 polling stations]. When results came in, the ZANU PF [the governing party] representative won one constituency, and lost the other. The margin of the loss was significantly smaller than one thousand. The candidate's polling agent left the scene assuming victory. This was on Monday morning. Monday afternoon, we heard the results announced that the ZANU PF candidate has lost by over 2000 votes. Mathematically, this is not possible. There was most certainly an 'accounting error' in that case and the result will most probably be legally challenged.
The opposition has set up all of these 'parallel' structures to feed the word election results as 'they' see them. Some of them are so grossly wrong its disturbing. Yesterday they projected that out of 210 Lower House seats, the government has won only 50, the opposition 117 and the balance going to independents – which would of course mean a land slide for the opposition. As I type, about 90 results for the House of Assembly have been announced with 43 going to ZANU PF, 41 going to one faction of the MDC (Tsvangirai's faction) and the balance to independents and the smaller MDC Faction.
One thing that is being done which could be seen as controversial is that the results in the early stages are being announced almost in a balanced manner – i.e., you announce one victory for the opposition, one for the government etc. one reason for doing this may be so that you don't raise expectations of one side and then have a Kenya-type dispute when the final results swings in contradiction to early results. I think this makes sense because you do want to maintain calm in such a tense situation. Those advocating for this to be done "as results appear" seem to not have learned from what happened just north of Zimbabwe a few months ago.
I am sure there are cases of government (ZANU PF) rigging happening too, but I think ZANU's mischief would more have been done before the election, in the process leading up to it rather than during or post the election. But I am sure others elsewhere have their own reports and perspectives to share on this, especially those participating or observing the election for places that overwhelmingly support ZANU PF, of which Matabeleland isn't traditionally one of them.
Contrary to 'popular' expectations
Most commentators outside the country expect the ruling party and president to lose the election. The economic situation and an environment that actually allows more of a freer expression of people's will are cited as some of the influencing factors in those calculations. This is plausible thinking to some degree. I did not expect the president to have any support in Matabeleland at all. Given the history of this region, given the economic situation and the strong support the opposition has always had here, I was surprised to see the results in some places.
You would see results in a polling station where the president won by a significant margin over his opponents. You would get some where he lost by a very wide margin, and others that were close. I certainly expected him to lose everywhere in this part of the country. It's not turning out that way. In most areas here where I observed things up close, except for Bulawayo and urban centers, the presidential contest seems to have been between Robert Mugabe and Simba Makoni. Surprisingly, there is not much traction for Morgan Tsvangirai (which may be different in the northern and eastern regions of the country). In one entire constituency, Robert Mugabe beat Simba Makoni in the final tally of about 55 polling stations! It was a small margin but extremely surprising. In general, I think he will lose Matabeleland, but not by the wide margins people predict.
Where there is the greatest volatility in the election has been the local councils. That's where you get the most surprising results with many, many incumbents being thrown out. In retrospect, it makes sense because those are the candidates they know the best, that have the most direct contact and influence and that people have some form of control over. Again, that surprised me, given that the elections have always been billed as a presidential contest primarily.
The funny thing is that, you have external commentators surprised by the victories that the government achieves despite the situation economically. I feel that most people who vote for the president or governing party candidates have really done so out of their will. Many have chosen not to vote [hence the low voter turn out] for whatever reasons. When you have a 'democratic' election, and the candidate that outsiders don't prefer wins, there is always a problem. Ironically, those are the people who become hypocritical and do not accept the results. When Hamas won the elections in Palestine we saw the same thing happen. It's really funny watching the perspective of the 'western media' on Zimbabwe. BBC, CNN et al have been giving some pretty hilarious (and infuriating reporting). Partly because of their obvious biases, but also because of their location – they are not on the ground in Zimbabwe (for various, debatable reasons).
There are all sorts of notorious reports out there:
The president has left the country – Not True
The Military has been ordered to announce the president the winner – again, I don't think this is true. (http://www.swradioafrica.com/news300308/military300308.htm)
And so on … Most of these are not really true from what we can acertain, although confirming anything like that isn't really easy to do.
