Beyond ‘Mutallab

TIMELESS EDITORIAL

The nearly successful terrorist plot by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who has pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment for trying to blow up a US-bound Northwest Airlines flight out of Amsterdam last Christmas Day with explosives he had smuggled aboard, undetected in his underwear (he was on the verge of injecting chemicals into the package), proves that blind spots abound all over. More importantly, they need to be acknowledged and addressed.

This is a clarion call for across-the-board sharing of bits and pieces of information as equals between Western and other security agencies.

Nigeria has remained clueless with its Nigerian Intelligence Agency, NIA; it is doubtful if it is adequately staffed and funded--and not another hostage to ‘federal character’. It speaks volumes that many in the country are in the dark about its existence.

Given alleged Koranic incentives for carrying out such dastardly acts being propagated by disgruntled elements waging a ‘Grudge War’ against the rest of us (their ‘Jihad’ constitutes a ‘sixth pillar’ of faith), it has become imperative to as a matter of urgency step up monitoring of Islamic schools (madrassahs) across the country. Preachers with decidedly anti-Western and Christian biases (‘Mutallab’s Christmas Day timing was deliberate) and militant tones should be put on a watch-list.

Further, northern Nigeria’s cannon fodder al-majiris, fallout of the region’s festering sociological malaise fueled by grinding poverty and perpetuated ignorance, now a vicious cycle, is a keg of gunpowder for coming conflagrations. It is a knife in Nigeria’s underbelly. A watch-list of fiery clerics who provide instruction for them has become indispensable.

Indeed, what stops Nigerian-based Islamist extremist elements from blowing up Western interests in Nigeria? Such groups already seem well-entrenched in Nigeria, like the Boko Haram which always seems to catch the authorities pants down.

‘Mutallab could have been arrested in Nigeria and his plot nipped in the bud (without the psychological trauma of his attempt now inflicted on hundreds) if the NIA had figured out his intent; his guards would have been down.

Finger-pointing will not help; all are indicted. US National Intelligence Directorate and their National Counterterrorism Center must reach out to other national agencies to share experiences and competencies. The world is still wondering what the all-knowing Americans did with the information the would-be bomber’s father volunteered them on his son’s Islamist radicalisation, from romping in such red-flag locales like Yemen, frolicking with al-Qaeda. Why did the American downplay that calibre of information?

Why ‘Mutallab wasn’t put on a watch-list, beyond a humongous terrorist database maze of 550,000 other names as a result, is beyond us. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had a travel visa granted since June 2008, valid through June 2010.

The following brazenly bully assertion by US President Barack Obama’s adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan is simply unacceptable: “There was no smoking gun. There was no piece of intelligence that said this guy is a terrorist and is going to get on a plane....None whatsoever.”

Meanwhile his admittance that several “bits and pieces” of intelligence had been gathered in the run-up to the failed Christmas Day bombing shows clearly that human and systemic failure on their part was responsible for not putting together the pieces as part of a larger puzzle. In his own words: “It was a failure to integrate the bits and pieces of information.” And that is what it’s always about.

Now the world must watch out for name changes and identity alterations, like the scenario in adventure novelist Clive Cussler’s plane hijack story; the hijacker impostor pilot had only a knapsack on his person at check-in. It is outrageous that the US authorities lowered the threshold for getting potential terrorists onto no-fly lists, for getting on a plane at all.

Luckily for us, the present cannon fodder stopped from igniting may have been a blundering operative; the next in tow will not tout a spurious reason for visit as ‘a religious seminar’ (another red flag, sans profiling). Next could be a bespectacled ‘Dogara Gambo’, clutching a copy of his self-published book, billed to address a literary conference in the US.

That UF Abdulmutallab boarded his flight in Amsterdam to frigid Detroit with no coat has been admitted as the final warning sign that went unnoticed. He also showed up at the Amsterdam airport without any luggage--another sign that should have prompted more scrutiny.

There had been critical warning signs since way back in mid-October. A US National Security Agency wiretap picked up discussion out of Yemen that referred to a Nigerian being trained for a special mission.

The misspelling of Abdulmutallab’s name at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria that initially made the State Department believe he did not have a U.S. visa and therefore was “less of an immediate concern” is a lame duck excuse. “A system shouldn’t get stymied by a single misspelling,” as a US official has admitted. “If you mistype something in Google, Google comes back and says maybe you want to look at this other spelling.”

