During the election campaigns many politicians in Tanzania argued that  the government should invest more on industries in order to tackle the employment problem. Also, on the opening of the parliament the president pointed that the focus will be on improving the industrial sector as means of creating mass employment.  I personally think it’s a good intention however I do not think if it’s appropriate for the government to focus on industries as means to stimulate the economy for the following reason.

Focusing on industries won’t provide a competitive edge for Tanzania. One of the reason is that we are competing with countries which have heavily invested in industrial sectors in terms of the skills and capital which makes their product more efficient and cheap in the market. By saying so I don’t mean that we shouldn’t try to compete but we should weigh whether we should focus our strength somewhere else for instance in service sector or remain on competition that we know we have a long way to go. For instance, imagine finding a shirt in in Kariokoo market whereby one is produced in Tanzania and the other is produced in China and the one from China is much cheaper than the one  from Tanzania. It is obvious that the consumer will buy the Chinese one. Yes, the government may decide to tax more the Chinese product but in that way the government is punishing a Tanzanian consumer. If the Tanzania product is not going to have market it means that the industry is going to fail and the investment on Tanzania industry are going to dead end.

I recommend that the government should invest more on social service and infrastructure. The government will make a better use of  tax payers money by improving education , health sector, improving water supply, roads and markets. By doing so the government will tackle the inequality by ensuring good living standard to its people and unleashing their opportunities to participate in economic activities.  So is it better for government to invest on industries were the money will just go into a dead end or should it rather invest on social service?

However, if the government wishes to stimulate the economy they should just create a robust business environment which will attract people to invest not only on the stagnating industrial sector but also on the growing service sector. The government may however intervene in the market by subsidizing the areas were the market is failing for instance instead of the government investing on the industrial sector it’s much better for them to subsidize local  industries which offer apprentice which improve skills and provide Tanzania with much better base for competition in the long run. Otherwise , the government may decide to diversify the economy instead of putting a focus on one (Industrial) sector that is so risky to invest (with uncertain prospects).

The intention of improving the industry sector is good, this shouldn’t be a revolution but it need to be an evolution. Therefore the government should focus on  improving education and vocational trainings which will provide necessary skills to compete. Also the government can subsidize local industries in return of showing how they have improved their efficiency from the subsidy that they are getting this will enable them to compete with established industrialist powers in the long run

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Social media has a lot of affordances that makes it an important platform for the 2015 election in Tanzania. Social media has lots of benefits to both citizens and the candidates. Citizens can obtain a lot of information about the candidates which will help them make informed decisions while candidates will have a cheap and cool platform to sell themselves. The role that social media can play in this election is colossal nonetheless I am interested to know whether social media can predict the result and how social media is  used in election. In this analysis  I’ll focus on presidential race and my analysis will tender on how the presidential candidates are using the platform.

Research shows that social media has proven to be effective tool for predicting future. For instance a study by Asur and Huberman, Predicting the future with social media, which used to predict box-office revenue for movies has proved that social media can be effective tool for prediction even more than prevailing market based techniques. Replicating the success of social media in predicting movie performance at box office; can analysts use or be persuaded to predict the election results using social media? Though it might need a lot of simulation and regressions to find the right model for predicting the results it’s my belief that a simple search and survey can shade light on the potential results

Preceding to the usage of social media by presidential candidates. First, I am glad that some presidential aspirants such as Lazaro Nyalandu, Mwigulu Nchemba, Hamis Kiwangalwa and January makamba have been actively engaging on social media other aspirants  have their teams actively campaigning for them in the platform for instance you will find Team Lowassa and many other teams actively participating. The participation of these candidates in the platform prove it to be an important arena that shouldn't be ignored

The platform is also beneficial to  candidates who won’t afford a chance on mainstream media. For instance a video on YouTube can be accessed by voters any time they wish to watch not necessarily the time that its broadcasted in the mass media. Also social media has helped citizens to engage directly with the candidates, voter are able to engage with candidates in twitter, Facebook, Instagram and forums such as JamiiForums. Thus if a candidates decides to capitalize on social media, it possible for him or her to increase the chances of succeeding. 

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Yesterday I had a pleasure of reading Dr Lwoga’s paper, ‘critical success factors for adoption of web-based learning management system in Tanzania’. The paper had intention of examining the use of web based learning in Tanzania. Auspiciously, today while reading the news I came across an article in Guardian that heads, ‘e-learning makes further education a reality for tens of thousands’. These two articles inspired me to blog on e-learning in Africa for two reasons, First as a novice of information systems with particular interest on social media it’s good to share my views with public and second inspiration come from my interest in education for development.

It is widely portrayed that eLearning is solution to education provision in marginalised communities; the truth is far from reality. One day I was discussing with my sister Aikande on how organisations such as Ubongo Kids and Shule Direct come with eLearning initiatives to help the delivery of education to students especially the ones who lack teachers or learning material. Then after our long discussion of praise we came to unfortunate reality that such initiatives ends up benefiting the students who are well off (it’s not bad benefiting them) than the intended marginalised students. The reasons for such a conclusion were such as lack of electricity, poor Internet connection and perhaps lack of computers or electronic application to access the materials. These issues pose a strong hindrance for marginalised communities to access the affordance of eLearning.