There are reports of civil unrest, and the military and police on the street. That is CERTAINLY not the case. Definitely not the case in Bulawayo and from what friends are telling me, it's not the case in Harare. It's one thing to look for an interesting story. It's mischief to say things that could lead to a tense (but calm) situation becoming tense and volatile.
I think if I called the BBC and claimed that I was being attacked by a Sabre Tooth Tiger sent by the government, I'd be on the front page of their website and on satellite TV within the hour!
It's a pretty close election – I think it could go either way. You'll probably get nothing more dramatic than a 55% -- 45% margin in the final result as far as parliament is concerned. The same may hold for the presidency.
I don't think Robert Mugabe is going to lose. If he does, I think he will probably accept the result, but expect some trading to take place about a way forward depending on his margin of defeat. But I don't think he will lose.
Well, my 'few thoughts' did become rather long and protracted – but other than that, we are all fine and awaiting the completion of the process with as much anxiety as everyone else.
Actually, the REAL result we are awaiting has NOTHING to do with the election. At around 3am this morning my sister, Mvuse, went into labor with her first pregnancy! So we are all on edge because that will be my parent's first biological grand child!!! It's a girl, that we know – but we're super excited to have her finally arrival. And what perfect timing, in time for the election results and on April Fool's Day no less!
It is shocking how the media in South Africa and that emanating mainly from countries in Europe and North America has gone ahead and made bold declarations about Zimbabwe’s recent election without paying much attention to the legal proceedings that dictate the unfolding of events here.
1. they have been drumming up since before voting closed been declaring that the president, Robert Mugabe, as lost the election, and the blitz has been so total that the intention seems to be to convince the whole world that the desired outcome of people not in Zimbabwe, who did not vote, becomes the dominant perception and in a way, reality.
2. the bias on the commentary on the satellite TV station is not surprising, but it is surprisingly anti most of the ethics and values you associate with the ‘independent press.’
3. the media went on for days about how the president and the ruling party were attempting to ‘rig’ the election. The opposition has gone on to declare victory unilaterally before any of the processes stated under law are complete which are actually slow by their nature and based on the nature of this most recent election. No one is accusing the opposition of ‘stealing’ the election. Where is the balance there? Imagine the President had declared himself the winner Sunday morning. What would those same ‘defenders of democracy’ have stated?
a. The same opposition which woke up the morning after the election is claiming fraud is now claiming that the same fraudulent election is one which they have won… how?
b. The same people who stated last night that they will wait for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to issue the official results and that they will follow the official results have now gone and stated that they will declare victory based on their own results which they have collated [some of which I have seen and are very different to what has been the actual results]. Yet the same media stations are accepting, tolerating and even promoting all of this.
c. Imagine if the government had done the same – the outrage, and retaliation by the ‘international community.’
Then when Robert Mugabe rages on about his fight against imperialism and western domination, and western bullying and the lack of respect of the principles of sovereignty, people say he is a disgruntled old dictator? Wouldn’t you be upset if you were in his position everyday for 15 years?
If i had the time, i would do a fuller analysis of this, but i am not sure it's even worth the time. No one out there listens to any other perspectives other than the ones that they want to see as reality
There is a very interesting process which I have been so privileged to observe from a front row seat. As I write, election results are being announced from difference races across the country, they are appearing slowly, but surely. I think it is important to give a context to how this election has been set up:
There are 4 different elections happening simultaneously: local council elections, lower house parliamentary seats [House of Assembly], the Upper House of parliament [The Senate] and the Presidency. There are 1 958 local council seats up for election in 1 958 wards around the country, there are 210 House of Assembly seats up for grabs, there are sixty senate seats and one presidential seat. Now each one of these positions has at least two candidates contesting, with some having as many as seven candidates (and in other cases more). So there are a lot of people involved in contesting for all the elected offices in zimbabwe.