We cannot afford to put our faith in technology to stop the terrorists from getting on planes and trains, among other terrorist attractions. The glaring need is to understand that it is a human intervention situation. More time need to be spent on putting boots on the ground, along with people behind the lines, who understand what’s going on and can get into the mind of the enemy to read what he (or she) is intent on doing.

As a final gate-keeping measure, airlines should be required to provide passenger lists, or manifests, to relevant agencies 24 hours in advance for the action of behavioural experts, like situational psychologists, to spot potential terrorists before they get onboard. Inherent in all these is a price we all must be willing to pay to guarantee safety with our freedom of movement across borders.

Only humble ‘collabo intel’ will preempt other wannabe bombers sure to follow with greater assurance of success in the footsteps of the botched Christmas Day bomber.

Remembering the Man who had a Dream

Ayodeji Jeremiah

The third Monday in January of every year is a national holiday in the United States in honour of the renowned and celebrated advocate of non-violent social change and foremost civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King whose birthday is on the 15th of Janaury. Dr. King would have been 80 last year had he been alive. Though King may be dead, his legacy has lived on.

The symbolic leader of American blacks, youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, keynote speaker at the March on Washington and prime mover of the Montgomery bus boycott was thrown into the spotlight at the young age of twenty-six when as a member of the executive committee of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People), he accepted the leadership of the first great Negro non-violent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States. The NAACP was the leading organisation of its kind then in the U.S. Though any number of historic moments can be used to identify Dr. King, his policy of non-violent protest borrowed from Mahatma Gandhi of India was the dominant force in the civil rights movement during its decade of greatest achievement from 1957 to 1968.

Martin Luther King was born at noon on Tuesday, January 15, 1929 at the family home in Atlanta Georgia to the Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church and Alberta King (nee Williams), a former schoolteacher. He was one of three children (being the first son and the second child) and was initially christened Michael and later renamed Martin when he was about 6 years old. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia including the Yonge Street Elementary School, the David T. Howard Elementary School, the Atlanta University Laboratory School and the Booker T. Washington High School. Due to his high scores at the college entrance examinations and having skipped both the ninth and twelfth grades, Dr. King advanced to Morehouse College (a distinguished historically Black institution in Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated) at the age of fifteen without formal graduation from Booker T. Washington. He graduated in 1948 with a B.A. degree in Sociology. He then proceeded that same year to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was awarded the Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. While at Crozer, he was elected president of a predominantly white class, won the Pearl Plafker award for the most outstanding student and received the J. Lewis Crozer fellowship for graduate study which he used to enrol at Boston University for doctoral studies. He was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy in Systematic Theology in 1955, two years after completing his residency.

He married the former Coretta Scott in 1953 and four children (two sons and two daughters) were born to them. King accepted the pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954 and here he made his first mark on the civil rights movement by mobilising the black community during the 382-day boycott of the city’s bus lines. He was the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organisation responsible for the co-ordination of the bus boycott. On December 21, 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses. During the period of the boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed and he was subjected to personal abuse. He however emerged during this period as an African-American leader of the first rank. In 1957, King summoned a number of black leaders and laid the foundation for the organisation now known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organisation formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. He was elected its president, a position he held until his death. From 1960 until his death in 1968, King was co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church where his grandfather had also been pastor from 1914 to 1931. In 1963, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama for fair hiring practices and the desegregation of department-store facilities during which he was arrested. It was during this period that he wrote what has become one of the most important American documents, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the African-American revolution. Later that year in August, he led the 250,000 man March on Washington to whom he delivered one of the most passionate and most popular addresses of his career; the “I Have a Dream.” speech.

Time Magazine designated him as its Person of the Year for 1963 (he had earlier been named one of the most outstanding personalities of the year in 1957 by TIME). In 1964, he was named recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize at the age of thirty-five. He was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. His prize money of $54,123 was turned over for the furtherance of the civil rights movement. On his return from Norway to accept the award, King led a voter-registration campaign in Selma, Alabama that ended in the Selma-to-Montgomery March, which resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In Chicago, he launched programs to rehabilitate the slums and provide housing. King was in the middle of plans to organise massive non-violent demonstrations in major cities and a march of the poor on Washington to sensitise Congress on the need to deal with the problem of poor, downtrodden and desperate Americans when he was interrupted to lend his support to the Memphis sanitation men’s strike. He wanted to discourage violence and focus the national attention on the plight of the poor unorganised workers of the city who were bargaining for basic union representation and long overdue raises. It was here he delivered his final speech, which ranks among his most famous utterances, “I have Been to the Mountaintop”.

