Google Access – blocked or a technical glitch?
Seems possible that the government could block it, but more like a technical glitch. Click here for more.

Calling Bangladesh with unlimited time — Vonage offers unlimited worldwide calling, including Bangladesh landlines, under their Call Asia plan. This is for high-volume callers only, mind you! Skype is still the best personal solution, I think, if you have a good enough broadband connection… and that’s a big “if.” Click here for more.

Voice of South reports on the Computer Literacy Program — a good example of how ICT work can influence development. Click here for more.

Things Asian republished an AFP story about Yves Marre, a French-national who is running a floating hospital in Bangladesh.

Wikimapia is alive and well in Bangladesh. I’ll be adding some information here, that’s for sure!!

I am writing to you specifically as you are former NetCorps volunteers of Chinese-Canadian background. We have 3 placements this year in China that have specifically asked for Mandarin speakers and so we are trying to do some targeted recruitment within the Chinese-Canadian community to fill these positions.

If you know of any leads that would be of use where we could advertise (i.e. community newspapers, online groups etc) would you be able to forward us the links? Or if you know of anyone who would be interested in these positions please direct them to our website www.vsocan.org/youth.

Thank Allah it’s over.

While it is true I do say that with a sense of great relief, I also say it without an ounce of regret. As a volunteer, I have truly tested my own selflessness, and with my $250 USD per month salary (which is enough to live on quite comfortably—can you imagine it?), I can safely say that I have contributed my heart and soul—two prized possessions that are free of the economic realities in which the minority world (aka western world) currently toils away.

It has not been easy. Bangladesh–no wait, just Dhaka—is noisy, chaotic, polluted and disgusting. This city is by far one of the worst I have ever experienced and I’m sure its pollutants will be firmly lodged in me for years to come. I recall that in my earliest days, I arrived to a Dhaka that I perceived to be absolutely flooded with beggars. Because it was Ramadan, Dhaka’s streets were filled with countryside migrants searching for the giving that is dictated under the direction of Islam. It is debatable whether this giving is sustainable, but that’s another issue. I came to understand what poverty really meant.

Poverty is more complicated than the needy woman’s face. It has underlying causes and effects—forces that are in our power to change, but the change is slow. It is not for a lack of industriousness that so many people in Bangladesh suffer, nor is it a lack of creativity, ingenuity or even passion. No, it is for a choice of opportunity that Bangladeshis hunger—and that is something that still is in my power to change. I’ve since chosen tourism as a means to do that.

Why?

Because outside Dhaka, I’ve discovered something pure and unexplored. I’ve experienced how the torrential monsoon rains also brings a dearth of delicious and cheap mangos. I’ve learned to see beauty in Bangladesh’s brutality. Most importantly, I’ve found a place—whom some have lovingly referred to as the “Armpit of India” (just look at a map to see what I mean)—that will forge me into the travel writer I’ve dreamt of becoming. My road was meant to the frontiers of travel.

But back to development. I have also learned that our extraordinary wealth in the West, far removed as it may seem, is completely tied to the current world economic model. My understanding is limited in this regard, so please correct me if I am wrong, but I do firmly believe that financial policies that benefit the West come at great cost and disparity to the majority world. In other words, our extraordinary wealth comes with staggering human cost, and we in North America grow fat with the innumerable desires our lifestyle provides. Certainly, the fault belongs with no one. However, responsibility for the relentless pursuit of change lies with us all.

Working in development has also raised similarly thorny issues in my heart. On one hand I have now witnessed the expenditure of millions of dollars, all in the name of change, progress and development. But because development is not firmly regulated by principles of efficiency and profit, I have witnessed some mightily poor execution of development projects (not naming names here, but let me say that VSO’s ethos is far better than some other organizations I have come across). The bottom line is this: the inefficiency of our enterprise is absolutely staggering. But that’s the nature of the beast.

At the level of my own work, I have discovered that the digital divide is in fact a widening chasm: ICT knowledge among development organizations, both international AND local, lags farther and farther behind. For the great majority of my time in Bangladesh, I feel like I’ve been been putting out ICT fires, far more than I’ve created systemic and long-lasting change.

