Diary of an African Software Engineer / Entrepreneur.
www.twitter.com/mambenanje
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Random Posts About Me And AfroVisioN
Saturday, November 22, 2008
My Presentation At The University of Buea For Brain Trust Competition
I was happy to be invited to talk about AfroVisioN Group to all the first class students at the University of Buea. They have to be inspired and motivated to start creating their own business' after school or while in school.
I told them who I was, my age and how I started AfroVisioN Group in 2006, and all our achievements (GCE results, Ubstudents.com, portfolio ) and how we have cut down cost of professional websites in Cameroon and put the most competitive price in the market. They were amazed when I told them we plan to build 1000 websites for NGOs, CIGs, SMEs and schools in Cameroon by the end of 2009.
check out the slideshow below and you might get a summary of how the presentation went through.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
My Meeting With Dr. Mamouda Of The University Of Buea
On Tuesday I got a call from Billzimmerman(www.27months.com) telling me I will have to present the next day(yesterday-wednesday 19 Nov 2008) to students of the University of Buea for their Brain Trust inter university competition which is centered around business creation. So I went there and met other Young entrepreneurs here in Buea and we had to do fast preparation in just 24hrs ;) but the outcome was perfect( leaving that for another post with pictures).
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Fuh Bright Afangwei: hopes for a bright future, not insight?
The parents whose monthly income can be estimated at 25000 FRS CFA ($50) instantly took their first son in quest of a proper diagnosis.
After criss-crossing a numbers of health centres in the small locality of Bafut where they lived, the boy was later referred to Acha Annex in Bafoussam, a Hospital reputed for treating relatively complicated eye problems..."
Friday, November 14, 2008
Mambe Nanje Churchill On The Spotlight
http://www.27months.com/2008/11/focus-on-cameroon-ict-entrepreneurs-part-2/
Monday, October 20, 2008
What I think So Far About Information Technology in Buea - Cameroon
Buea is fast becoming a hub for information and communicatin technology (computers, software,internet) in Cameroon. This is due to an increase in the number of small business startups dealing in Information Technology, which leads to an increase in the number of software solutions at lower costs than Douala and Yaounde (alot of competition just like MTN, Orange and Camtel).
AfroVisioN Group (www.afrovisiongroup.com ) being a leader in this sector has decided to train more young, dynamic and talented Cameroonians to join in serving these rising number of clients. I see this as an opportunity for Cameroonians to get trained and get certified and finaly work for AfroVisioN Group which has a rich client base and an increasing number of clients in Cameroon, and alot of offshoring projects from partners in France and Swiss. I think Cameroonians abroad who understand the importance of Information Technology skills like Java, C#, PHP, MySql, Oracle and DHTML should advice their brothers back home to come learn how to build solutions like www.executiveasset.com www.openuandi.com and help us improve the services on www.ubstudents.com. At the same time also improve their standard of living while attending university or better yet have a steady source of income. Some how this might help us against the "Brain Drain" dilema.
I am in the process of doing my part please help me spread the word, for more information click here
or visit www.afrovisiongroup.com/training
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Updates on AfroVisioN Group's One Website for Every Cameroonian
We have added a couple of businesses to the scheme but this one caught my attention, its a site we built for a business consultancy agency here in buea - U and I business consultancy hosted and www.openuandi.com .
The client is happy to have had his business represented on the web and the pricing is comfortable. We are looking forward to more businesses signing up to this our on going scheme with about 18+ websites since launch.
Screen shot
The pic below is a screenshot of the home page of U AND I CONSULTANCY'S WEBSITE. click on it to view the site and remember its under the " one website for every cameroonian SME and citizen scheme
Sunday, September 14, 2008
My Meeting With Ongola Boy a.k.a Willy Manga
Willy Manga is the Computer Lab Admin at "College Liberman - Douala"- I wonder if thats the right spelling ;) .
I told him about some projects AfroVisioN Group is going to release into the Cameroonian market in the sector of Information Technology Education and Awareness, especially amongst the youths and he was very much interested. Some of the projects are the ones I posted(http://mambenanje.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-meeting-in-douala-with-etum-africa-2.html when I had a meeting with Etum of africa2point0.com .
