Awards: Making sense out of them!!

The Ashden Awards for sustainable energy list is out - and am happy that one of the companies we partner with Toughstuff International - Won an award for their solar kits that light up Africa.



We share an office with a gentleman from LGT Venture Philanthropy and he had an interesting perspective to such awards that I found very interesting coming in from an Investor's perspective.


"People who run such awards need to stop focusing on products entirely - however fancy and cool they may look and start focusing on how those products actually do impact the people at the last mile." - He said.

How does your product get to a family deep in the village who needs it badly and create such change and impact in society?

It is one thing coming up with the most fancy product on the market, and I have seen pitches of so many energy efficient products on the market, everyone seems to be coming up with a solution to 'save Africa' and so they keep sending those down.

Question is, who in this cycle gives the right feedback to the manufacturers of these products?

Awards like the Ashden Awards I would think should focus more on how much impact these products are putting across and what the feedback is from real people who use the products, so for instance If I was an investor that is the feedback I would want to know.

We need to see a shift from just awarding products but also awarding models that bring these products to the actual people who need them.

Organisations like Solar Sister, living goods, livelyhood - are some of the examples of companies that do the last mile distribution - How does the product get to the last mile - where it is needed the most!

Forget the fancy designs, the cool presentations, what you need is the feedback and last mile distribution of these products where they make more sense and impact to the community.

I would love to see this shift happen in the future and we can happily celebrate the awards that touch real people, with real solutions and greater impact to society.

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Creating my Vision Board

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." - Proverbs 29:18: This is a verse in the Bible that I love so much.

I believe that every single person who is serious about their life needs to have a vision, we need to live with a purpose that fully determines our future.

I have been running an online journal where I write about all things me. I like to write down things about what I want for the future, what my goals are, both short and long term goals, what I envision my family to be, what am ambitions are, and I set the bar so high because I believe I can attain all dreams if I put my mind to it! Remember our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are strong beyond measure!

Over time, I keep checking on my secret journal to see what I wrote down a long time a go , and I get amazed at how things that I believed would happen actually did happen without me noticing. Yes there is power in the tongue - and I like to speak out things that I believe I can achieve - even those that I don't think I can achieve.

So yesterday, I took some time off to create my vision board! Am a visual person, so I like to see things in pictures to put them in perspective:
A vision board in simple terms is a place where you write down your goals and aspirations in a place where you can see, so that you get reminded of them and keep working on achieving them.

Most vision boards have pictures on them, this helps you visualize your goals and work towards achieving them.

I used part of my online journal to complete this, I looked at the aspects of my life that am passionate about and looked for pictures that represent those items.

I have both short and long term goals on this board, for instance, attaining financial freedom, my dream car, my dream holiday destination, dreams for my businesses in future, my dream family, plans for my health and fitness to mention but a few.

So here is the process if you want to create your own vision board: Think about aspects of your life that you want to attain great success, it could be in your academics, in your family, businesses, career, dream destinations, whatever.

Second step is go to the Internet and look for pictures that represent those aspects, for instance if you are into fitness, look for a person you admire most and want to attain the same fitness, for my case, I would say I love Kelly Rowland's body and I just want to be as fully toned up as she is and look sexy in dresses - so I searched for her photos and got one amazing one!

Once you have all your photos in place, use a color printer and print them out - you might want to use smaller pictures so that you can fit them all on your board.

Write out words that match each picture, and cut those out properly too, these will be used later on your vision board.

Get a vision board itself. There are small boards that are sold in different stationery shops, in Uganda, I saw a couple on Nassar Road, but I bought mine at Aristoc - they have nice ones that you can get at a reasonable price, you should also buy some colorful pins, they have these at Aristoc too, these will help you pin up everything together.

Once we have everything we need, now is the time to create our collage, arrange your pictures on the board, with the pictures that mean the most to you on the center of your board! Stick your pictures on the board plus the writings using the pins!

Voila! And we are done, all that is left is to hang your board close to where you can see it every morning or all the time, to remind you of the goals and dreams you need to attain.

I loved the process when I was making mine, and I thought I should share some tips with you.

Here is an example of a random Desktop VISION BOARD - take a look! Have fun creating yours!

Desktop Vision Board!!

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Energy poverty - Where does the answer lie?

A quarter of the world's population - which is 1.6 billion people do not have access to reliable electricity worldwide today! This is a huge number, right?

In Uganda today, according to a report submitted by UNESCO "Overall, only 9 percent of Uganda’s population is supplied with grid electricity (20 percent in urban areas compared to only 3 percent in rural areas), and 70 percent of these customers reside in the three major towns of Kampala, Entebbe and Jinja."

The challenges that we face today because of this huge problem are diverse, I mean think about 9%, just 9% of the entire country's population is supplied by the grid.
When I go back home to the village to visit my grand parents once in a while, I see this as evident.