But on the other hand, looking outside ICT, I have now been imbued with a sense of how unjust our world truly is, and how the people who work in this field are motivated by passion, creativity and the desire for change. This force is significant, and steadfastly opposed the pursuit of the almighty taka/dollar/baht/kuai.

I feel, in the deepest reaches of my heart, that poverty is a disgusting dark blight on our humanity that I simply cannot ignore. I urge any of you reading this far to look deeper at your own lives for what is truly important, and consider an experience like mine one day. It has been a journey I will never forget, despite the misgivings I expressed earlier.

To you, I say the following: let your idealism get you here, and as it inevitably fades, let your passion maintain you through the experience. The change I’ve felt in me has been great, despite the fact the change has not always been mirrored in the environment around me. But it’s coming.

My future is uncertain for the time being, but perhaps in next month’s update, things will be clearer. I have decided to pursue what I will call, for now at least, “tourism development.” My vision is a form of travel that highly stresses the positive impact it has on preserving unique cultures and protecting precious environments, both of which are often left to decay under the corrosive effects of corruption.

My invitation to visit is still open. Please, *please* do not let the international headlines (gee, let me see here: floods, poverty, riots, corruption) sway you from the fact that tourism is valuable force for change in our world. The great majority of you have travelled with me before, and you must know that I wouldn’t live here it there wasn’t something positive, fun and enjoyable (plus tasty and alcoholic!) about being here in Bangladesh. Just tell me if/when you can come, and I promise you an intense and eye-opening experience few in the world today claim to have.

Until next time,
Mikey

I’ve just brought a friend’s Mac OSX computer online using the Grameen’s EDGE service, although she was having a bit of trouble configuring it and hasn’t been able to get it online now for a few weeks. Now I assume she’ll be able to use the service all over Bangladesh, although the quality (ie bandwidth) of the service is yet to be determined. Grameen recently passed 10 million subscribers in November. Needless to say your bandwidth connection will be squeezed in with a LOT of other people. Such is the reality of internet service in Bangladesh.

I took a look and she was missing one key thing—scripts that properly configure her mobile phone to connect with Grameen’s service. In particular, she had not entered the correct APN into the phone number field. I suspect that other users out there might be experiencing similar issues.

As a result, I’ve written up a document providing some key links and instructions for users on my wiki site.

If any users out there have experiences with Grameen’s bandwidth around Bangladesh, I would like to hear what you think of the service before I consider purchasing it myself..

These instructions courtesy Precise Security:
1. Temporarily Disable USB Drive to autorun (Windows XP):

a. Open Windows Explorer or press the Windows + “e” key.
b. Right-click the drive of the USB Drive. Then select Properties. Drive Properties will appear.
c. Select the AutoPlay tab.
d. Choose Select an Action to Perform
e. At the bottom of the selection, click Take no Action, then click Apply.
f. Click OK to exit Drive Properties.

2. Show Hidden Files
a. Open Windows Explorer
b. Go to Tools > Options
c. On View tab, mark Checked the “Show Hidden Files and Folders and “Hide Protected OPerating System Files” Unchecked.

3. Delete the files manually
a. Go the USB Drive and delete autorun.inf
b. Go to C: Drive and delete autorun.inf
c. Go to C:\Windows and delete Disk Knight.exe

4. Modify Windows Registry
a. Go to Start > Run then type regedit
b. On Registry Editor, go to Edit > Find and type “knight”
c. Delete all entries it found.

5. Connect to Internet and update your AntiVirus

6. Reboot your computer in SafeMode
a. During BootUp process Press F8 continuously until selection appears
b. Use Arrow Up+Down to select SafeMode on the selections menu.
c. Hit Enter to proceed.

7. Scan your computer with an updated AntiVirus and delete all infections it founds.

Note: You may enable autorun of the USB Drive by reversing the process in Step 1.

**From August 7, 2007:**
Several users in my network are complaining about “Disk Knight,” a new program that was created by a 19-year-old in Chittagong named Ariful Islam. I used to have a link to his site here, with removal instructions, but it seems to have disappeared.