The post-voting electoral process
The process itself, that has come about out of a series of negotiations between the government and the opposition over the course of the past 12 months has meant that significant changes have been made to the electoral law in the country. New law requires that every polling station counts their ballots AT the station – this is in order to avoid rigging or tampering with ballot boxes in transit to any other location. This has been done in accordance with the law in every case. In a ward, you can get up to 3 or 4 polling stations depending on population data. In a constituency, you can get as many as 15 wards. This means that per constituency you get about 60 polling stations.
When the voting is done in that polling station, counting for all four seats begins – the local council, the lower house, the upper house and the presidency. For each candidate, there is a polling agent present to preside over the counting and to contest what they may deem to be deviations from due process or law. A result is only official when all the polling agents agree to it; hence in the case where there are disputes, this can take a while. Now remember, that this is happening for every single ballot, and every candidate's representatives can argue their cause. When a final result is reached and agreed upon by all parties and everyone signs to confirm such, the result for that polling station is posted on the entry way to that station. The official result is then sent to the 'Command Center' of that constituency. So in each constituency, they would have to wait for all sixty or so polling stations to reach that agreement, and then send the results to a central place where they are collated, and again agreed upon by all the Chief Election Agents of the candidates [if they chose to have agents represent them] and then a final result is reached. So in these cases, you can imagine how long this process may take given that (i) this is the first time that this was done in Zimbabwe; (ii) as in a big sporting game, the world cup final or something, every possession is contested – the same with these elections.; (iii) in some of the rural constituencies [actually, in most of them] the roads are horrendous. In some cases, non-existent. So moving a distance of 30 kilometres can actually take as long as an hour and a half to two hours. So movement is slow and complicated. And there are no telephones or electronic communications.
So the process is a slow one, and I think most people are doing the best to get these results out as fast as possible.
I observed the process in three electoral constituencies in rural Matabeleland. In VERY rural places so I am writing about all of this from first hand experience. The polls closed Saturday at 7pm. In the one constituency we only got a final result (after the process above was complete and all agreed upon) on Monday morning. Another one only by Monday afternoon. Others are not yet complete.
The mistake most people are making is that they see the result outside one polling station, take that as the overall result and then cry "that results are out. Why are they not being announced" and are completely ignorant of the process that must be taken to ensure that all parties involved at that local level are satisfied.
Allegations of Rigging etc
The international news media is buzzing with stories about how these delays are being caused by the government trying to buy time and rig the election. I think that is all the elections I have participated in and observed in Zimbabwe, this has been the most free, fair and competitive election. There was almost no violence leading up to the election. For the first time, you actually had a lot of oppositions parties using main stream including government controlled media to campaign and having access to the electorate almost on par with the government [I saw almost, because the government always has the advantage of incumbency. If a government minister is commissioning a new project for example, that is a 'national duty' and not a political meeting so the electoral rules don't necessarily apply, but any smart operator would use that platform to plug for their cause]. This doesn't mean that everything about the period leading up to the election was fair, but I think the environment really has allowed for people to express their will.
Even the post-election process I feel has provided for much more fairness than before. What is really surprising to me is the extent to which immediately after the election was done, the main opposition (the MDC party led by Morgan Tsvangirai) went on a global media blitz claiming the election is being rigged and already setting up an environment for those who are either not really aware of the details of the process, or who are far removed from it to prejudge all that is happening. I was really surprised by this and think it to be a really sleazy tactic.
Rigging, if it is taking place, is not happening with people stuffing boxes full of paper etc. It is happening on very technical grounds where those who are least informed on electoral law and procedure don't know how to play the game fully.
Most people reading this will be surprised by what I am about to say, but in my observations, I saw the greatest cases of foul play [call it rigging if you will] coming from the opposition. And their methodology for this is very sophisticated. Let me try and explain…
When we were children, there was a tactic where if there was a dispute between us as kids playing together, lets say, one kid hits another, the initiator of the transgression would run to an adult and cry the loudest and claim they were hit. The adult would run out in response and to the surprise of everyone watching would lash out at the person who actually was smacked in the first place, but it was too late, the initiative had been lost by the 'victim'. It was a smart tactic which worked most of the time, but it left the person who was really hit feeling very, very unjustly treated.
