Tanaka Mutakwa

Recently, an article came to my attention about a Ugandan IT student who has become  wealthy / successful through developing mobile applications, leading him to be known as the Mark Zuckerberg of Africa. If you want to read the whole article, you can find it at http://www.africabusinesscommunities.com/index.php/rss-abc-blogs/200425-erika-amoako-agyei-africa-business-review. Basically, the article describes how the 22-year-old Abdu Ssekalala made a fortune via mobile app development through in-app advertising deals and revenue share per download. To date, he has nine internationally-recognized applications, of which one is Wordbook. Wordbook, according to Nokia’s Ovi Store, is “a dictionary application with word-of-the-day capability fully packed with definitions, examples, and a selection of related words.” Available worldwide, this application alone earned Ssekalala US$375 000, with most of the application’s downloads coming from Asia.

This seems like an obvious notion, but it’s something that most software developers often forget: the reason that apps such as Ssekalala’s Wordbook become successful is that they fill a human need. As software developers we tend to fall into the trap of trying to write the most complex of applications before thinking about the value they will actually provide to users. Some developers just go ahead and develop software / apps without stopping to think if there’s a demand for them. If you’re a developer, you must recognize that it’s important to identify a real human need before starting to develop software / apps. Some say you should develop apps that solve problems you actually have as you can directly relate to the issue you are trying to solve. Your passion for software / app development must go hand in hand with a desire to fulfil certain needs of the people you hope would use the output of your hard work.

Look at Wordbook as an example. At first glance, it seems strange that a mobile app originating from Africa would gain most of its following in Asia. However, it’s a lot easier to understand why this may have happened if you look at recent trends. There has been a steadily growing demand for English language learning in Asia, particularly for facilitating business deals / contracts. More and more companies, institutions, and individuals in Asian countries like China and Taiwan are realizing that the ability to speak English is a vital asset if they want to succeed in their respective fields. They know that understanding English allows them to be globally competent, enabling them to communicate effectively with American and European associates.

Wordbook isn’t the flashiest or the most sophisticated mobile app out there – it’s a simple, straightforward dictionary app. Sometimes the most trivial or simplest applications can succeed because they fill a human need.

So if you’re an application or software developer, learn from Abdu Ssekalala’s example and develop applications that people would actually find useful and valuable. Finally don’t limit yourself to a local mind-set or a certain geographical market. Ssekalala didn’t restrict himself to making apps only for fellow Ugandans, for instance. With the rise of the app stores, its now easier to deliver your software on a global scale. If you know that there’s a demand for your software or application in other parts of the world, there’s no harm in thinking globally.

RescueTime touts itself as “a personal analytics service that shows you how you spend your time and provides tools to help you be more productive.” In other words, RescueTime studies your computer habits and tells you when you’re slacking off instead of doing what’s important. It’s a really useful and convenient tool that does not require much to set it up – all its analysis work runs in background and it automatically generates the data it gets from observing what you do on your computer. It is primarily targeted towards businesses and professional individuals, but students would find it valuable as well during times when they are studying, writing their academic papers, or researching on the Internet.  Nowadays, there are a lot of social networks and other distracting sites that can make students lose focus.

Many young people do not realize how much time they spend on sites like Facebook and Twitter. For example, even if you only spend about 15 minutes at a time on those sites, if you have multiple 15-minute visits within the day, it’s potentially going to accumulate to a lot of lost time. Students can use RescueTime to find out just how long they spend on non-school-related sites. They can just let RescueTime run in the background while they go on about their usual business on the computer. The software will then measure the time they spend using certain computer programs or browsing a website. After that, it will come up with time graphs, detailed tables, and a list of applications, sites, and other activities the user has spent time on. Students can look at this data and see just how effective they made use of their time.

Moreover, students can use RescueTime to improve their focus. How many times have you promised yourself that you would study for an hour or so before taking a break, only to find yourself getting distracted along the way? Before you know it, you’re putting off work that you promised to do today. Well, using a nice feature called Focus Time, you could set the length of time you want to focus on studying, and during that period, RescueTime will then block access to everything on your list of distracting sites. This will ensure that you stick to your commitment and get more things done, effectively doing away with procrastination.

Of course, everyone has to give themselves some leeway for leisure. Giving yourself a break for some non-work related activities can actually improve productivity, as long as you make sure you don’t end up doing more of these activities than actual work. With RescueTime, students can set a certain amount of time they allow themselves to spend on distracting / non productive sites and activities. For example, you tell yourself that it’s okay for you to spend about 1 hour on Facebook per day. You set your preferences on RescueTime, and then the program will alert you if you are close to reaching, or have already reached, that limit, essentially telling you to go back to work.

It’s important for students to learn how best to manage their time so that they can make the most efficient use of it. RescueTime can help them in this aspect of personal development.

You can get Rescue time from here: Rescue Time website.

 

 

About a month ago Scott Hanselman (former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee) blogged about how he got started in computers and programming. At the end of his interesting blog post he asks his readers “What’s your story?“, basically encouraging readers to share their stories on how they got into computers and programming. I thought I would share my story and hopefully encourage others to blog about their stories too.

I went to primary school in Harare (Zimbabwe), at a government school called Hallingbury Primary school. I enrolled for my Grade 1 to Grade 4 at this school from 1996 to 1999 before I transferred. My memories of the place are minimal except for the distinct colour of the school uniform which was a dark coffee like colour, something I would never wear in public now.

In 1997, when I just started Grade 2, Hallingbury Primary school got its first set of computers installed and created a small computer lab with 4 machines. The school then offered afternoon private computer lessons to students since the lab was so small they could not offer classes to the whole school. My parents signed me up for the afternoon lessons and twice a week I would attend computer classes. If I remember correctly we mainly did typing lessons and played educational games in the first few months, however this gave me a head start over all the students in my Grade that were not doing computer lessons.