Death came for King on April 4, 1968 on the balcony of the black owned Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet while standing outside with Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy by a gunman named James Earl Ray. His death caused a wave of violence in major cities across the U.S. James Earl Ray was arrested in London, England on June 8, 1968 and returned to Memphis to stand trial where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ninety-nine years imprisonment. King’s funeral was held on April 9, 1968 at Ebenezer Baptist Church and on the campus of Morehouse College. The President of the United States declared a day of mourning and flags were flown at half-staff. The Lorraine Hotel where he was shot is now the National Civil Rights Museum. His birthday, January 15, which is a national holiday, is celebrated each year with educational programs, artistic displays and concerts throughout the U.S. His widow organised the Martin Luther King Jr. Centre for Non-Violent Social Change, which today stands next to his beloved Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be remembered for his vital personality, his inspirational lectures, speeches and remarks, his courageous and selfless devotion to a cause he believed in and died for, his charismatic leadership that inspired others, his dreams for a new cast of life and his philosophy of non-violent direct action. During his thirteen years of crusading for civil rights acclamation, he also wrote five books and numerous articles, travelled over six million miles, and spoke over two thousand five hundred times. He was awarded over twenty honorary doctorate degrees from numerous colleges and universities in the U.S. and several foreign countries. Hr received several hundred awards including the John F. Kennedy Award from the Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago (1964), the Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights, presented by the Jamaican Government and the Rosa L. Parks Award presented by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference both of which were awarded posthumously in 1968.

Youths Take Charge at the 1st National Youth Media Summit

Omotayo Obe and Taiye Tunkarimu

In recent times, the closures of some newspaper houses have been the news especially across the United States and Europe. A lot of young people are now moving online to get information and current news rather from newspapers. Ambassador Stephen Oguntoyinbo, CEO of The Talk Village International had the craving for the need to put together a forum where it would bring to the notice of young people the role of the media in national development and rebranding the images of Nigerians in Diaspora by young people themselves.

This yearning gave rise to the 1st ever National Youth Media Summit, which took place recently at the British Council Multi-Media Suite, Ikoyi, Lagos for two days. The gathering was mostly attended by young people and facilitated by the young people themselves. Many issues were raised and discussed as to the role of the media in the nation’s development and the inactive role played by young people especially while using the Internet giving its potential as a news outlet. A lot of emphases were placed on social networks such as Facebook, You Tube, Twitter et al and the Internet generally, which can be used as effective tools in disseminating information especially about Nigeria to the whole world.

While making his presentation, the Editor of TIMELESS Newspaper, Ayodeji Jeremiah spoke on the era of the new media and the need for a convergence between the old and the new media in other to make the best use of both worlds even as the World is changing to a global village. He emphasised the need for a synergy between the old and the new media while stating that democracy is still the strongest and best form of governance in modern society. The media, he said remains one of the strongest institutions that allow democracy thrive in any society.

Mr. Ayodeji said as a journalist, it is important not to be restricted to one media format but be an all rounder in the different formats. Given the power of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace as not just social networks but also powerful tools for news dissemination and information; the challenge for print newspapers is to address how to use the new media even as many young people don’t have the time to flip through the pages of different newspapers for news when in a matter of minutes, they can have detailed information on news happening just by going online.

On how the traditional media can meet the challenges of the new media, he said print newspapers need to focus more on analysis than reporting. They must also focus more on young people who love to read about themselves. The need for better design, more graphics, more headlines, more pictures and less text should be embraced. Newspapers, he said must have a clear ideology and carve a niche for themselves.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Ayodeji advised youths to develop themselves and try and get at least the minimum educational degree. He also urged them to be knowledgeable about everything and most especially their subject areas. In his words “know your stuff, know your environment”.

According to Dr. Tunde Adegbola, The CEO of African Technology Initiative, a company set up to make computers useful in African languages, the media he said is information and communication and the way we do it is the most important factor of our humanity because the objective of humans is to communicate. The media is full of opportunities and information revolution is a youth thing. This is the age of advantages and privileges that never came in the 60s or 80s. Nigeria, he said is the only country without a Community Development Broadcast Initiative (Community Radio and the likes) in the ECOWAS region. He therefore admonished the youths to stand up and be counted because the capacity to inform and transfer information lies in the hands of young people and if we don’t act now we will be oppressed and told who we are and whatever we are told becomes a reality because we haven’t taken advantage of who we are and what we have. Dr. Tunde ended his presentation by defining Globalisation as when Nokia sells more cameras than the likes of Kodak, Sony, Canon et al put together.