The program is meant to stop virus processes originating from USB flash disks, however, its virus like behaviour means that it is now spreading uncontrollably on computers around Bangladesh via users’ USB disks—a real nuisance for IT administrators like myself.

Users with more computer knowledge will be able to remove DiskKnight from their computers and flash disks following my instructions, however, I have already submitted samples of the file to our virus protection vendor Sophos as I’d rather not have some program stopping every process on my computer, including the useful ones! While I appreciate Mr. Islam’s wish to help the community deal with viruses, it is my belief the best approach is to educate users to protect themselves.

I’ve started using Wordpress as a content-management system (CMS), and it has dramatically improved my website turnover. More importantly, the organizations benefit from self-content management, as these organizations can begin using the CMS tools packaged with Wordpress to begin releasing news and information about their work.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the quality of their communications will increase, especially if they had no devoted capacity to do external communication work it in the first place, but let’s compare against some of the major International NGO sites in Bangladesh:

• DfID Bangladesh (it’s absolutely terrible!)
• ActionAid Bangladesh (more up to date but suffering from something as simple as bad navigation)
• VSO Bangladesh (we don’t even have one, I’m embarassed to say)
• CARE Bangladesh is the only one that stands out from the crowd. Although the site provides a lot more information about CARE’s work, it still suffers from some design issues such as misshapen photography and inconsistent navigation—plus most of their pages still use static HTML! (So was I a few months ago, as I hadn’t done web programming for years already), but that’s why I’m writing about revelations today.

It is apparent that few of the local offices of the major International NGOs in Bangladesh commit any resources to communicating on the Internet, which is a shame because it is my belief that grassroots voices are the ones that need the most promotion. The internet’s communications tools provide this capability this extremely easily and cheaply.

Compared against some of my latest work on Wordpress (the content on these sites isn’t ready yet—but the point of this blog is that I don’t have to put the content on myself—the local staff can):

• Ashar Alo Society, Dhaka
• Gram Bikash Kendra, Dinajpur

Again, using a customized Wordpress engine circumvents these issues of inconsistency and provides for a much better user experience, which results in greater professionalism and hence, more ability to attract donor funds. Kudos to the folks at Wordpress for empowering us this way.

For the techies out there, here is some more knowledge: Currently I’m using Dreamhost as my web-hosting service, as Dreamhost provides a one-click installation of a Wordpress blog with a set of ready-to-customize themes. I don’t even muck around with the database installations or configurations—the folks at Dreamhost have taken care of it all.

Some of the packaged themes even use drop-down or pop-out menus, which in my view is one of the best ways to set up a navigation menu, given the SEO benefits and “coolness” of a pop-out CSS menu.

Any other thoughts from the greater web-building audience? I appreciate any advice as I’m trying to improve my skills here too..

**Update:

Here are a few other links for the major I/NGOs and development actors in Bangladesh:

• Concern Universal and Concern Worldwide’s Bangladesh site.
• CIDA’s Bangladesh Site

I will keep adding more as I find them… mainly because I might be looking for a new job soon!!

Today, however, a friend sent me an interesting link: an initiative called Kiva, in its second year of operation, is asking individuals to lend to poor people directly in developing countries, making it possible that you and I, the ordinary public, can also become “bankers to the poor.”

Their site, Kiva.org uses the international-standard internet payment gateway Paypal to collect money from individual donors and pass it to the entrepreneurs that those lenders choose to support.

There are a few middlemen in the process: Besides Kiva, there is a network of field partners responsible for disbursing and collecting money lent to entrepreneurs and then providing status updates on how the loan’s progress. Kiva says it has chosen this network of almost 60 partners carefully on the basis of transparency, due diligence and previous history.

There is one partner in Bangladesh so far, the Annesha Foundation, although they are currently listed as a new partner and have not received any loans from Kiva as of yet. I’ll be watching closely to track their progress…

Overall, I think it’s a great initiative. By harnessing the power of internet payment gateways to directly fund individual entpreneurs in poor countries, we are using the full capabilities of Internet technology available today to directly change the lives of those who need help. The less middle men, the better.