In a small village in Mbarara District, Rwobuyenge where my grand parents stay you can hardly see any grid lines of electricity, there is no infrastructure set out to cover the place, so possibly no hope for them to ever get any light in their households - in the near future!

Much as I have moved around most villages in Uganda to see evidently how people suffer from Energy poverty, I did not have anything to compare our situation with! This year however I had a chance to travel and visit Nigeria, the country I love so much for so many reasons!
The realities of what I found in Nigeria regarding energy poverty are similar or even worse than what we face in Uganda - every homestead owns a generator set!
Now before you think this is an exaggeration, picture this! Am at a salon having my hair done and suddenly electricity goes, - In just minutes after that, the entire shopping mall where this salon is, turned on their generator sets! Every salon with it's own set, every shop with it's own set!

When I think about all of this, one thing comes to mind, how does this affect our environment?
The pollution that goes on everyday, the dirty air that captures your nose when you hit the city due to all these fumes generated from the generator sets - is just one tip of the iceberg!

People in the villages where there is no Infrastructure at all suffer the most from Energy poverty - households spend about 40% of their income on buying of kerosene, candles, matchboxes, replacements of broken lamps, to mention but a few.

When we think about the fumes that are being inhaled day in day out, with the women at the center of this problem because women spend most of their time in the kitchen, either fixing a meal for the family, or doing household chores, their lives are so much at risk!

Women are at the center of this energy poverty problem - Inhaling of fumes!

Smoking causes cancer, they say! Many people think that this does not affect them, since they do not smoke cigarettes, but the reality is, a woman in the village who spends most of her time in the kitchen inhaling all the fumes from the kerosene lamps or candles probably is equivalent to a person who smokes 2 packets of cigarettes a day! We smoke these fumes day in day out, exposing our lungs to cancer, and eye sight is affected too!

What about the environment? - How is it affected? So many trees are being cut down to extend the infrastructure to different townships, these logs of trees being cut down everyday are part of the environment that we so badly want to protect! Count how many trees have been destroyed to have homes connected to the grid!

Pollution from the fumes, the noisy generator sets, when power goes off, it all affects our environment!

So where does the answer lie?

Is the solution with centralized Infrastructure or Distributed energy? If we look at Africa as a whole, I deeply feel that the answer to this energy poverty lies in using Distributed energy, and by this I mean Solar technology and the different renewable energy sources!

Centralized Infrastructure vs Distributed alternatives!

Infrastructure shouldn't be a hold up as to why people in the villages shouldn't have access to lighting in their homesteads, if we wait for this, I think we have a long way to go - to reach the most impacted lives that are in the villages.

Countries like Uganda are lucky that we have taxes on solar products being reduced to about 50% - this even makes it cheaper for people to access this kind of energy whenever they need it!

There are also handy cheaper solar products like the ones Solar Sister distributes to villages using our last mile distribution channels, and teams of enthusiastic Solar Sister Entrepreneurs, so definitely - these solutions should be put out there and focused on a lot more.

Somebody is going to have to distribute these alternatives - that person is Solar Sister!

My hope is to see that we all conserve our environment, and be responsible with actions that we take that might result in affecting our environment and climate change.

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Adios .... Africans Nations Cup 2012

It felt like a nightmare, one that you go to sleep and hope that when you wake up everything will be different! But that is a tale every football fanatic goes through day in day out. You get bad days and you have beautiful days, and that is the reason we love the sport!

The scoreline that never changed!

34 years of drought and still counting is the fate of Uganda Cranes as the Harambee stars denied us the chance to end the drought since we last took part in the Africa Nations Cup Final when we lost out to Ghana.

It was devastating to say the least, a team that has worked so hard to come this far, fans that have come out in numerous numbers every match to support us, it all ended on 8th October 2011, a day I will live to remember!

With Soccer, we normally love to reflect and focus on what went wrong, we were by far the better team, we played with too much tenacity, but I will point out we still lack a great finish! In football - unfortunately, it is not much about how much great display you bring out in the field - Ask Arsenal FC, it is about the final score board.

Decisions that the Football federations made 24 hours before the Nation's crucial match will always haunt us! Choosing to let David Obua out of the camp moments away from what was supposed to be history for us and the best present for the 49th Independence Day will have us always biased on their administrative abilities.

Indiscipline charges? - In any sporting event, and I follow Soccer closely, if there is such a charge, they will let a player play and then after that, have a board to hear the player's side and the one's accusing him, and if found guilty, a penalty is decided by the board, - but such a drastic measure of letting one of the best player off the camp will still haunt us!

Am not saying if Obua had played the final score line could be different, but then again, who knows at this point?

Bottomline, we lost a crucial match, we can blame it on Mulindwa, the president visiting the camp, or even the rain that gave us blessings moments before the match, or even the Government officials who showed up in big numbers to support the match, I mean we can blame anything, but it was painful to watch.