Mr. Lekan Otufodunrin, the Sunday Editor of The Nation Newspaper and founder of Journalist for Christ spoke on Communication, Policy and Journalism Practice: the Role of the Youth. He started off his presentation by defining success as “seeing into the future before it becomes very obvious”. For many young people it is about being successful in whatever career they have chosen for themselves but to succeed in the field of journalism he stressed that it is important to be knowledgeable about happenings in the society especially the running of government and their policies because one cannot argue about what he/she does not know. Proper qualifications is also very important as a media practitioner and in seeking employment, it is crucial that one seeks for it in the mainstream media and come up with new concepts to improve on the quality of contributions on the Internet and ideas that will champion the coverage of new issues and topics that matters like climate change and globalisation.

Nike Fagade, CEO, Positive Development Foundation emphasised the need for young people to read widely, promote and say good things of themselves and their country everywhere they go within and outside the country. She encouraged youths not just to go online and check mails or chat on Facebook writing status such as “I just prepared beans and dodo” or “am chilling in a buka (a local canteen)” but to flood the Internet daily anytime they get the opportunity to go online with positive information and news of young people changing and contributing positively to the growth and development of the society. She also pleaded with Nollywood film producers to stop espousing negativism in Nigerian movies. “Not that we don’t know that these things are happening but we have to erase the negative and bad image of Nigeria and start showing the world the good side of Nigeria.”

Dolapo Taiwo of Unotech who spoke on Web 2.0 said the future of Communication and Journalism lies on the Internet. He pushed for everyone to make good use of their blogs to disseminate information. He stressed that young people should use the Internet for more productive and positive money making ventures by building a brand for themselves and making lots of noise about such. The need for government to come up with new media policies was also emphasised.

During the group discussions, the participants came up with suggestions that for youth media to be extraordinary and different there is a need for young people to be consistent with their initiatives and develop their content to a world class standard. Innovation and creativity must be employed and loyalty to clients and customer cannot be disputed because this is a time for young people to explore and take charge of the world thereby creating an identity for themselves.

Stephen Oguntoyinbo, convener of the event and CEO of TalkVillage International said youths must integrate into the social media a means to creating or rather facilitating the desired change needed in Africa. He encouraged youths to tap into the social media because of the various advantages and its potential as a catalyst for change when used for advocacy. He went ahead to give a frame work of the advantages of the new media stating that it saves time and energy, it is globally accessible, economically sustainable and it serves as a strong tool for networking. He also advised Youths to be information seekers and sharers and to explore the new media effectively to boost their work.

Another panellist, Mr. Panny Daranijo told the audience that in using the new media, youths should ask and answer the following questions - Who Am I? ,What Are My Interests?, What exactly do I plan to achieve by this platform I am using?, What am I teaching?, What am I broadcasting to the World? He advised youths to use the Internet for positive changes. He also advised that the Internet should not just be used for teaching alone but also as an agent of change. He decried the trend among youths who use the Social media, especially Facebook to say irrelevant things and the sorts.

Mayowa Adeniran, CEO, E3 Media gave the audience different websites they can visit to blog, vlog and where they can get job opportunities and create a string web presence to boost their career profile. He listed sites such as www.africanews.com, www.bloglighting.com, www.payu2blog.com, www.betterbusinessblogg.com etc as sites where young people should visit to make their voices heard and create an impact. He advised youths to stand up and be heard and use the resources available to them to create the needed impact in the society.

Azeezat Sanni, Co-Presenter, Touch of Spice on Star FM encouraged youths to discover themselves, their interests and be very mindful of the power of words especially in the use of the new media in order not to fuel aggressions, hate or even libel.

The Conference also featured group work as follows:

Group A: Web 2.0 - Gateway For Boosting your Business Globally

Group B: Act Local; Think Global, Opportunities for Youths in Media

Group C: Engaging Youths in Community Radio

Each group was required to brainstorm and come out with practical, economical and pragmatic ways on how it can make impacts on its given topics.