From SSS’ website (which is very basic and badly in need of an upgrade!):

With a very high density of river systems, large parts of Bangladesh remain submerged during five months of monsoon. Millions of people living in river basins lack basic facilities like electricity and telephone service because development has been concentrated around paved roads.

Rivers are vital to local farming, but farming methods and agricultural runoff take their toll on the health of the rivers, and the rivers make it difficult to reach villagers with information and education, which has negatively impacted the health and livelihoods of thousands of fishermen cum farmers.

With roads impassable during the monsoon, students cannot go to school. If the children cannot come to the school for lack of transportation, then the school should come to them.

I heard about their initiative via a relatively new organization called Voice of South. Started in June, VOS, in their own words are “an online platform for South Asian community development. The platform will focus on community development issues, problems, success stories and case studies. We will disseminate & share these stories among South Asian journalists, civil societies, development stake holders and policy makers.”

..sounds good to me! It’s an ambitious mission for VOS, and as they are new, please have a read and consider subscribing yourself.

Greetings from a hot and steamy land—and not in a very sexy way (sorry for the misleading headline). Bathing in my own perspiration is not really my idea of fun.

I’m in Parbatipur, a backwater town of Northwestern Bangladesh whose only claim to fame is that is a major railway junction for the surrounding area (ie, I’m in the middle of nowhere, by most standards). Other than the railway station there is a multi-acre fisheries facility, and a few hundred mud and tin homes spread around the innumerable fields. The pace is much slower here, truly timeless. Instead of the rot and the floods of a wet Dhaka day, I walk past goats and cows and furry little sheep on my way to work.

Even after nine months, I am still completely amazed how life here is often lived at the mercy of some extraordinarily violent weather. In Canada, I grew up under the dry extremes of -30ºC to +30ºC temperatures, but in Bangladesh the extreme is of the “soaking wet” variety.

Most of you know of Bangladesh because of its incredible flooding rather than say, its extremely friendly culture or its beautiful rural landscapes. Some of you maybe even heard about mudslides that killed 130 people two weeks ago in Chittagong. But what most of you may not know is why this flooding happens: during the monsoon season, airborne moisture from the Bay of Bengal accumulates as it heads northward towards the wall that is the Himalayan mountain range. The buildup results in great droves of driving rain, sometimes arriving horizontally when backed by monsoonal winds. All of it causes serious havoc to human inhabitants below.

During a monsoonal rain, life comes to an absolute standstill, especially in Bangladesh’s crowded cities. Because of a lack of a decent drainage systems (which is a result of a lack of planning, which in turn is a result of bad governance), Dhaka’s broad avenues become incredible rivers littered with stopped vehicles, whose engines cannot tolerate the sometimes waist-high waters.

Fortunately, I’m not mired in that mess at the moment. I’m enjoying the calmer confines of Northwest Bangladesh, also known as Golden Bengal, for some more ICT development work—this time I’m installing a Wordpress-based website for Gram Bikash Kendra, or ‘Village Development Center,’ whose work it is to assist in the development of the poorest people of the northwest, including the indigenous people of the area.

While they’re training indigenous farmers on the intricacies of pig and rabbit-raising, I’m busy training them to use the features of Wordpress’ content-management system. Like I’ve said before my work doesn’t suffer from a lack of idiosyncracies, but it still does suffer from a serious lack of electricity! I will post a link to the site when it comes online.

After traipsing around on the internet, I found a set of beautiful and easy-to-understand logos created by some folks in Brazil to represent the MDGs. After repurposing them for English, I thought I should make them available for the rest of the world.

Feel free to use the badge I’ve created here, and you can also download a fully-editable EPS copy of the badge here.

Seeing as I’m a VSO volunteer in Bangladesh, if you require further tweaking of these designs for your own purposes, feel free to send me a note and I’ll see what I can do.. (mikeyleung DOT ca AT gmail DOT com).

The original source of these files resides here:
http://www.nospodemos.org.br/downloads.htm