Leslie Tita

I havent changed much……

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 00:46:36 -0500

I havent changed much……

My favorite animal

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:44:10 -0500

When I was younger our teacher asked what my favorite animal was, and I said, “Fried chicken.”
She said I wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t have been right, because everyone else laughed.

My parents told me to always tell the truth. I did. Fried chicken is my favorite animal.
I told my dad what happened, and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA.
He said they love animals very much.

I do, too. Especially chicken, pork and beef. Anyway, my teacher sent me to the principal’s office.
I told him what happened, and he laughed, too. Then he told me not to do it again.

The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite live animal was.
I told her it was chicken. She asked me why, so I told her it was because you could make them into fried chicken.

She sent me back to the principal’s office. He laughed, and told me not to do it again.

I don’t understand. My parents taught me to be honest, but my teacher doesn’t like it when I am.

Today, my teacher asked me to tell her what famous person I admired most. I told her, “Colonel Sanders.”

Guess where I am now…

*** Thanks, labbie48

Im late to the thanksgiving game, but this dog-fowl tasted good.

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 20:19:56 -0500

Im late to the thanksgiving game, but this dog-fowl tasted good.

30 years later, where do we go from here ?

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:34:00 -0500

Imagine this scenario, you are given an important piece of property to maintain, and your contract last 5 years. At first you are hysterical, happy, you have a great new job, and also the security you will not be fired over the next couple of years, your first days are great, dressing up nicely everyday, treating everybody nice, taking care of the property, consulting your employer for any important decision. Everybody likes you.

Over the next couple of years, you grow incredibly good at your job, earning the respect of your employer, so you consult him less and grow more independent. Your great work earns you an extension for another 5 years. Great right ?

At the 10 year mark, you consider yourself a veteran, an experienced and knowledgeable person who knows it all and needs little outside advice, if you started at 20, now you are 30, do you remember your thought process at age 20 ?

Your ideas about how to run the property evolve with you, and because you believe you had been successful in the past you think you can do this your whole life.

But you see thats where you start getting it wrong.

Your ambition and vision starts to distort your real mission, from taking care of the land you decide to take over the land and next take over your owners. and even though you were hired because you were a great fit, your short sightedness, ego and ambition will cloud your judgement even if that was not your original intent.

At that point you will start suffering from what is called Marlow’s Rhetoric of Self.

Now take a look at Cameroon’s president. he has been in office for the past 30 years, that is two hundred and sixty two thousand eight hundred man hours working.

Can an individual rule for that long ? Yes, but can they rule without self rhetoric ? the human nature proves otherwise.

I read a lot of hate comments and tweets from people on the last 30 years of his presidency, they even started a trend #30ansansmourir (30 years without dieing), why people will wish death unto an individual, still boggles me. He is doing his job as president, keeping peace and stability, on the other hand, the economy has been far from prosperous, it never recovered from the ‘92 economic crisis, the unemployment rate is alarming, over 10 million unemployed, and the youth have lost patience, the foundation of any country.

The way out of this will be very excruciatingly painful, challenging and hard ,but I have good news for you. It only gets better from here, a lot of the young people I talk to, are creating businesses, startups, trying to go back to Cameroon, and depending on themselves not the government for their financial success.

Even though some people assume they are prepared for a new president, deep down they are not, research studies shows people hate change, and they are scared of what a new president will do.

Nevertheless I like comparing Paul Biya’s 30 years reign to the evolution of the iPhone, a strong slow repetition of small incremental changes.

Things can change, things will change, things are changing, slowly but surely, painfully but inevitably, Humans were meant to thrive.

Do you have ideas on how we could move forward from here, I’ll love to hear them. why not start a trend #waystomoveforward ?

Is Cameroon f**ked ?

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 21:58:00 -0400

Cameroon has done it again… this time by winning the Olympics with bad press. As we all know by now, news agencies have reported the defection of 7 Cameroonian athletes, which has been syndicated worldwide, even the washington post is talking about it and while everyone was been quite verbal about their disappointment and shame, some even when forward to launch a petition against granting asylum to those athletes.

