Mar 3, 2008
How many Rwandan Francs is that?
mah points out a headline in today’s New Times here in Rwanda: Frw44b goes to consultancy each year. That’s $80 million in money asking other people (mostly Westerners) to provide answers. That’s $80 million going to countries other than Rwanda… the country that needs the economic stimulus.
This goes right back to what I mentioned the other day about being asked point-blank about developing in open source. The reasoning there is that someone locally can learn to continue developing the system if the code is available. Of course we are taking it that one step further by hiring a local developer to join the team. Still, you get the point I hope.
Now in almost completely separate news, today I read about a solar cell phone charger that only costs $20! That’s only 10,000frw. Not much at all. The other day when I met the volunteer health workers who are going to use our systems to collect data I asked specifically where they charged their phones (all three had phones already) when they don’t have power. They told me they go to friends houses who have power. Sometimes they would charge them there at the health center too since they were affiliated with it now. Hell, for $20 we could hook them up!