A further catalyst was when my dad who was working at Scotfin (former investment management firm) at the time, decided to get us our own home computer. It must have been one of the i486 models, but I could be wrong. This just increased my interest in computers and I was also fortunate to have one accessible to me all the time. As a result I always did well in computer classes and always seemed a notch ahead of my classmates.

I may have been exposed to computers early on, however I only started taking actual programming classes later in high school in 2006. Programming is very different from just knowing the basic skills required to use a computer, so it was difficult to pick it up in the beginning but over time I grew to understand it more.

Computers have become such a huge part of modern day life that most current primary school students have been exposed to computers way earlier than I was. More schools and homes have computers nowadays as it has become commonplace. 15 years on, what I am certain of is I enjoy programming and I’m fascinated by technology.

Thank you to Hallingbury Primary school for introducing computing to students so early on.

Thanks, Dad for bringing a computer into our house.

What’s your story?

A blog post titled “Getting things done” is the last thing I should be writing about given that I haven’t made a post in just over 2 months. Even I was surprised that it has been that long since my last post on the blog, time really waits for no man as they say. The one thing I hoped would never happen when I started this blog was for me to be stuck in writers block (a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work).

I have been involved in a number of small to medium sized projects in recent months and they are partly the reason I have been so busy and unable to give adequate focus to the blog. It only makes sense for me to share the various lessons I have learnt from these projects I have been invoved in.

Start working

The Chinese proverb “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” has become cliché due to its overuse. This may lead to most people not paying much attention to the value of these words. A lot of people have ideas, a lot of people walk around talking about what they want to do, but very few people actually take the first step of execution. Most projects require momentum to get moving and the best way for that to happen is to actually start executing your idea. Once you begin working on something, you have gone past the greatest barrier most people face, which is an inability to start.

Set Deadlines and keep them

Once you have started working on your project, you need to have a  sense of direction in terms of where you want to be at a set future point in time. Setting task deadlines and having the discipline to keep these deadlines becomes key to the success of your project. Your deadlines need to be realistic of course, there is no point setting deadlines that you know from the onset you will not be able to achieve. The inverse is also true, there is no point setting deadlines that you know you will be able to achieve very easily and will leave you sitting with no work to do. It is all about striking the right balance and I believe after doing this a few times it will become relatively simple for you to know what to expect from yourself or your team.

Keep your team small

If you are working in a team for your project, it is wise to keep your team small at the beginning of the project. It is much simpler for a small group of people to understand a shared vision than it is to get a large group of people all driving toward the same shared vision. It is critical that at the beginning of a project everyone understands and is working toward the same vision and mission. Only expand the team size once the project structure has been well defined and you feel it is absolutely necessary to start increasing in size.

Frequent communication

Once again when working in a team it is important to ensure there is frequent communication between team members with regards to anything that affects the state of the project. Communication encourages transparency on what is happening in the project and keeps everyone on board with the current status of the project. A break in communication is one of the first signs of a failed project as people may end up working toward different goals or duplicating work other team members are currently working on.

Team commitment

One of my workmates, a psychologist, once told me that before you carry out any project you should ask yourself what your commitment levels are to get that project completed, on  a scale of 1-10. If your commitment is anything lower than a 7 it is best to leave that project for now and come back to it at a later stage when you feel you can commit more to it. Put simply, it is difficult to achieve something that you are not willing to work hard enough for. We all have other commitments in life aside from the projects we work on, some have, family, work, other more important projects, etc. If you are working in a team for your project, you need to ensure the team members you choose to work with are willing  to commit 7/10 or more to the project else they are going to be dragging the team back. I don’t have to repeat the same old cliché “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” to explain why its important to not include people who are not committed on your project.

Some people have been “Getting things done” for a lot more years than me, and you can never argue with experience, however these are the key lessons I have learnt in the last few months on the projects I have been involved in and I thought I should share.

 

Raise the village, an iPhone app designed by New Charity Era actually helps the population of a poor village in Uganda (Kapir Atiira). The Raise the village app allows customers to build a virtual village from scratch by building huts, schools, crop farms and more. The user also has the ability to buy collection items such as clothing, medical supplies and food.

All of these items help contribute to the game play values of mind, health and spirit of the village. The revolutionary aspect of the app is that every item and task in the game is directly inspired by what these Ugandan villagers need and do every day. For instance, if you direct a village hut to create soap for your villagers within the iPhone game, Charity Era L3C will literally deliver bars of soap to the people of Kapir Atiira.

Raise the Village is currently available on all 3G plus iOS devices including the iPad and iPod Touch for free. Florin is the game’s paid currency and every action performed or item purchased using Florin, Charity Era L3C will deliver that exact item to the Kapir Atiira. Only the items that the people of Kapir Atiira need appear in the game. In other words, just by playing the game and making purchases you’re literally providing aid to this real Ugandan village in need. When items are created using Florin and delivered to Kapir Atiira, the company will send you photos in real time of the aid items being delivered. Bought a few mosquito nets for your digital village? Days later, you’ll get a message from the game containing photos of that same delivery being made to Kapir Atiira.

Players are encouraged to compete with one another and compare their villages’ Spirit, Mind and Health levels as well as maximum population. In order to find friends to play with, you can use both Facebook Connect and your phone’s contact list for that.

While most critics urge people to play less games, the creators behind Raise the Village, New Charity Era, want people to play even more social games. Their goal is to benefit society and to also make people more aware of the conditions fellow humans live under.

Download Raise The Village for free from App Store