GROUP A in its presentation gave insights on how youths or any business owner at all can take advantage of the Internet to market themselves. They suggested the use of the social media- Facebook, Twitter etc, Blogs, Vlogs (You Tube) etc in creating a web presence on their products and services. They also suggested how everyone present can teach others on how to use the computer without necessarily spending so much money.

Group B raised the possibility of using the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with a view of raising awareness on the MDGs as an opportunity for youths in the media. The group’s focus was on developmental journalism. The group says through the use of social media, Web Radio, Blogs and the Print Media, the awareness of people in the society can be raised towards achieving at least 60-70% of the MDG goals by or before 2015. The group’s Facilitator and Editor of Timeless Newspaper, Mr. Ayodeji Jeremiah pledged the support of his newspaper to the cause.

Group C facilitated by Azzezat Sanni spoke on the need to promote community radio so that the voices of everyone can be heard. She also revealed that they plan to start advocating for community radio through her Touch of Spice radio programme; the group also intends to speak on issues that affect various people at the grass root level.

Other speakers at the two day event were Ms. Toyin Adesola (President, Sickle Cell Advocacy and Management Initiative, SAMI), Ifeoma Adibe (Founder, African Youth Empowerment and Change Initiative), Damola Taiwo (Unotech Media), Asim-Ita Emilia (Redstart/Future Awards), Ashaye Babatunde (E3 Media), and Anyaegbu Francis (Outbox Consulting).

In all, the two day summit made a call to all youths irrespective of gender, religion, tribe and class to take charge, be the change and make positive impact wherever they are especially in the policy making of their countries.

MEMORABLE QUOTES FROM THE SUMMIT

“Globalization is when Nokia sells more Cameras than Kodak and Canon.”

Dr. Tunde Adegbola (CEO Alt-i)

“Not everyone that writes is a Journalist; Journalism has its code of ethics.”

Mr.Lekan Otufodurin (Editor, The Nation on Sunday )

“The New Media, which I prefer to call Online Media, poses a challenge to the traditional media.”

Mr. Ayodeji Jeremiah (Editor, Timeless Newspaper)

“I suffered in this Lagos O!”

Asim-Ita Emmilia

“We should stop using the social media to tell people “I’m eating Burger”. It should be used to promote positive change.”

Mr.Lekan Otufodurin (Editor, The Nation on Sunday)

“If an angry person speaks, the anger is lessened and you know where he is going …In Nigeria, we have angry people whose mouths are tied.”

Dr. Tunde Adegbola, on the need for Community Radio.

“What the traditional media needs is news analysis not news reporting to survive.”

Mr. Ayodeji Jeremiah (Editor, Timeless)

“The question is how to get youths interested in making an impact, like when I told some youths about the Youth Summit, their reply was “Kini Big Deal?”

Peculiar, (Participant at the Summit)

“Don’t post what you don’t want your Grand-Mother or prospective employer to see on Facebook. In using the new media, the key word is ‘explore.’”

Stephen Oguntoyinbo.

“To succeed in using the new media, consistence is the key.”

Mayowa Adeniran, E3 Media

“Government should be pressurized to liberate the airwaves.”

Dr. Tunde Adegbola

Calling Agricultural Researchers: Win Funding to put Research into use

PRESS RELEASE

11 January 2010

In the dragon’s den – win funding to put research into use

A new approach to boost agricultural production is coming to West Africa. In 2009, the Research into Use Best Bets initiative, funded by the UK Government, awarded start‐up grants worth US$2.5 million to four business ventures in East, Central and Southern Africa. Now West African researchers and entrepreneurs have their chance to compete for cash.

The first call for West African RIU Best Bet submissions came in early December 2009. Applicants have until January 29th 2010 to submit a concept note, outlining their plan for getting a piece of agricultural research into use. In the previous round, over 100 proposals were submitted, covering the production, processing and marketing of crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture.

Shortlisted applications will receive financial support to develop simple business plans. Applicants will then be invited to go into the ‘dragon’s den’, presenting their plan in person to an independent panel of experts from the African business, finance, research and development communities. The winners can expect to receive funding worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The initiative is driven by the sad fact that while agricultural research has made incredible advances in the last decade, much that has been achieved sits unused on the shelf. New and improved varieties of crops remain in research stations and appropriate technologies that could boost yields, food security and incomes have yet to reach the people who most need them – farmers.

