Technology Took Me to Another Level:
From Presenting a Paper to Meeting the President of Uganda
by
Carole I. Smith
Page
2 of 3
Since March, we had been corresponding by email, with intermittent telephone conversations. And, talk about coincidences, when I finally spoke to Betty, she informed me that she would be presenting at the same conference.
The theme of the CIMPAD conference was "Achieving Sustained Development in Africa's Sub-Regions through Excellence in Public Policy and Management, Civic Participation, and Economic Development." The focus was on the interconnection philosophy described in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. According to Friedman, "the laying of global fiber highways flattened the developed world... and made it simple and almost free to move digitized labor - service and knowledge work." This is supported by Forrester Research, Inc. that reports that more than three million service and professional jobs will move out of the U.S. by 2015. The increase in "outsourcing" verifies this and offers an economic opportunity for African countries.
My paper focused on, "Using Technology to Link Economic and Human Capital Development," and proposed the implementation of two technical education programs, Math Amigo and the International Computer Driving License (ICDL) as tools to promote workforce development, education and training to help Africa respond to the 21st century economic paradigm.
The Math Amigo program is a standards based math system (K-12 & Adult) used on PCs and hand held units supported by Desktop Management software. The ICDL program is a computer user certification program that has recently been adopted by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the City of Philadelphia. It is a professional development tool to improve workforce productivity, and is the accepted standard in end-user IT skills certification worldwide, implemented throughout the European Union.
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