I was amazed when Willy Manga told me about his projects with Cops fm or so, and what he is doing with secondary school students in his lab on linux platform. anyway check out our pictures below.
In the pictures we were in a taxi in buea heading to Mid Way restaurant
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
some random pictures
check out the pictures below and you might know what has been happening with me:
Below: Ghislain Kamgang(Cameroonian in Paris, France) paid us a visit at AfroVisioN Group while we were working on our new corporate website so we had to take a look at it together
Below: Ghislain and the brother Sorel (Cameroonian in Germany) were with us yesterday and we had to analyse AfroVisioN Group's new website.
Below: Ghislain while he was explaining some software development concepts to AfroVisioN Group developers during his visit
Below: I was walking the streets of Buea with a laptop behind me, and I decided to get the look and feel of the whole scenario
Below: Enstine (www.enstine.net) came to AfroVisioN Office and he was asking Valery (Software developer - AfroVisioN Group) some questions about an enterprise software we were building in C#
Below: I had a meeting with Enstine and it was fun. Its always fun when I meet with software developers or geeks
Below: I paid a visit to douala along with Wenie (my gf) and we were with FEE and Enstine.
let the downloading begin - Google Chrome
I cant wait to download and test chrome for the mean time I like the look from the pictures
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Active Records VS Traditional SQL For Fast Web Development
Now let me explain with an example:
if I want to get everything in a table of users I will code it like this with php and normal sql:
//construct the sql
$sql="select * from users order by dateregistered desc";
//execute the query ingnoring the errors
$result=@mysql_query($sql);
/// now fetch
while($record=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
echo "username: ".$record['name']."
";
}
Thats realy boring imagine handling all the errors everytime you perform a query. I can't remember the last time I wrote codes like that. Imagine coding a solution as big as twitter and u have to write such codes.
Now lets do it with active records
//instantiate the active records database class
$db=new activeRecordsDB(array('host'=>'localhost','username'=>'root','password=>'passwod'));
//order the query by date registered
$db->orderby('dateregistered','desc');
//execute the query
$records=$db->get('users');
//loop through the records
foreach($records->result() as $user){
echo "name: ". $user->name;
}
This is how you add WHERE, LIKE condition statements using active records
/instantiate the active records database class
$db=new activeRecordsDB(array('host'=>'localhost','username'=>'root','password=>'passwod'));
//add a where clause
$db->where('name','%churchill%');
//or add a like clause
$db->like('website','%afrovisiongroup.com%');
//order the query by date registered
$db->orderby('dateregistered','desc');
//execute the query
$records=$db->get('users');
//loop through the records
foreach($records->result() as $user){
echo "name: ". $user->name;
}
With active records we have more readable codes and easy to understand and work on with other developers in a team. Nowadays I work with projects with guys in different geographical locations, with active records our codes are easy to comprehend.
There are more advanced implementations of active records in Java, .NET, PHP , ruby on rails , etc. but what i wrote here is just an understanding of how active records makes web development very very fast and smooth.
Active records information can be read from wikipedia following this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_record
AfroVisioN Group Information Technology Training
AfroVisioN Group, a leader in software and web development services in Cameroon, is a young and fast growing firm in Buea - Cameroon with a vast portfolio of clients in Cameroon, Africa, Europe and USA.
AfroVisioN's client base is growing at a very fast rate and we are in need of young and dynamic cameroonians who will get trained and subsequently work for us. We need people who are interested in the following fields of study:
Computer Science
Accounting
Journalism and Mass Communication
And they will get trained in one of the following programs within 3 -5 months:
web development
software development
database administration and computerized accounting
graphic design and multimedia presentation
computer systems engineering(maintenance and networking)
online news writing and blogging.
Note: the training offer is limited to 8 students per course, we are not going to do a great deal of marketing because we need a small number of students which we are sure we can train adequately, which implies its a limited opportunity so the smart will be able to harvest it. If you are abroad and you have a brother or sister back home, you should advice them to come get these required skills or if you are a student or graduate you will be needing these skills. Here is an opportunity for you to get trained then empower yourself to work while your still a youngman.
