Unbearable Lightness of Blogging--Part II : Close Encounters of a WTO Kind

I spent my lunch period with a very very personable young woman today at the Kofi Annan ICT Centre of Excellence, whose link you can access here: http://www.aiti-kace.com.gh. They currently have this fair going on. I met an interesting group from ASHESI UNIVERSITY, studying computer science, who explained to me a new traffic system that they have come up with that would be used on the LABADI road in Accra.

 

Basically, the system is designed such that rather than having a policeman guide traffic, ultra-sonic sensors would detect – from a distance of 50 metres as yardstick – whether there were any cars up to that distance. If there are, then the traffic lights remain red; if not, it goes green.

 

And the brains behind this are Ghanaians!

 

Can you imagine that they would like to use LINUX software, which would enable them to change the code—as opposed to traditional Microsoft et al, that will not. Coupled with the fact that they can use JAVA applications, too.

 

I’d like to visit the place tomorrow with my colleague at lunch.

 

For now, though, my blogging will be a tad light as I prepare myself for my colleagues who are preparing to go to Hong Kong. In a post reminiscent of the August one (http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2005/08/shuttling-around-is-this-accra.html), I’d just like to get you to try and read between the lines.

 

My colleagues are preparing to go down to Hong Kong in a couple of day’s time for what will prove to be another historic battleground for social and trade justice groups.

 

I can already feel the World Trade Organisation excitement building up…and it’s building big time.

useful links

http://www.ginks.org