Why does bad news spread faster than good, I wonder if the Washington Post ever reported on Cameroon the first country to develop a medical tablet dedicated solely to saving lives. Of course not we live in the era sensational journalism,

Nevertheless the whole time my head kept wondering what will I have done if I was in those athletes shoes.

That is a very easy decision to take, because the answer depends on two things, your background and your perspective on life, you see Cameroon is a 21 million strong country, with a majority of people living under $5 per day (I’m so tired of this world bank statistic) but despite that, Cameroon has observed a steady economic growth of 4.5% since 2012, yet year in, year out there is massive exodus of talent and brain.

My story is quite similar, I left Cameroon 2 years ago to further my education in the states, I would not say, I lived on $5 a day, but like a majority of the youth, I went to college and graduated.

Straight out of it, I decided to work for Night club as their web designer, not because they weren’t better jobs, but getting those better jobs has proven to be a hassle.

You see in Cameroon, though over 11 million people are unemployed, this employment figure doesn’t count the informal sector which employs millions of people like taximen, bike owners, or “buyam sellams”.

Ofcourse I could have applied for a job at the state companies, but tribalism, favoritism, and corruption drive a lot of our companies, who would hire a half anglophone, half bamileke. These are they kind of unfortunately questions companies look at; where are you from ? Who is your father ? What is your last name ? Do you want to sleep with me ? even though I was qualified, getting a formal job was still not possible, now imagine that is the same reality for millions of people who have obtained their bachelors or masters, so all they can do is to sell clothes at Mokolo, that is a funny sad reality.

A better example, is my best friend, who graduated from a state university, gets a scholarship to go study in China, gets his masters, he is back in Cameroon and its been 6 months today, No job.

Due to the powerful nature of the government, a lot of our parents are civil servants, they have worked day in day out to able to send their children through school, no great pays but by some kind of money management technique called “njangi” they were still able to afford.

Because of that I do have a lot of classmates who went straight abroad for studies after high school, these guys do not come from high income families, a lot of them had to borrow huge amounts of money to send their kids abroad, in Cameroon we dont have a “College trust fund”.

Unfortunately once these get abroad they swear never to return. After all why should they return ? Nobody wants to come back and sell clothes !

But the is serious problem with that kind of reasoning, some will argue that what if our parents had followed that same logic we will not be where we are today, but you see our parents lived in a very different era, they were paid to go to school, had full scholarships and their jobs paid off well.

After the 90’s all of that changed…

Nevertheless thinking the is no need to comeback is fundamently flawed, yes patriotism doesnt feed a nation, but hope is really what should keep us moving.

My gig at the night club, put me in position to recognize an opportunity, I got recommended, went for the interview in 2 a piece coat and got the job.

A great job I would say, great perks, great starting salary, great team of people, and I was given a brand new Macbook Pro, a 24/7 home internet connection, even the Presidency of republic did not offer that.

…But well things started going wrong, as with many Cameroonian companies who start off well (Cameroon airlines, Sonel, Snec), a lot don’t survive to retain their talent, in my case my company upfront refused to increase pay package but once they did they added $50 (lol), they were constantly stressing out the employees with undertone racial statements and kept a majority of executive positions for their French counterparts but basically an unproductive work environment for a high-skill job.

I remember once during a Thursday meeting, the CEO told us, the reason he didn’t want to increase salaries was because he felt we did not show the zeal, thus we don’t need it, and how he knew how to manage our money better.

In my head, I said F**k You !!!!

His statement revolted me, but you are in Cameroon, who will you go complain to. This company started to use a very common tactic, they knew the job market was difficult so they capitalized on it, basically they told us, if you didn’t like the pay, you were free to leave. No one left, that says a lot !

So while some people got paid $100 monthly to do exactly what Apple geniuses do, the expatriates got paid $2000 upwards to do nearly nothing (in my opinion).

In clear English, we were being exploited !

Tell me why would any talented young engineer wish to continue to go through that stress.