For more information about the training visit www.afrovisiongroup.com/training then contact us via www.afrovisiongroup.com/contacts.php
or call the following numbers:
33011349
75692209
77960280
if you are interested in the porfolio of AfroVisioN Group you can checkout www.executiveasset.com www.africa2point0.com , www.bushfalling.com , www.afriplay.tv , www.ubstudents.com or just visit www.afrovisiongroup.com/projects.php
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Google Adsense shows on Microsoft's live.com search
What amazed me is the fact that Ads by google appeared right on the Microsoft Search engine.
So has Microsoft accepted Google as king and decided to include the famous 'ads by Google' on their search results or Microsoft did not notice that including web pages randomly from many sources on their site could also include google ads.
check the photo below and see where the ads by google appears on http://search.live.com
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
AfroVisioN Group In Partnership Talks with Two Firms In Switzerland
This way the Information technology experience in Molyko, Buea will also increase drastically with soo many young Cameroonains walking around with laptops and talking nothing but php and codeigniter codes, not forgetting Ajax, Flash and doing a lot of new creations in form of computer algorithms for money.
We have been in constant talks with a representative from Switzerland, who is here to do the arrangements and have a tete a tete with us. So far the negotiations are going well and we are working on the first pilot project after which we will work on about 5 projects for them before the end of December2008 or so.
To me outsourcing is one big road to the success of information technology in Cameroon, because our local market is not yet aware of the importance of such solutions. india IT sector had a boom because most US firms were outsourcing to India, so Africa and Cameroon can also get into it that way.
check out the pictures below we took in some of the meetings at AfroVisioN group offices.
The picture below we had a meeting at our developers lounge. Thats where all the www.ubstudents.com and www.executiveasset.com solutions get created and maintained
The picture below is in the same place but now the white guy behind me by the right of the picture is the swiss representative
same location but now i am the one taking the picture so am absent. you can see the AfroVisioN Group Developers, the guys that write one of the best algorithms in Cameroon Information technology space.
we had an online video-audio conference with the swiss guys and I was trying to talk on our partnership with them
this is the skype screen, where we were seeing the swiss guys and talking with them live
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Cameroon GCE Results 2008
I got up from bed today and the radio was sounding
"...the 2008 Cameroon GCE results will be out today. And
the results would/should not be published on the Internet. The results will not be sold in booklets
and to the public only the press and radio will have the rights to buy and publish the
results....The results were posted on the Internet in 2006 to exploit money from the students...".
I am so concerned because, in 2006, we created passgce.com[which is now offline] to host the results on the Internet and the main reason for the website was to sensitize Cameroonian youths on the importance of Information Technology, Computers and the Internet. We bought the results from the GCE board at 220,000FCFA to publish it for free access on the Internet mainly because of the sensitization and future benefits for Cameroonian people and our business.
If the results are posted on the Internet, form five and upper sixth students will be pushed to learn about using computers and the Internet. Because they will like to know how to get their results online. It might be affecting sales of news papers (press issues), but that one can be resolved by partnering with the news papers and not stopping Internet publication. More to that every student can be asked an extra fee of about 100FCFA for their results access online. which means the results will sell more than the press can ever sell their papers ( more revenue for the GCE Board ).
I cant imagine the number of students who would have learned how to use the computer ever since 2006. Usman Mbella, a lower sixth student at Inter Comprehensive High School, Great Soppo, Buea, who became a loyal user of passgce.com talks to me online almost everyday. He keeps asking me to do something about publishing the results online, because their cybercafe revenue increased when the GCE results were published online. Which means the publication of the results online could mean more revenue to the Board and more revenue for cyber cafe owners all over the republic, going a long way to improve their living standards. Most of Mbella's classmates were always asking him to teach them how to use passgce.com so they could know how to get their results when next they are released . The GCE results can greatly increase Internet usage in Cameroon. Nigeria is posting results online and most African countries, but in Cameroon I wonder why its illegal.
Anyway there are some disadvantages having the GCE results on the Internet:
- Errors caused by the programming logic, which might make someone fail while the person made it
- Security: someone might hack into the system and change their results
But these disadvantages don't weigh more than the advancement it will bring to the Cameroonian people in the nearest future.
