We got brains whats our problem?
I keep on asking myself why nobody doesn't seem to find a solution for so many things wrong in our ICT sector. Is it greed(for Service Providers)? Is it fear for the people to speak out.
I wrote once on my first personal website that I wanna be able to browse the internet from my home village in Mzimba. Thanks to Celtel I am able to do that now on my phone though I am still limited to checking a few pages and emails only. Still I wanna browse everything and be able to download software on my laptop when I am there so that my software development isn't limited to location.
High Cost of ICT Services. I wonder why something that somewhere else is very cheap could cost so much here? I don't get it. A domain name. I bought mine about $9 which here is $35 and in Malawi it doesn't matter if it is .org .net or .com. OK at least we gotta promote ourselves but still .mw you get it $50? Are we Malawians so poor to cover the cost of promoting ourselves? Think about the benefits we will get after promoting oursevels. Is that so impossible? Think about about .tk a small Island Tokelau somewhere in the pacific is known world over and I knew about it because they offer their domain free. Of course its a URL redirection but it would allow Victor Kaonga (and me and many others) blog with an identity of a Malawian if we had a free .MW URL redirection to our blog for instance ndagha.blogspot.com(too long) would now be ndagha.mw or at least ndagha.co.mw (as is co.nr and co.cc) and Victor Would be very proud to carry a malawian identity.
My understanding of SDNP as the registrar of . mw would have been the first one to lower the prices and so set a standard on provision of ICT services in Malawi. But despite being a non profit organization they are also trying to compete with other services providers in charging the prohibitive prices. I don't get it? Are they managing to develop ICT in Malawi? How are they justifying their pricing?
Poor service provision. Even though these companies charge so much for their services their services are still so poor that most companies prefer to have their software or other services developed by foreign companies. Money going outside of Malawi. When are we going to stand up and aim high for our nation?
Poor e-commerce facilities. I would like to be able to sell my services outside Malawi through the internet. But how do I get paid for my services? I was hoping pay265.net would materialize into something but I wonder where the good dream has gone(or is it working? I can't use my account).
National Bank allows one to cash credit cards why not allow me to receive money paid through credit cards as well? I think its just a matter of partenering with foreign institutions which offer these services, is it not?
Malawian Policies maybe would not allow money to go outside Malawi any how but it should be able to allow Money to come in. With a Paypal account in some nations one is allowed to recieve money but not to buy that's good enough for me If I am being paid for Technical Support I offer to people from other nations through the internet. But we could do better. I should be able to buy tools that will help my software devlepment so that the quality of software that I develop is at par with those developed outside Malawi and So be exportable. This will now let Bingu ask me to develop the Government Website and keep Malawian Money in at the same time I am bringing in More Money.
Whoever implements ICT Policies please think about these things. Time is not waiting for us. We need to catch up.