#PKTechWeekly: High Tech Thatched Hall, Hubs & StartUps, VPNs

Hello Techies and those who are fascinated with the world of technology,

In this #PKTechWeekly we look at my online conversations, a fews reviews and some insights in the happenings of the week of 8th to 15th May.

So let’s dig in;

High Tech Thatched Conference Hall

There is a thatched high tech conference hall in the Western region of Uganda on Lake Bunyonyi. This hall has everything a high tech conference hall needs like stable power, USB ports for charging, two microphones, 4G microwave wireless network, a large screen and a projector. This hall is located at BirdNest Resort and can host  up to 60 people at USh 450,000 ($190).

Uganda the VPN state, do Ugandans Know these Myths?

And again it happened, the security of the state of Uganda was being frightened by Social Media during the day of the swearing in of the not new president of the state, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Social media (read Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, the most popular sites in Uganda) was blocked for almost three days and virtual private networks (VPNs) were deployed to provide access to the masses.

But do Ugandans know these myths about VPNs?

• Myth #1: I can be anonymous on the Internet
• Myth #2: Anonymity and privacy are the same
• Myth #3: When my VPN provider advertises an “anonymous” service, that means they don’t log any identifying information about me
• Myth #4: When my VPN provider’s privacy policy says they “don’t log,” that means I am anonymous
• Myth #5: Even if my VPN provider uses hosted or cloud-based VPN servers I can still be anonymous
• Myth #6: Even if my VPN provider doesn’t own and operate the network I can still be anonymous
• Myth #7: Any VPN logging is bad
• Myth #8: Privacy companies don’t collect or sell my data
• Myth #9: All VPN software is the same
• Myth #10: Tor is a better alternative than a VPN

Tech Hubs and StartUps, Do we need more of those in Uganda?

There was a very nice heated conversation about StartUps and Tech hubs in Uganda, and their contribution to the development of the tech industry. Questions were raised about their efforts and defense cases were fired.

Some of my take away from thE conversation were;

• We need to acknowledge that Uganda is not Silicon Valley and will never be. Uganda is Uganda.
• Do we still have people who still think an app is a startup?
• Encourage your brothers and sisters to think critically, to imagine better, to influence policy change, to exert themselves
• What is the challenge for start ups? Can they be sustained? How can we mobilise local and international resources? What is our niche? What about fragmentation of hubs? How can we create synergies? What is our audience aka partners? What is our value proposition? etc
• What is too much criticism?

I think I will need to write a separate blog to share more about this conversation, it was a very interesting one.

I’m Munno

I attended a hackathon on Friday as a mentor and found an interesting team of young engineers from Ndejje University who from the start point, I knew they had something to offer but needed guidance and encouragement to come out on top.

The Marie Stope and Hostalite Health App challenge had the simple guys win the challenge with a very interesting BOT app.

Watch Video below about what they created;

Until next this week on Sunday…(hope I don’t forget as I did this time) remember to leave me a comment.

Now on to the other topics in other categories on this blog…

Patricia Kahill

Patricia Kahill is a multipotentialite Christian entrepreneur, Content Marketing Coach and founder of the Content Marketing agency, Kahill Insights that helps business owners create engaging and interactive content items for digital platforms with a focus on returning a desired outcome. Patricia was the producer of SlamDunk Basketball Talk a show on House of Talent online TV, a former fellow at Harvest Institute for leadership and now an assessor there, and an alumnus of the YELP class of 2017. A member of the BNI Integrity chapter and African Women Entrepreneur Cooperative. She is driven by passion and curiosity, been taking every opportunity that has been given to her with an ambition of stamping her footprint on the world.