A similar thing has happened in this election from what I have seen. The MDC has run out screaming that we've been cheated, there is rigging etc. they've smartly managed tog et everyone watching the wrong place while they smugly cook the books where they can. It's a very close election in most cases so every point counts. Let me give you examples of what I mean, without mentioning specific locations and situations as this could have legal implications.
The widespread belief is that the government will rig the election because it is so popular that it cannot win the election fairly. They say it will rig it because it has deployed civil servants to oversee the election. In reality, the people who have the greatest animosity towards the government are civil servants. Teachers, Nurses, Police etc. they are the lowest paid people in the country and yet have the most expected from them. So we found in 3 places, and I think this is a sample behavior of what you would find nation wide, whereby you had electoral officials, employed by the government trying to work things in favor of the opposition.
In one polling station, where a government candidate had won and the papers confirming this were signed at that station, the delivery note meant to go to the Command Centre with the result 'disappeared.' There was a recount and a revisiting of the whole process I've described, the result again came out in favor of the government. Again, the delivery note disappeared. Eventually, the culprit was identified and arrested and the processes repeated once again and the result eventually went through. In that constituency, the government representative for that seat won, and there were incredible delays in releasing that data over endless, undescribed technicalities. Eventually, representatives from the electoral commission from the region's capital had to be called in to settle it.
Another incident, there was a case whereby a person standing for office of the government had a comfortable lead in their constituency with a margin of over 1000 votes. Two wards were still outstanding [about 6 polling stations]. When results came in, the ZANU PF [the governing party] representative won one constituency, and lost the other. The margin of the loss was significantly smaller than one thousand. The candidate's polling agent left the scene assuming victory. This was on Monday morning. Monday afternoon, we heard the results announced that the ZANU PF candidate has lost by over 2000 votes. Mathematically, this is not possible. There was most certainly an 'accounting error' in that case and the result will most probably be legally challenged.
The opposition has set up all of these 'parallel' structures to feed the word election results as 'they' see them. Some of them are so grossly wrong its disturbing. Yesterday they projected that out of 210 Lower House seats, the government has won only 50, the opposition 117 and the balance going to independents – which would of course mean a land slide for the opposition. As I type, about 90 results for the House of Assembly have been announced with 43 going to ZANU PF, 41 going to one faction of the MDC (Tsvangirai's faction) and the balance to independents and the smaller MDC Faction.
One thing that is being done which could be seen as controversial is that the results in the early stages are being announced almost in a balanced manner – i.e., you announce one victory for the opposition, one for the government etc. one reason for doing this may be so that you don't raise expectations of one side and then have a Kenya-type dispute when the final results swings in contradiction to early results. I think this makes sense because you do want to maintain calm in such a tense situation. Those advocating for this to be done "as results appear" seem to not have learned from what happened just north of Zimbabwe a few months ago.
I am sure there are cases of government (ZANU PF) rigging happening too, but I think ZANU's mischief would more have been done before the election, in the process leading up to it rather than during or post the election. But I am sure others elsewhere have their own reports and perspectives to share on this, especially those participating or observing the election for places that overwhelmingly support ZANU PF, of which Matabeleland isn't traditionally one of them.
Contrary to 'popular' expectations
Most commentators outside the country expect the ruling party and president to lose the election. The economic situation and an environment that actually allows more of a freer expression of people's will are cited as some of the influencing factors in those calculations. This is plausible thinking to some degree. I did not expect the president to have any support in Matabeleland at all. Given the history of this region, given the economic situation and the strong support the opposition has always had here, I was surprised to see the results in some places.
You would see results in a polling station where the president won by a significant margin over his opponents. You would get some where he lost by a very wide margin, and others that were close. I certainly expected him to lose everywhere in this part of the country. It's not turning out that way. In most areas here where I observed things up close, except for Bulawayo and urban centers, the presidential contest seems to have been between Robert Mugabe and Simba Makoni. Surprisingly, there is not much traction for Morgan Tsvangirai (which may be different in the northern and eastern regions of the country). In one entire constituency, Robert Mugabe beat Simba Makoni in the final tally of about 55 polling stations! It was a small margin but extremely surprising. In general, I think he will lose Matabeleland, but not by the wide margins people predict.