But getting that technology from the shelf to the field can’t be done by researchers alone. One key lesson of recent years is that successfully and sustainably introducing new farming technologies depends on private sector involvement. Whether developing a piece of farm machinery or a new variety of rice, bringing that technology to the millions who need it only happens when there is profit to be made. Hence RIU Best Bet applications need to come from partnerships – researchers and business people working together to present a viable business plan, that will bring a proven technology to those who need it.

For more information, the following links will direct you to the Research into Use website ‐ http://bit.ly/RIUBestBetsWA
http://researchintouse.com/index.php?section=5&subsection=86

Word hath Charles wrought, among other ‘things from thought’

Adeleke Adeyemi

“Programming is very complicated…but we can make it possible for domain experts [fussy computer users] to provide…information in their own terms [that] directly contributes to the production of the software [they need].” --Charles Simonyi

What’s the worth of the one who wrote (or, wrought) the software that made my writing of and your reading of this possible? It’s a mere US$1 billion, according to Forbes magazine. In my book that number, compared to the difference Charles Simonyi has made to human life and work, for you and me, is a mere token of our appreciation of the contribution to our lives of the father of WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get; the acronym is pronounced WIZ-e-wig) application software.

Charles Simonyi, former chief architect at Microsoft, is a computer software guru who as head of Microsoft’s application software group oversaw the creation of Microsoft’s inimitable and most successful applications: Word and Excel. Now head of his own company, Intentional Software, his aim is to develop and market the radical concept of ‘intentional programming’.

Mr. Simonyi is reckoned the most successful ‘pure’ programmer in the world. Richer ones like Bill Gates of Microsoft and Google’s Larry Page are so because they founded and manage techno-leviathan business ventures. Mr. Simonyi’s wealth accrued solely from writing codes. He devised the programming method that Microsoft’s software developers have used for the last quarter-century.

But Dr. Simonyi, 58, was important even before he joined Microsoft. He ranks among the fabled supergeeks who invented personal computing at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, where he wrote the first modern application, a word processor called Bravo. The word before “Word,” it displayed text on a computer screen as it would appear when printed on page. Indeed, WYSIWYG!

Simonyi was born in Budapest, Hungary to Károly Simonyi, a professor of electrical engineering at Technical University of Budapest. While in secondary school, he got work part-time as a night watchman at a computer laboratory with a large Soviet Ural II mainframe computer under its watch. Here it was that he became strongly attracted to computing and learned programming from one of the laboratory’s engineers.

By the time he left school he had learned to develop compilers, computer programs for translating high-level programming language into machine code. He sold one of them to a government department. In 1966, Simonyi went to work in Denmark for A/S Regnecentralen, from where he moved to the United States in 1968 to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his B.S. in Engineering Mathematics, specialising in Mathematics and Statistics, in 1972.

Next, Simonyi proceeded to Stanford University for graduate studies, where he was hired by Xerox PARC in its heyday. He worked alongside programming leading lights like Alan Kay and Robert Metcalfe. It was with another Xerox alumnus Butler Lampson that he developed Bravo. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1977. His dissertation was on a software project management technique called “metaprogramming”. This is the theoretical framework for Simony’s whatever-you-can-do-I-can-do-it-meta approach to life and work.

At Metcalfe’s suggestion, in 1981, Simonyi applied—directly—to Bill Gates for a job. His coming would lead to the development of what became Microsoft’s most profitable products. At Microsoft, Simonyi introduced the techniques of object-oriented programming that he had learned at Xerox. A patriot to the core, he developed the Hungarian notation convention for naming variables that has been widely used inside Microsoft and is today one technique among many that helps programmers produce better code faster. Simonyi stayed on at Microsoft throughout its meteoric rise and became one of its highest-ranking developers, only to leave abruptly in 2002 to co-found a new company that markets concepts he had developed at Microsoft Research.

An active philanthropist, he endowed the Simonyi Professorship of the Public Understanding of Science chair at Oxford University in 1995. It was first held by now retired rave-making scientist, Richard Dawkins. He also endowed a Charles Simonyi Professor for Innovation in Teaching Chair at Stanford University. In January 2004, Simonyi created the USD $50 million Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences through which he support arts, science, and education.

Simonyi received the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award in 2004 for his “innovative work in information technology that has impacted the industry greatly”. His hobbies range from classical music to outer space; he became, in 2007, the fifth space tourist ever.

Opening Address at 1st Youth Media Summit Organised by Talk Village International

Ayodeji Jeremiah


The role of the media in nation building, and as one of the mainstays of modern civilisation cannot be overemphasised. Democracy, despite its faults or weaknesses remains the best tool of governance in modern society and the media, one of its main arms. The Media along with the Judiciary and an educated society are some of the institutions that enable democracy to thrive.

