First "real" tech day

Today was an exciting day because I got to do real tech stuff for the first time. This morning we met with Pastor Simangolwa and Ba-Miyoba to scout out some computer stores in the area in order to see what equipment was available at what prices. It turns out that there are some really good, well supplied and qualified shops in Lusaka that have can pretty much everything we would need to get up and running and in the future in terms of both hardware and services.

Later in the day, Dr. Thomas, Ba-Miyoba and I met with Ba-Muleya to go over a preliminary sort of tech wish list of things that they want to be able to do now and a vision for the future. This was great because it enables us to get our thoughts rolling about solutions. Ba-Hatontola and Ba-Sikewla then joined Ba-Miyoba and I for a sort of meeting of tech minds in order to determine who knows what, who is strong in what areas and how everyone can contribute toward the overall project. The goal of ZACU is to use as much open source software as possible and to be as electronic as possible in terms of even e-textbooks and documents. There are challenges such as getting reliable internet access at a reasonable price and keeping costs as low as possible by using as much open source software as possible. With internet access, using a wireless router from a cell carrier will most certainly be cheaper than getting a dedicated line run, but then usage costs could creep up to the point that getting a line run may make sense . . . if that line is reliable. Using open source software such as Linux Ubuntu Mate is great because it's free and there are programs that are equivalent to almost any other program that you might use on another OS. The bigger issue there is getting people to learn a different system. It is similar to Windows, but has it's quirks and a small learning curve. Even I was resistant to it but I eventually came around . . . or was convinced by Dr. Thomas ;-)

I am excited and humbled by the willingness of people to give some of thier hard earned time to help with this project. These men were willing to leave thier families on a Saturday afternoon after a long week at work to come see what this is all about. Hopefully they left excited about being able to use their skills to get ZACU up and running (and hopefully beyond), and also excited about the potential to learn to use some new systems, software and equipment that they may have had limited experience with or no experience at all with.

I know this wasn't my most exciting post, but I promise to post some great pictures from my first service at a Zambian Brethren in Christ Church tomorrow. I'm actually going to go to sleep at a decent Zambian hour tonight instead of trying to stay up late to txt with folks from the states. Thanks for reading!!