Where there is the greatest volatility in the election has been the local councils. That's where you get the most surprising results with many, many incumbents being thrown out. In retrospect, it makes sense because those are the candidates they know the best, that have the most direct contact and influence and that people have some form of control over. Again, that surprised me, given that the elections have always been billed as a presidential contest primarily.
The funny thing is that, you have external commentators surprised by the victories that the government achieves despite the situation economically. I feel that most people who vote for the president or governing party candidates have really done so out of their will. Many have chosen not to vote [hence the low voter turn out] for whatever reasons. When you have a 'democratic' election, and the candidate that outsiders don't prefer wins, there is always a problem. Ironically, those are the people who become hypocritical and do not accept the results. When Hamas won the elections in Palestine we saw the same thing happen. It's really funny watching the perspective of the 'western media' on Zimbabwe. BBC, CNN et al have been giving some pretty hilarious (and infuriating reporting). Partly because of their obvious biases, but also because of their location – they are not on the ground in Zimbabwe (for various, debatable reasons).
There are all sorts of notorious reports out there:
The president has left the country – Not True
The Military has been ordered to announce the president the winner – again, I don't think this is true. (http://www.swradioafrica.com/news300308/military300308.htm)
And so on … Most of these are not really true from what we can acertain, although confirming anything like that isn't really easy to do.
There are reports of civil unrest, and the military and police on the street. That is CERTAINLY not the case. Definitely not the case in Bulawayo and from what friends are telling me, it's not the case in Harare. It's one thing to look for an interesting story. It's mischief to say things that could lead to a tense (but calm) situation becoming tense and volatile.
I think if I called the BBC and claimed that I was being attacked by a Sabre Tooth Tiger sent by the government, I'd be on the front page of their website and on satellite TV within the hour!
It's a pretty close election – I think it could go either way. You'll probably get nothing more dramatic than a 55% -- 45% margin in the final result as far as parliament is concerned. The same may hold for the presidency.
I don't think Robert Mugabe is going to lose. If he does, I think he will probably accept the result, but expect some trading to take place about a way forward depending on his margin of defeat. But I don't think he will lose.
Well, my 'few thoughts' did become rather long and protracted – but other than that, we are all fine and awaiting the completion of the process with as much anxiety as everyone else.
Actually, the REAL result we are awaiting has NOTHING to do with the election. At around 3am this morning my sister, Mvuse, went into labor with her first pregnancy! So we are all on edge because that will be my parent's first biological grand child!!! It's a girl, that we know – but we're super excited to have her finally arrival. And what perfect timing, in time for the election results and on April Fool's Day no less!
do the math. see if you can work out how hypocritical the media can be in this democracy thing .... this is just one [respected] publication.... but the hypocrisy i find across the board not just in The Economist.
I'm generally a big fan of Rogers - I feel they are probably the best and generally most innovative of the telecom companies here in Canada (Bell, which many people have terrible customer service experiences with - my experience has been the same - and Telus is stuck with CDMA, which doesn't roam well, so that's not good for people who travel.)
The one thing that never ceases to annoy and frustrate me though is their IVR phone system. It's probably been 3 years that I've been calling and every time I get through, I complain and ask them to note it down. They always acknowledge that everyone complains and they say they're working on improving it, but it never happens.
I don't know how they can get it so wrong compared to other industries (airlines, banks, etc.) or even their U.S. competitors like Verizon which have great phone systems! Here are the steps to get to Wireless Customer Service for example:
1. Say "Wireless"
2. Say "Talk to a Representative"
3. Say "Account Changes"
4. Say "Blackberry" or "Phone" (how does this make any sense?)
5. Punch in your Phone Number
6. Be greeted by a representative, who then asks for your phone number again?! Then you have to verify your name, postal code, and DOB. What a waste of time... they should just instead let you pick a PIN and then use that instead.
The best part is that this happens even when you dial 611 from your phone! It could easily detect your number from caller ID and not even bother to ask you anything.