I personally know that the GCE Results publication on the Internet can employ at least 5 Cameroonian youths which will increase their standards of living and keep them away from scamming or falling bush via [www.bushfalling.com].
What do you think about this our current situation, to me I have no conclusions and I will keep working hard everyday to make the average Cameroonian (student, business man, etc) learn how to use the computer and Internet to make clean money with technology because with no opportunities like this, all they do is fall bush or fall scamming. To see how we have been helping follow this link " AfroVisioN Group's One Website for every Cameroonian at 50,000FCFA per year "
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Google Knol Has Been Launched - My Views
I have some personal views about the product though.... continues after the knol interface picture
My views of Knol:
- The fact that the "write a knol" or something similar to "make a post" button is in green, is a very attractive part of the project. I love it because i think the future is green and most web solutions now don't only take on blue but take on GREEN as a way to make users feel at home on the site. Greener web ;)
- I realise it has more experts writing than anonymous or free writers we have on wikipedia, I wonder if this is an advantage or disadvantage. We shall see with time.
- I realised most of the articles on Knol are related to health or medical studies. Is it knol for the health industry or is it a compliment to Google health or what ?
- My defininition of web 3.0 is an online knowledge base, is knol a web 3.0 solution from Google ?
Well overall I think the knol product and wikipedia will add more value to the world and help many people in their career world wide
Monday, July 21, 2008
How Not to Help Africa
This is an extract from the article that realy caught my attention
In West Africa they describe people who waste money as being “as stupid as a white man.”
In extreme cases, such as the notoriously corrupt Cameroon and Malawi, DFID has partly suspended funding. But why were they given budget support in the first place? Don’t the people at DFID follow the latest corruption scandals in Africa Confidential?
An estimated $2.3 trillion of aid has gone to Africa since 1945 with disappointing results. The World Bank reluctantly concludes time and again in its reports that higher aid often leads to worse bureaucracy and more corruption.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
My Meeting In Douala with Etum - Africa2Point0
We were at 'Belavie' in Akwa, Douala were we had to chill and talk about five project we will be working on together from now till December. I wont talk about the projects, but you will get to read about them with time. Below are the pictures I took
The pic below I was in the car from Buea to Douala
The Pic below we were in a Taxi from Rond Point Deido heading to Belavie Akwa - Douala
Here we are at Belavie Restaurant where the informal meeting took place. I am amazed at the number of things that were born in that location.
Below is a pic of Etum Joel or Africa2point0
After our meeting we met Enstine (www.enstine.net) a web developer in Douala and a friend of mine who was just coming from a business meeting
Afrikeo | version 1.0 up and running
It features:
- news, blogs, classified ads from soo many sources in Africa
- Search for news, blogs, classified
- Suggest an interesting blog, news site or classified ads site in Africa, so we can insert into our indexing machine
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Investing in africa dot net
hope you like it
Google Africa - The blog
Monday, July 14, 2008
seekvice | another startup am working on
Well lets get back to info about seekvice, this is a service I was thinking is needed on earth, where in people with problems go there and post their issues in love, relationships, friendship, education, career, job, computers, information technology, family, marriage, etc and let the world (users, hired experts) give them advice. For example when the service goes live, I will go there and post my problem on adsense which I wrote on this post Adsense not working in Africa , stating my problem and someone out there or a hired expert will see it and give me some advice (vice) which will help me get more revenue from adsense. I work on it along side phebe ( CEO seekvice.com) a business student in the US.
To see more about this solution visit www.seekvice.com and below is a preview of the home page
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Afrikeo | version 0.9 done, up and running
As of now you can view African news, blogs and classified ads from quality sources (as Nino calls it ) and also view from specific countries. So if you want to read news about any african country, Afrikeo is at your service.
the key features:
- news, blogs, classified by country or africa wide. (top right corner of the page)
- search for african news for the past three months and see whats up in africa ( search for mugabe produced 500+ articles in last one month from a few sources
- feed suggestion. If you have an african blog or you know any, dont hesitiate to suggest to Afrikeo, she will analyse it and if its good enough it will be indexed in not more than 24 hours.