With Obua vowing not to play for Uganda Cranes again, as read in the Daily Monitor, we can only wait and see if this team will go back to the drawing board and prepare adequately for the 2013 African Nation's Cup in South Africa.

The wait is still on... and we will patiently wait, because we love Uganda Cranes, and we believe we have come so far!

I came out, I watched, I supported, I went home devastated, but don't worry much about me, it seems to be my recent tale since my English Premier League team Arsenal hasn't been giving me moments of joy of late!

I will be there when we qualify one day, and I will stand and proudly say - I am UGANDAN.

How I captured the moment below!

Showing my full support!

Paint my face, Black, yellow, red!

Myself and Javie, looking great!

Well.. I guess not, the wait is still on!

Line up of Uganda Cranes and Harambee Stars!

National pride, stadium painted, Black, Yellow, Red!!

Frustration piling up! We needed a goal :-(

Fans filled up the stadium!

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Why I hate the new facebook layout

Mark Zukerberg and Company are having a lot of fun rolling out their new fancy changes to Facebook, I know, it might seem super exciting to them but to some of us, some of the changes are more frustrating than fan.



Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer - Facebook, Inc. unveiled the new features at the F8 developers conference in San Francisco Thursday.

I believe many of us have woken up to opening our Facebook pages and seeing all these changes, the bigger photo displays, arranging friends in groups - also known as lists [Thanks to Google Plus's Circle idea], Top stories / Recent Stories arranged for you on your home feed - [Remember not the top stories that you think should be top, but what Facebook calls a top story], and then the Ticker - [You should have seen some news feed on the right hand corner of your page, that shows real time updates from all your friends]..

Where do I start?

The Good:

LISTS:

Should I give credit to Facebook or Google Plus? I think Google Plus take the credit for coming up with the Circle innovation, where by I have the right to group my friends in categories, my nerd friends, my 'hi' friends, my family, my workmates, stalkers etc.., Facebook has also brought up the same innovation and they call it lists, now you can list up your friends in different categories and I hope post to only those people, if you have something to tell that particular group - Kudos.

The Bad:

There is simply too much going on, whatever happened to simplicity! It's like waking up and suddenly everything is changed and you have to learn using Facebook all over again.

One thing I hate is that it takes away the power of feeling that I own my page, we are constantly reminded that some top engineers own our pages and they decide how they want 'my profile' to look like over night, - I mean come on! It is like telling me, I hate the dress you have on, am gonna change it for you right now!

People to subscribe to??? - Anybody seen that? what the hell is that? I thought I had to first approve people to see my posts or allow them to be my friends before I can see their posts, now we see random faces popping up and I can subscribe to someone's posts without being their friends - what happened to privacy?

Top Stories / Recent Stories - Now appear on my home page, - I already complained about this, I know I can choose to hide a story if I don't need it to show up, but why does Facebook decide for me, which is a top story? I should make my own layout based on how I want my page to look like!

The Ugly

Ticker - yea, I know many people have mixed feeling about this one, if you are wondering what the ticker is, this is the new news feed that shows up on the top right corner of your page once you log in to your profile. Yes now you have a daily report of what your 402 friends [in my case] are doing in real time.

Ok I like bits of this but hate most of it - I like that when the updates come, with just one click I can check what someone is posting, and I can comment, or share a video without leaving my page, so that is good.

Here is my problem with the Ticker, I do not want to know what each of my 402 friends are doing all the time, I mean some friends we just add because the pop up bugs us a lot "Add as friend" so we don't really care about all the 402 friends we have. So why do I have to constantly receive updates from everybody? - If Facebook can put lists for these, such that I choose a list and enable a ticker for that list - perhaps that would be fancier for me.

Another thing, privacy is lost, everytime I comment on any body's post, everyone gets to know. I don't need to know why my boyfriend commented on some chic's photo - with a disturbing comment which comes to me in real time. Now we can't stalk people's profiles anymore, the other day a friend sent me text after I commented on someone's post that "Oh, now I know where you stalk this dude from, Facebook reported you when you commented on his post". There you go!

Am waiting for the Timeline to take effect, this is where your entire profile will change, instead of being a wall with tabs, your profile is now called “timeline” – a way to tell the story of your life on a single page.

Scroll down the timeline page year by year and see the stories of your life as uploaded to Facebook in chronological order – like an incredibly well organized digital scrapbook. - I don't know how I feel about that!

All in all, what I can say is that Social media and social networking is evolving by the day, but we have to remember to keep it simple. One reason why I love twitter so much is the simplicity, keep it simple - express yourself in 140 characters and let the fun begin.

That said, you can not please everybody, I believe with in no time, many people will be used to the new Facebook and use it normally, I may bow out at some point but I still have options in Google plus, and my first love twitter!

Depending on what you use social networking for, it is good to know what social media you want to use, or what is relevant to you in terms of business, work, or pleasure.

Happy Facebooking! :-)

Just my 2 cents!

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