As has been demonstrated in recent times (The Iranian elections for example,) the role of the media as a watchdog, as a catalyst for change, as a tool for new ideas is becoming increasingly relevant especially as the lines becomes blurred between old and new media. Citizens can now fight their governments on Facebook and Twitter. (The Chinese government recently overturned the conviction of a traffic offender after protests online.) Blogs are beginning to replace columns in newspapers and bloggers are gaining increasing notoriety for influencing decision making across industries. (Example, fashion bloggers are now invited to sit with Anna Wintour, the legendary Vogue Editor at fashion shows.)

I want to emphasise that increasingly in recent times, there will be no such thing as being a print, online, or broadcast journalist. Those who will practise journalism now and in the years to come must broaden their horizons and engage themselves such that they can move seamlessly between one form and the other. I also want to say that so called citizen journalism will not erode the importance of old traditional journalism. Rather, it will enhance it. As long as humans remain humans, there will always be the need for informed news, analysis, opinion, discussions and professional journalists will continue to act as moderators setting the pace of the discussions.

Last year saw the closure of print newspapers in Europe and the US, even as readers move increasingly online for their news and advert revenues decline in face of the global economic crisis and with more advertisers moving online. As Internet penetration increases in Nigeria, it’s only a matter of time before this trend catches up with us here.

This raises some issues for print newspapers and what they must do to ensure continued survival:

• Print newspapers/magazines must now concern themselves more with news analysis rather than reporting the news. (E.g. Timeless, Newsweek, Time)

• Print newspapers/magazines must focus more on young people who love reading about themselves (how come Facebook and Twitter are so popular?)

• Print newspapers/magazines should start focusing on better design, more headlines, more graphics and less text (reflecting the gimmicks of online media)

• Rather than pandering to the whims of ‘the customer knows best’, newspapers must resist the lure of society journalism (like what’s happening on TV with reality television) and focus on what’s happening in society. Reports and articles must resonate with people and force them to react. Newspapers must set the agenda for the society, which demands that every newspaper must have an ideology

Our own belief is that there is no competition between old and new media. Print books, newspapers and magazines are not going to die anytime soon; (more so in Africa, where literacy levels and Internet penetration are still low.) The challenge rather is how print media can take advantage of the opportunities inherent in online media to increase revenue, increase subscription and stay relevant and engaged.

http://www.ayodejijeremiah.wordpress.com/; http://www.timelesscourage.blogspot.com/

The 1st National Youth Media Summit was held at the British Council on Thursday 7th of January and Friday 8th of January, 2010.

Malaria, the West and the Rest of Us

Adeleke Adeyemi

With advances in the science of medicine rising by leaps and bounds, we are truly at a unique point in human history. Diseases and other medical issues that have run rampant now wait in line to be dealt the deathblow they rightly deserve. This is thanks to breathtaking breakthroughs in scientific research, carried on by a few dedicated people thinking outside geographical bounds, in the true tradition of the scientist and fellow intellectual entrepreneurs who have, over time, changed the course of our world, mostly for good.

As Science takes on the menace of malaria with a resolve that promises to yield a final solution, there is a take we must note on the state of research infrastructure and scientific undertakings on our shores. It is significant that the twin breakthroughs about to be celebrated by the world at large also serve to underscore the glaring entrenched dearth of research and scientific enterprise here.

This state of affairs, in the final analysis, simply means that our education, especially at the critical university level, has ceased to be universal and functional; the system is no longer amenable to problem-solving. Instead, it has become stuck in a rut of rote learning, one from which students (as much clueless as their handlers) simply strive to scamper off ‘certificated’, not necessarily the same state of affairs as ‘educated’.

Thankfully, there is now in place an initiative for bringing about a culture of relevant scientific inquiry into all things boggling in the land. It’s the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas NLNG-endowed Nigeria Prize for Science (there’s a second award for Literature). Regretfully, even this glimmer of hope for catalysing a badly needed revolution has had cause to blink in perturbation as the Prize has not been awarded half of the time since its inception. Undaunted, the organisers went on to put the unclaimed cumulative prize money - $20, 000 the first time; $ 30, 000 the second – into a fund for upgrading laboratory facilities in select institutions across the country.

