A day on the road

Monday

JB stopped by to say hi, Ellen will be stopping by at 10:00 to pick me up and head to the office. Eager to get going…

Oh, and my pathetic GPS (Teletype SBT-1000) unit seems quite worthless. I was unable to get a fix in Brussels, at the airport in Monrovia or at my hotel room. I’ll try outside, but not holding my breath.

Maintained my isolation, reviewing the current proposals for ICT policy in Liberia and writing a document on Phonopoly – a means to transfer money via mobile phones. It appears upon review that this really could be a way to open the cash only economy up to a new form of monetary transactions.

I am supposed to be picked up now by JB around 1PM…


Well, JB didn’t end up picking me up, rather Saey came and gathered me up around 1PM. After checking out, we made about a 15 minute drive up the main road to Genesis. The main road is in pretty bad shape, very large areas where traffic slows to a craw as people try to weave around the minefield of potholes. The destruction from the war is present everywhere you look.

The Genesis compound is near the presidential and other government offices. Since the fire in the Presidential compound, the President has been staying in a different building, I think it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.

I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting the rest of the team: Sam Jackson an economist with a long list of accomplishments, Mr. Woods who has been spearheading the OSIWA project, Ellen Crayton the owner and the brains behind Genesis who also has an impressive background of accomplishments.

There is some buzz around, as the group is very involved in a National Oil & Energy Stakeholders Forum later this week. This is a pretty big deal as they are working on various aspects of the energy issue including the possibility of oil along the coast.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on into the evening establishing contact with the various communications service providers and government officials. After about 40 calls, had several meetings scheduled and several call backs to make to confirm a time. The key this week is getting to as many of the providers and government people as possible.

Next week, we are working on putting together a workshop that brings together representatives from various sectors of the economy to discuss ICT. We think this will be the most effective way to get information from a broad spectrum of the economy.