There's a great site called gethuman dedicated to frusturation about IVRs and phone systems, and they've developed a Gethuman Standard for well-designed phone systems. A key point from it:
"# Callers should never be asked to repeat any information (name, full account number, description of issue, etc.) provided to a human or an automated system during a call."
The day that Rogers implements a proper system that does justice to their innovation in so many other areas, I will officially call them a company I love.
2007 was an exceptionally busy year for me and us at TakingITGlobal. But especially on the conference front - I was able to share our work with people in many countries! It all adds up to over 170,000 miles of flying, if you can believe it!
Speaking of travel, one of my favorite things to do in other countries is visiting supermarkets and buying some local treats... Now I can't visit New Zealand without brining home Tim Tams and Manuka Honey... and I have Milo from Bahrain in the kitchen! It's a fun way to check out the local culture.
Now I'm going to work on offsetting my flights by working on our new Understanding the Issues page on Climate Change!
What an interesting 48 hours! After Susheela and Andrew’s wonderful wedding on Saturday afternoon, I headed off to the airport to speak on the final day of the Fikr 6 conference happening in Manama, Bahrain. Today, I attended a morning session with John Clippinger moderated by Joi Ito, discussing the implications of technology on the region and for the future. The discussion got into intellectual property and open source, and I found particularly interesting comments made by the panelist from Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil company, who spoke about the fact that SA was a very open partner and keen participant in many technology collaborations, attributed to the fact that they weren’t interested in owning or licensing intellectual property, but rather just getting access to the best ideas that they could implement locally. It’s nice to be in that position sitting on top of such a resource!
Later, there was a discussion on sustainable housing and building – and the future of energy in the region. One of the speakers was talking about how valuable the sun resource was in MENA - and quoted the fact that a 50x50 square km field of solar panels (current technology) could power the whole MENA region, 100x100 all of Europe, and 300x300 sq km all of the world! Everyone seemed quite intrigued by that, reflecting that only the low low cost of oil has prevented that from becoming a reality. I hope that the cost of Solar will come down to make these types of projects possible in the future…
Before our panel on Social Networks, the Crown Prince of Bahrain was interviewed on stage, and the conversation really heated up over a government plan to impose 200BD ($500 CDN) surcharges on companies for hiring immigrant workers. An interesting solution to a perceived challenge of immigrant workers taking jobs from locals – however, it was also acknowledged that many locals aren’t interested in certain types of hard skill jobs. The prince committed to re-opening a polytechnic college to train more locals on skills.
My panel on Social Networks included Cory Ondrejka From Linden Labs / Second Life, Eric Case from Google / Blogger.com, and Joi Ito (photo credit to Joi for the Prince Bandar photo). We discussed why Web 2.0 isn’t just about wasting time, how sites (like TIG!) can be used for youth to continue the conversations and take action on the issues discussed, the digital divide, and closed with a question of the potential negative impact of technology. (Joi and Cory saved it from being too much of a downer...) :)
Later this afternoon three different youth innovation groups presented ideas on Technology, Investment, and Education for support and endorsement from the audience – all very articulate and with great ideas! Tonight there’s a dinner hosted by the Prince and then tomorrow I have a few hours to relax and check out Bahrain’s UNESCO site before heading home…
P.S. To follow-up on my last blog, we were surprised and honoured to find out in San Jose that we weren't just a Tech Awards laureate, but the prize winner in the Education category! Congratulations to Luke and Emily for leading TIGed to make it all possible!
I've been busy lately and meaning to blog for ages, so I thought I'd give an update on what's been a whirlwind last few weeks for me.
During the last week of October, I had the honour of presenting at the TTI/Vanguard conference on leveraging networks - this is the conference that Jen and I were invited by Nicholas Negroponte to speak at back in 2000 that connected us to several friends and advisors, so I was excited to have the chance again, and it was a great learning experience too! Although I had to leave after the first day to speak at a conference in Calgary.
Later that week, I visited the amazing Orchard School in Indianapolis, where I spoke at the Middle School leadership conference, and also to the faculty about TIG and how they could get involved with global education through the TIGed tools! I got some great feedback and several of the teachers saw immediate ways to get started on TIG.