Mercifully, the North (better known as the West) is still up and about on tackling this downside of the South. Whether for gain or fame, there is no gainsaying the fact that once again, well before we can hope to catch up on the act, the Northern hemisphere, with its well established culture of scientific research that exists largely for its own sake, is reaching down to our half of the world with sorely needed help: a line of attack to eradicate – completely – the scourge of malaria. Most common in tropical and subtropical regions, malaria is a universal curse that leaves in the trail of its strike 350 to 500 million (reported) new cases annually. According to UNICEF, an African child is lost to it every 30 seconds.

While preventative measures such as sleeping under a mosquito net, flitting sleeping quarters or the use of preventive medication, have proven to reduce the risk of coming down with malaria, it has however been difficult to discover a truly long-lasting solution to the spread of the disease.

Though not a new idea gene modification is what scientists believe will be the hero to millions of individuals who remain at risk of the debilitating disease. The science has been in use in plants to eliminate certain characteristics from strains of some species in order to help farmers end up with better crops. Now, the focus of the technology has shifted to one of Man’s giants that would not be so easily slain: the mosquito.

The idea is to create a genetically altered mosquito with a resistant gene that kills the parasite causing malaria (plasmodium, extant as many strains) without harming the mosquito. This bug would then be introduced into the population of mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite. When the mosquito produces offspring, the resistant gene would be passed on to the new generation of mosquitoes, which would then pass it on to the next generation, and so on. Eventually, the parasites causing the disease would be weeded out of their vector organism – the mosquito – completely. The theory is robust.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States are toying with the idea of creating such a mosquito. It’s looking more and more a possibility. It remains one of the more promising ideas out there for bidding very good riddance to a really bad nonsense.

Meanwhile, while we keep our fingers crossed, waiting for this final solution, from farther up in the Northern hemisphere is an optical laser technique that will soon eliminate the need for slides, staining and microscopes, the standard laboratory set-up in testing people for the disease.

A research team led by Dr. Paul Wiseman of the Departments of Physics and Chemistry at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, has developed a radically new technique that uses lasers and non-linear optical effects to detect malaria infection in human blood. The researchers say the new technique holds the promise of simpler, faster and far less labour-intensive detection of the malaria parasite in blood samples. This rapid malaria detection breakthrough is set to glide out from the Northern Hemisphere, to take on the world of Plasmodium in the South, where the parasite holds patent sway. The resources and trained personnel required to accurately diagnose the disease are spread the thinnest in sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the fatalities remain concentrated.

Current detection techniques require trained technicians to stain slides, look for the parasite’s DNA signature under the microscope, and then manually count all the visible infected cells, a laborious process dependent on the skill and availability of trained analysts. In contrast, the proposed new technique relies on a known optical effect called third harmonic generation (THG), which causes hemozoin – a crystalline substance secreted by the parasite – to glow blue when irradiated by an infrared laser.

“People who are familiar with music know about acoustic harmonics,” explains Dr. Wiseman. “Everybody has a fundamental sound frequency and then multiples of that frequency. Non-linear optical effects are similar: if you shine an intense laser beam of a specific frequency on certain types of materials, you generate multiples of [their] frequency. Hemozoin has a huge, non-linear optical response for the third harmonic, which causes the blue glow.”

According to Mark Shainblum of the Media Relations Office at McGill, Dr. Wiseman and his colleagues hope to co-opt existing well-established technologies like fibre-optic communications lasers and fluorescent cell sorters into their groundbreaking technique to quickly move it out of the laboratory and into the field. “We’re imagining a self-contained unit that could be used in clinics in endemic countries,” says Dr. Wiseman. “The operator could inject the cell sample directly into the device, and then it would come up with a count of the total number of existing infected cells without manual intervention.”

Hopefully, relevant authorities in Africa and the other regions of the world where the disease is endemic will rise to lend moral support toward accelerating dividends from these researches to get home to the grassroots, thereby achieving the shortest possible lab-to-town transit. Malaria has maligned efforts at development in these places so much and for far too long; it shall not be spared any moment longer.

Plasmodium-free female mosquitoes can, like their male counterparts have done all along, simply make their music – in full acoustic harmonics – and whine themselves hoarse and out; that would be peace and no gripe for the human species. Shall we move on to clear the next stench on the block, please?

Did You Know?
‘Malaria’ is a Latin word. It was coined to describe the condition based on the thinking, then prevalent, that the disease was caused by inhaling or being exposed to bad (‘mal’) air (‘aria’).