So I did what I had to do, I decided to look abroad for better opportunities, later on quit ! (so did many others after me) I headed to the US, in the hope of one day getting that a solid background and going back to start my own business.

A lot of other people share similar stories, a lot people I know will never go back Home if things don’t get better.

So here we are ! Stuck with a lot of talent who will prefer to stay abroad because they believe conditions are better, and others who believe working hard in Cameroon will someday pay off.

As an idealist I strongly believe Cameroon will change for the better (thats the reason why I started writing a book), no one lives forever, so with continuous perseverance and hard work, it will take us 1, 2, 5, 10 years, if you take a page from Mandela’s book, he sets a perfect example.

I’m preparing to go to Cameroon to focus on expanding my startup, today the team is 6 people, but I wish to grow and create thousands of jobs and retain the talent, but to be honest with you a part of me is scared.

I could very well stay in the US, get a great job working, for someone like Google, Twitter or Facebook but my perspective of life is different I prefer to go for the unknown rather than be comfortable, I prefer to hope than to live on what others have built. So I really don’t know how this whole thing will go down, the government may decide to crush me with their tax and corrupt system, thus making this decision a great mistake, I don’t know, who knows ? but I have always learnt to trust my guts, optimism and live by my passion.

If only I could inject into those 7 athletes an ounce of my optimism.

Kate Krontiris: Fresh Insight and Some Good Stories about Africa

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:25:49 -0400

Kate Krontiris: Fresh Insight and Some Good Stories about Africa:

katekrontiris:

For the upcoming MIT Africa Innovate! Conference (April 14, 2012 @ the MIT Media Lab), I’ve had the pleasure of curating a series of talks on the question, “What is your big idea for business in Africa?”

The idea is simple: in a rapid round of inspiration, we wanted leading-edge thinkers…

KONY 2012: Causing more harm than good.

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:53:34 -0500

pomee:

Dear Jason Russell,

After being bombarded with your KONY 2012 crusade, I have no choice but to respond to your highly inaccurate, offensive, and harmful propaganda. I realized I had to respond in hopes of stopping you before you cause more violence and deaths to the Acholi people (Northern Ugandans), the very people you are claiming to protect.

Firstly, I would like to question your timing of this KONY 2012 crusade in Uganda when most of the violence from Joseph Kony and the LRA (The Lord’s Resistance Army) has subsided in Uganda in the past 5 years. The LRA has moved onto neighboring countries like the DRC and Sudan. Why are you not urging action in the countries he is currently in? Why are you worried about Kony all of a sudden when Ugandans are not at this present moment?

This grossly illogical timing and statements on your website such as “Click here to buy your KONY 2012 products” makes me believe that the timing has more to do with your commercial interests than humanitarian interests. With the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and the waning interest in Invisible Children, it seems to be perfect timing to start a crusade. I also must add at this point how much it personally disgusts me the way in which you have commercialized a conflict in which thousands of people have died.

Secondly, I would like to address the highly inaccurate content of your video. Your video did not leave the viewer any more knowledgeable about the conflict in Uganda, but only emotionally assaulted. I could not help but notice how conveniently one-sided the “explanation” in your video was. There was absolutely no mention of the role of the Ugandan government and military in the conflict. Let alone the role of the U.S. government and military. The only information given is “KONY MUST BE STOPPED.”

I would like to inform you that stopping Kony would not end the conflict. (It is correctly pronounced “Kohn” by the way). This conflict is deeply embedded in Uganda’s history that neither starts nor ends with Kony. Therefore, your solution to the problem is flawed. There is no way to know the solution, without full knowledge of the problem itself. We must act on knowledge, not emotions.