Please if you find any problems on afrikeo just get back to me, because its still a work in progress.
below are some screen shots of afrikeo:
below is a view of home page customised only with cameroonian news, blogs and classified
below is a vide of the home page showing all african blogs, news and classified
Below is a demonstration on how to select to view afrikeo by a particular country [ using the country filter at the top right corner ]
below is a view of search results page [ I used mugabe to show number of results that appear ]
below is the feed suggestion form
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Updates On AfroVisioN Group's One Website For Every Cameroonian
We have just hosted the following site for a client and working on a couple of others. What is pushing is the fact that this goes a long way to sensitize business men in Cameroon.
We are currently working on six other websites, which means we are working hard to represent six cameroonian initiatives on the internet.
Damwo CIG (www.damwo.org) - a site representing an organisation fighting for women empowerment. it cost our client 110USD per year to keep this site running.
I will keep posting about the success or failure of this "one website for every cameroonian firm or individual " program launched by AfroVisioN Group and if you need a site visit www.afrovisiongroup.com/contacts.php send us your request and we will host your site in 7 days. At AfroVisioN Grouip, we work hard everyday to improve computer systems awareness in Cameroon and later Africa ;)
Saturday, July 05, 2008
My Interview With Rehbeh Poubom A Law Student In The University Of Buea, Cameroon
below is a picture of him infront of their family house in Buea.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Afrikeo | the new one stop spot for african news and blogs
Thursday, June 26, 2008
My Meeting With Emkal At Midway Restaurant
He told me he was just coming from Mamfe(Manyu Division, South west province, Cameroon), where he went to shoot his new video inside some caves and tropical forest. I asked to view pictures and he showed me a couple which you can view below. After seeing his pictures men I was inspired and I told him we (AfroVisioN Group ) are going to offer him a free web presence (website) as soon as he comes back from Mamfe
I was amazed to see the technology he used to produce his shots, just check out the pictures.
This picture is inside a cave where emkal was trying to shoot a scene
Emkal tryign to get some rest after working the whole day
The African decor is all good and he photoshoped it a little to take it towards painting
Shooting a video with real smoke and sticks to make the hollywood effect: mamfewood :D
Dont go into the wild if you dont expect our wild brothers ;)
Monday, June 23, 2008
Carbon Group Investment Forum on Saturday the 21st of June 2008
Carbon Group is similar to AfroVisioN Group in the sense that the guys are all below 25 years, and they are working on setting up a platform company from which other companies will be growing.
So I attended their investors forum as a potential investor and partner. We will partner with them to handle most of their information infrastructure in terms of web and softwares. But their website will be handled by another Cameoronian firm based in the UK 3klaps (www.3klaps.com).
But we as a local technology king they think they need us on other technical aspects to help them grow wider in the local market.
below are the pictures I took while at the forum or you can view them here on facebook
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24036&l=cf1a0&id=517433359
This is Myself and the Group Founders
I am at the center trying to digest the knowledge the CEO of Carbon Group was dishing
Everybody had to take a picture but the camera failed ;)
Why wont I clap my hands when they are talking nice money making tips
Trying to be keen then the camera takes a faint picture of the moment
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Do you want to be the next Einstein from Africa ?
http://www.nexteinstein.org/
is a place where Africans who want to become the next einstien can go and learn how to do just that. visit the site and you will be amazed.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
One Website For Every Cameroonian
AfroVisioN Group (www.afrovisiongroup.com) - where I am founder and President is a Cameroonian firm dealing with web development, software development and other software related services.
We work hard everyday to introduce computerised systems to the Cameroonian people.
This time around we have launched "one website for every Cameroonian", where we offer websites as low as 50,000FCFA (110USD), to every Cameroonian organisation, firm or individual.
This is because we want to make information technology cheap an affordable by any means possible, we go extra miles and do extra research in cuting down cost and its actually paying off.
To sign up for this scheme, all you have to do is visit www.afrovisiongroup.com/contacts.php , fill the form with all the details or enquiry and in a week or so you will find your own dot com presence like a dream.
Below are sites we have hosted under this scheme or you can view all our projects here www.afrovisiongroup.com/projects.php
www.chillenmuzic.com
www.faafnet.com