In the first week of October, I was supposed to fly to another conference in Sydney stopping in Auckland to present two workshops at ULEARN 07 with the help of Cherrie Kong, one of our TIG members from NZ that was involved in our Student Voices contest and been involved in helping with many other things since then. However, after the crazy few weeks beforehand, and with a lot of needs at TIG on the tech front, I decided to stay home for the week and carve out some serious coding time to catch up with all the things I needed to work on! Cherrie was a HUGE help managing the workshop remotely and I presented via video conference :)
Last week, I travelled to Sydney to speak at the Australian Council for School Leaders (ACEL) and ASCD joint International conference, where I shared my story and TIG's vision and programs with over 1,500 school leaders from Australia, Asia, and the USA. I feel like it went very well - I've been invited back by a few different people and noticed many new Australia TIG members each day for the last few days! I did something a bit silly too. I really wanted to get Air Canada Super Elite status this year (which you get by flying over 100,000 miles) - so I flew to Sydney via Taiwan and Singapore - an extra 7 hours each way! It was the same price and Singapore Airlines is fabulous, so it wasn't too bad. (plus I got upgraded on several of the flights so I ate some tasty food - and spent time in the gym at the Singapore airport in both directions!) And now I have the status so I'm looking forward to extra-special treatment by Air Canada in the future :)
This week, I spoke in Edmonton yesterday at the Alberta Distance Education symposium to about 500 educators from K-12 and Universitiy, and hopefully got a lot of people in Alberta excited about TIG and TIGed! I took a few hours before dinner to check out the West Edmonton Mall which was actually quite cool.
Today I flew to Fairbanks, Alaska to speak at the University of Fairbanks tomorrow to their Student Leadership conference, and Monday to University faculty and local educators before flying back home on Monday night. I'll enjoy almost a week at home before heading to Helsinki, Finland next week for the School of the Future conference where our advisory board for the MS education program will be meeting, and I'll be presenting TIGed. The week after that, I'm excited to be travelling with Nick to the Tech Museum Awards, where TIG is being honoured this year as a winner in the Education Category!
I hope all of you are doing well, and welcome to all the new TIG members that I have been recruiting in my travels! :)
This Article is called the Fakebook Generation and recently appeared in the New York Times - rather interesting... I wonder how many young people can identify with Mathias's points, which i think are a very good reflection on our generation and emerging global on-line, interconnected culture!
THE time-chugging Web site Facebook.com first appeared during my freshman year as the exclusive domain of college students. This spring, Facebook opened its pearly gates, enabling myself and other members of the class of ’07 to graduate from our college networks into those of the real world.
In no time at all, the Web site has convinced its rapidly assembling adult population that it is a forum for genuine personal and professional connections. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has even declared his quest to chart a “social graph” of human relationships the way that cartographers once charted the world.
Just a warning: if you’re planning on following the corner of this map that’s been digitally doodled by my 659 Facebook friends, you are going to end up in the middle of nowhere. All the rhetoric about human connectivity misses the real reason this popular online study buddy has so distracted college students for the past four years.
Facebook did not become popular because it was a functional tool — after all, most college students live in close quarters with the majority of their Facebook friends and have no need for social networking. Instead, we log into the Web site because it’s entertaining to watch a constantly evolving narrative starring the other people in the library.
I’ve always thought of Facebook as online community theater. In costumes we customize in a backstage makeup room — the Edit Profile page, where we can add a few Favorite Books or touch up our About Me section — we deliver our lines on the very public stage of friends’ walls or photo albums. And because every time we join a network, post a link or make another friend it’s immediately made visible to others via the News Feed, every Facebook act is a soliloquy to our anonymous audience.
It’s all comedy: making one another laugh matters more than providing useful updates about ourselves, which is why entirely phony profiles were all the rage before the grown-ups signed in. One friend announced her status as In a Relationship with Chinese Food, whose profile picture was a carry-out box and whose personal information personified the cuisine of China.