Joseph Kony formed the LRA in retaliation to the brutality of President Museveni (from the south) committing mass atrocities on the Acholi people (from the north) when President Museveni came to power in 1986. This follows a long history of Ugandan politics that can be traced back to pre-colonial times. The conflict must be contextualized within this history. (If you want to have this proper knowledge, I suggest you start by working with scholars, not celebrities). President Museveni is still in power and in his reign of 26 years he has arguably killed as many, if not more Acholi people, than Joseph Kony. Why is President Museveni not demonized, let alone mentioned? I would like to give you more credit than just ignorance. I have three guesses. One is that Invisible Children has close ties with the Ugandan government and military, which it has been accused of many times. Second, is that you are willing to fight Kony, but not the U.S. Government, which openly supports President Museveni. Third, is that Invisible Children feels the need to reduce the conflict to better commercialize it.

This brings me to my third issue, the highly offensive nature of your video. Firstly, it is offensive to your viewer. The scene with your “explanation” of the conflict to your toddler son suggests that the viewers have the mental capacity of a toddler and can only handle information given in such a reductionist manner. I would like to think American teenagers and young adults (which is clearly your target audience) are smarter than your toddler son. I would hope that we are able to realize that it is not a “Star Wars” game with aliens and robots in some far off galaxy as your son suggests, but a real world conflict with real world people in Uganda. This is a real life conflict with real life consequences.

Secondly, and more importantly, it is offensive to Ugandans. The very name “Invisible Children” is offensive. You claim you make the invisible, visible. The statements, “We have seen these kids.” and “No one knew about these kids.” are part of your slogan. You seem to be strongly hinting that you somehow have validated and found these kids and their struggles.

Whether you see them or not, they were always there. Your having seen the kids does not validate their existence in any shape or form or bring it any more significance. You say “no one” knew about the kids. What about the kids themselves? What about the families of the kids who were killed and abducted? Are they “no one?” Are they not human?

These children are not invisible, you are making them invisible by silencing, dehumanizing, marketing, and invalidating them.

Last year I went to Gulu, Uganda, where Invisible Children is based, and interviewed over 50 locals. Every single person questioned Invisible Children’s legitimacy and intention. Every single person. If anything, it seemed the people saw Invisible Children as a bigger threat than Joseph Kony at the time. Why is it the very people you are trying to “help” feel more offense than relief with your aid?

“They come here to make money and use us.”

“It makes us feel terrible to be presented as being so stupid and helpless.”

These are direct quotes. This was the sentiment of the majority of the people that I interviewed in varying degrees. I definitely didn’t see or hear these voices or opinions in your video. If you are to be “saving” the Acholi people, the very least you can be doing is holding yourself accountable to them and actually listening to what they have to say.

This offensive, inaccurate misconstruction of Ugandans and its conflict makes me wonder what and whom this is really about. It seems that you feel very good about yourself being a savior, a Luke Skywalker of sorts, and same with the girl in your video who passionately states, “This is what defines us”. Therefore, I can’t help but wonder if Invisible Children is more about defining the American do-gooders (and making them feel good), rather than the Ugandans; profiteering the American military and corporations (which Invisible Children is officially and legally) than the conflict.

Lastly, I would like to address the harmful nature of your propaganda. I believe your actions will actually bring back the fighting in Northern Uganda. You are not asking for peace, but violence. The fighting has stopped in the past 5 years and the Acholi are finally enjoying some peace. You will be inviting the LRA and the fighting back into Uganda and disturbing this peace. The last time Invisible Children got politically involved and began lobbying it actually caused more violence and deaths. I beg you not to do it again.

If you open your eyes and see the actions of the Ugandan government and the U.S. government, you will see why. Why is it that suddenly in October of 2011 when there has been relative peace in Uganda for 4 years, President Obama decided to send troops into Uganda? Why is it that the U.S. military is so involved with AFRICOM, which has been pervading African countries, including Uganda? Why is it that U.S. has been traced to creating the very weapons that has been used in the violence? The U.S. is entering Uganda and other countries in Africa not to stop violence, but to create a new battlefield.

In your video you urge that the first course of action is that the Ugandan military needs American military and weapons. You are giving weapons to the very people who were killing the Acholi people in the first place. You are helping to open the grounds for America to make Uganda into a battlefield in which it can profit and gain power. Please recognize this is all part of a bigger military movement, not a humanitarian movement. This will cause deaths, not save lives. This will be doing more harm, than good.

You end your video with saying, “I will stop at nothing”. If nothing else, will you not stop for the lives of the Acholi people? Haven’t enough Acholi people suffered in the violence between the LRA and the Ugandan government? Our alliance should not be with the U.S. government or the Ugandan military or the LRA, but the Acholi people. There is a Ugandan saying that goes, “The grass will always suffer when two elephants fight.” Isn’t it time we let the grass grow?

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Amber Ha

livin' the dream: A Step-by-Step Guide to Transfer Domains Out Of GoDaddy

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 12:39:30 -0500

livin' the dream: A Step-by-Step Guide to Transfer Domains Out Of GoDaddy :

jeffepstein:

Follow these step-by-step directions to transfer all of your domains from GoDaddy to NameCheap.

I’m Boycotting GoDaddy because they are pro-SOPA.

[edit: apparently GoDaddy changed their stance according to TechCrunch]

Step 1: Login to GoDaddy and get to the domain manager.

Step 2:…

kilianonline: how the fuck is this sam jack!!? get it right...

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 07:18:19 -0500

kilianonline:

how the fuck is this sam jack!!? get it right ‘db!!! we dont all look the same!! *african sigh, kisses teeth*

An infographic depicting the runout of Cameroon’s 2011 Cabinet reshuffle. Data from...

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:06:00 -0500

An infographic depicting the runout of Cameroon’s 2011 Cabinet reshuffle. Data from Twitter.com #cmr11 , cameroontribune.cm , camer.be and cameroon-info.net

I hope I don’t get sued by Jay Z and Russell Simons,...

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 16:15:14 -0500

I hope I don’t get sued by Jay Z and Russell Simons, #Lool.

An infographic depicting the runout of Cameroon’s 2011 Presidential Elections. Data from...

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:28:00 -0400

An infographic depicting the runout of Cameroon’s 2011 Presidential Elections. Data from Twitter.com , Jeuneafrique.com

What is Pulse ?

Sat, 07 May 2011 03:23:00 -0400

Well for sometime now,we been secretly working on Pulse.So what is pulse ? how did start ? we started this project with the idea of creating a social network for the university of Buea, but after realizing a vast majority of African universities had no form of online student services, and how students depended solely on notice boards, in-class announcements and mouth to mouth communication, we decided it was time we do something about it.

Pulse is a social/geo-location platform aimed at connecting African universities, professors to their students. In order words, we trying to make African education look cool, Pulse will provide a platform where any university can own and operate its own high-end online students services at a low cost, without having to deploy any technical infrastructure, it will permit lecturers to communicate faster and cheaper to their students and lastly it will enable students to receive updates from their teachers and classmates through sms, web and email. We are building only for these category of universities and of course taking into consideration the realities of African users, that means for us, that our platform will be centered around the mobile experience.

When will Pulse be ready? well follow us on twitter to know @dynastypulse

Designing For The Social Network Case Study : “Camerborn”

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Social Networking is becoming such big trend nowadays, we can see new ones popping everyday, and very lately, a Cameroonian social networking site was launched by Mambe Churchill and Papa Qube, called Camerborn, in the effort to answer the needs of the local population which sites likeFacebook, Hi5 and Myspace haven’t, I wouldn’t dare say these sites haven’t radically changed the way we communicate today, but rather what I’m saying is these networks aren’t adapted to the local cultures, Lets see a practical example,Facebook today enables a Cameroonian teenager to chat with his friend from India, see the photos of his girlfriend who lives in Britain and read the status of his brother studying in the US and also its enables him to spend countless hours playing CafeWorld and FrontierVille, But what it doesn’t enable him to do, is to prepare for his upcoming GCE or BAC examinations, it doesn’t enable him share his homework with his classmate who is in Nkoukolou and also, it doesn’t enable him to find other students like him who have difficulties in Maths and are looking for ways to fix that and people to share that with. Camerborn was created to enable that. I was greatly privileged to be part of the project, and thus i took upon the task to redesign the present UI (User Interface) to something more COOL, and I thought it will be easy to do, but little did i know, that designing for the Social Media could be very challenging.