We even make a joke out of how we know one another — claiming to have met in “Intro to Super Mario Re-enactments,” which I seriously doubt is a real course at Wesleyan, or to have lived together in a “spay and neuter clinic” instead of the dorm. Still, these humor bits often reveal more about our personalities and interests than any honest answers.
Facebook administrators have since exiled at least the flagrantly fake profiles, the Greta Garbos and the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butters, in an effort to have the site grow up from a farce into the serious social networking tool promised to its new adult users, who earnestly type in their actual personal information and precisely label everyone they know as former co-workers or current colleagues, family members or former lovers.
But does this more reverent incarnation of Facebook actually enrich adult relationships? What do these constellations of work colleagues and long-lost friends amount to? An online office mixer? A reunion with that one other guy from your high school who has a Facebook profile? Oh! You get to see pictures of your former college sweetheart’s family! (Only depressing possibilities are coming to mind for some reason.)
My generation has long been bizarrely comfortable with being looked at, and as performers on the Facebook stage, we upload pictures of ourselves cooking dinner for our parents or doing keg stands at last night’s party; we are reckless with our personal information. But there is one area of privacy that we won’t surrender: the secrecy of how and whom we search.
A friend of mine was recently in a panic over rumors of a hacker application that would allow Facebook users to see who’s been visiting their profiles. She’d spent the day ogling a love interest’s page and was horrified at the idea that he knew she’d been looking at him. But there’s no way Facebook would allow such a program to exist: the site is popular largely because it enables us to indulge our gazes anonymously. (We might feel invulnerable in the spotlight, but we don’t want to be caught sitting in someone else’s audience.) If our ability to privately search is ever jeopardized, Facebook will turn into a ghost town.
Facebook purports to be a place for human connectivity, but it’s made us more wary of real human confrontation. When I was in college, people always warned against the dangers of “Facebook stalking” at a library computer — the person whose profile you’re perusing might be right behind you. Dwelling online is a cowardly and utterly enjoyable alternative to real interaction.
So even though Facebook offers an elaborate menu of privacy settings, many of my friends admit that the only setting they use is the one that prevents people from seeing that they are Currently Logged In. Perhaps we fear that the Currently Logged In feature advertises to everyone else that we (too!) are Currently Bored, Lustful, Socially Unfulfilled or Generally Avoiding Real Life.
For young people, Facebook is yet another form of escapism; we can turn our lives into stage dramas and relationships into comedy routines. Make believe is not part of the postgraduate Facebook user’s agenda. As more and more older users try to turn Facebook into a legitimate social reference guide, younger people may follow suit and stop treating it as a circus ring. But let’s hope not.
After the trek from Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne, I knew the first thing I needed to do to keep my sanity was to spend a good amount of time at the fitness center at the Westin. What a great idea - it helped me refresh, have a fantastic swim in the beautiful infinity pool, and after a brief stroll that was quickly canceled when the rain started, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour.
On Thursday, I woke up and did it all over again, in a beautiful setting amongst Lemon trees at Lateare Gardens in Hobart with a fire burning to keep us all warm and cozy from the cold outside! I think the goals of what we do at TakingITGlobal really connected closely with some people - one teacher was literally in tears sharing how wonderful she thought what we did was... it's really a special opportunity (as exhausting as it is) to be able to share our work with people that are also dedicating their lives to helping young people develop. I think sometimes we all forget the power and opportunity we have to impact the lives of others - and I feel like a few people really felt reconnected to that opportunity, which is really an amazing opportunity to be able to stimulate.
What an interesting 48 hours! After 
Before our panel on Social Networks, the Crown Prince of Bahrain was interviewed on stage, and the conversation really heated up over a government plan to impose 200BD ($500 CDN) surcharges on companies for hiring immigrant workers. An interesting solution to a perceived challenge of immigrant workers taking jobs from locals – however, it was also acknowledged that many locals aren’t interested in certain types of hard skill jobs. The prince committed to re-opening a polytechnic college to train more locals on skills.
Last week, I travelled to Sydney to speak at the Australian Council for School Leaders (ACEL) and ASCD 