That challenge definitely made it more interesting, and thus I discovered like many before me that UIs for social sites have nothing to do with the UIs for traditional websites, because in a social networking, you have to think like the user and not like a designer, you also have the obligation to design what will be pleasant and usable for the users and not what pleases you, you must be guided by the principles of usability, user experience and user interaction, but the most challenging aspect, is that of designing a product that will be simple enough for the millions of Cameroonians with its 3.9% internet penetration and over 176 660 Facebook users but also be mature enough for the other visitors from around the world, so i was inspired in a first run by a concept an Australian designer Barton Smith developed “Facebook Facelift”, actually he took upon himself to redesign Facebook.

So after days and days of brainstorming and prototyping on paper and in my mind, I came up with what I would call the profile page design, I know you might ask yourself “Why did he first design the profile page before the home page” , I have no answer to that, so the designs goes as thus, at the top the logo and menu items. Below that the share section and profile picture and immediately below that, the different post and profile menu items

From the above design its was pretty easy to do the Home page, surprisingly after that ideas simply just flowed in, and I changed tons of things, finally came up with this as the landing page,

After consultations with team members, it was decided the background be changed back to Black, which I clearly didn’t like but as I earlier said, you aren’t designing for yourself and the founders also decided it would be better we change the Camerborn UI gradually and not to do a complete redesign, Good Decision or Not, only the future can tell. I also decided to play around with the interface for mobile web and also a co-worker William Takor adapted the design for iPhone.

So while waiting for Camerborn to become bigger than the “The Social Network”, we shall still keep the present design and progressively aim towards something better.

I will be posting the PSD files i used in these designs shortly for your private and public use.

Is Africa Sleeping ? No its Not !

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

By now you should be aware that Africa hosted for the very first time a memorable event, the FIFA world cup, i can still remember the excitement on the faces of people when it was first announced . But my question remains, why did it take so long for the African continent to host the World Cup, or better why do we give the impression that Africa isn’t ready to take part in large events, some may say, its due to a lack of infrastructure, poverty, or corrupt governments and so on and so forth. But after seeing what South Africa offered, today i think as many others, that’s its time Africa shows its self in big style to the rest of the world, let it be in the Arts, Design, Technology or Architecture Field. We need to promote our products and ideas and also show how they are positively affecting our nations and the world.

Being a avid reader of TechCrunch blog, and I’m amazed by the beauty by which they promote Start-ups and give the impression that Silicon Valley is Unique place that can not be reproduced elsewhere, Guess What, they are African starts up that are changing the lives of millions of people too, like the open source project Ushahidi which was developed in the aim to report violence in Kenya after the elections, but today is been used in numerous different countries as an alert system, and it was put to test recently during Haiti 2010 earthquake .

Other Start-ups like Ringo who after 2 years of operation increased the number of Cameroonian internet users from 200,000 in 2009 to 750 000 users and now Cameroon can boast of a humbling 176 000 Facebook Users.

Via AfricanDigitalart

Africa also has rich digital community like African Digital Art which references a wide range multimedia productions artist from around the African globe headed by a talented digital artist Jepchumba.

Now over to social networking sites, i know the question you ask yourself is “Do we need another Social Network”, but the right question to ask is “Does the actual 500 million social network benefit the local African community ?”, ”has it reduced poverty ?” or “has it increased the level of literacy “, ” has it enable the truck pusher business to promote his services” NO… that’s why entrepreneurs like Mambe Churchill and Papa Qube Launched naijaborn and camerborn in the effort to answer those questions. How are this networks doing you may ask? pretty well, they don’t have 500 millions like Facebook, and neither to they have enemies

Also Africa has nothing to do with the film Blood Diamond or Hotel Rwanda as African American friend once told me, or lets better say at least its as bad as the racism problems in the US, so nothing serious.

The Diary Of African Designer would be place where i will share my experiences, thoughts, tutorials and stories and also those of African professionals across the Globe.

If you have questions, please ask me below in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.