Dr Lwoga’s research offers more insight to challenges that face eLearning in Tanzania. Lwoga’s research uses the technological acceptance model to explore the use of web-based learning. Though her research was conducted in Muhimbili university with first year only, a sample which is small to generalize for Tanzania and Africa but her research still offers some important insight. Muhimbili University has introduced web-based learning facilities but students don’t use them as expected. One of the reasons that Lwoga’s research highlights is the perceived gratification that the students think of web-based learning. Many students won’t use the eLearning facilities if they don’t really perceive the gratification that they can obtain.  Lwoga’s observation can inform us that the use of eLearning will still face a challenge in marginalised communities if they won’t understand the gratification that will be obtained from eLearning.  One of the solutions to such a problem is to establish a support service, but how can support be provided with deficiency of resource? The idea of eLearning as a low cost can be refuted here when support services are incorporated on the cost.

Finally, I recommend that people should social be prepared with introduction of eLearning so as to make it efficient and effective. When I was in secondary school we had computers that had Encarta encyclopaedia that could be very useful if we were allowed access to the computer lab, unfortunate our teachers denied us access or they could limit our time to use the computer perhaps they had a phobia or worries but all in all there was lot of resistance and especially when recommendation of setting internet, all in all this hindered us a lot from benefiting eLearning.  

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Last week my brother Emanuel Tayari  called to say hello and we ended up discussing a socio-political and economic issues that are taking place in Tanzania. He started asking my experience and view of the capitals markets in Tanzania. My response  was that the equity market is good but the only bad thing is that’s many people are apprehensive of investing  because of bad experience from investing in domestic corporations that went public. For instance a lot of citizen were persuaded to invest on NICOL and Precision on the ground of patriotism. The expectation of people who invested weren’t met and they were highly discouraged.

Then I preceded to explain why Precision was a wrong investment. I perceive airline industry as a very competitive industry and any profit gained from the company will be retained to sustain the corporation in the industry or it will be defeated by rivals. In the case of precision, it had a certain degree of monopoly in Tanzania therefore many people expected it to provide dividends but any entry of a new company would be a threat to investors. And it was a case when Fastjet arrived.

Afterwards, our discussion moved on to our national carrier the Air Tanzania ATCL. I expressed my disgrace of the company. First, I hate the idea of government operating a business. I think the government has many other responsibilities and adding the headache of running a business isn’t a good idea. Secondly, the government should not compete with private sector but rather complement it by ensuring fair ground and good business environment. This will help both investors and customers. Thirdly, the airline industry is very volatile that it needs quick decision to survive, with the bureaucracy and politics a government corporation will be a sinkhole for taxpayers money.

Finally, I think the government should learn the art of competition if it has decided to embrace the market policy. The problem with Tanzania we still have the sentiments of socialism which I think they are good but we shouldn’t let them hinder us from being competitive. I know the market isn’t perfect in all cases but were its inefficient the government should chip in. For instance, if the government thinks that private companies won’t serve certain routes because they are not economical viable, the government can chip in by subsidizing those routes. Lastly, I think the art of competition can be introduced by bring back sports in schools and our communities. See one of my previous article ‘new look on sports’.

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Almost a year ago I was tasked to manage a small shop. The shop was packed with  empty shelf and part of my task was to revive it. The experience of   managing a similar shop five years ago had taught me that injecting capital into business isn’t the solution cause the capital might find a lot of loopholes to disappear without the management being aware. Therefore experience taught me that injecting capital should be dictated by growth and managerial capacity.

This time having a second chance of managing shop I thought of new strategy that’s effective and efficient.  The strategic recipe included introduction of technology in workplace. My anticipation was that technology was going to simplify work, increase efficient and reducing cost hence giving me the competitive edge in the market. Unfortunate the results were not as expected due to the following reasons.

First, technology by itself cannot produce expected results without creating  favourable social environment. I expected staffs to respond positively with the introduction of new technologies. My expectation was based with the fact that their workload will be reduced  and their performance will increase. It was different. I took time to introduce and make them familiar with the technology but it was social resisted.

Further, Adopting technology without  having a learning program is like throwing a fist in the air. Learning is essential process in the introduction of technology. Admittedly we had a change in staff  during the introduction of the new technology which affected the implementation of Technology strategy. This affected  the learning process  and made the investment on technology waste. Because every new staff had to learn again  how to use the some devices and programs.

Lastly,  it’s not the superiority of technology that counts but the competence of staff to use the technology  is what matters.  A shop or any business that invests in technology and doesn’t invest in its people and social environment is most likely doomed to fail.  Scholars of  information systems  who have interest in #sociomateriality will be able  to dig in further to explain the relation that exists between technology and human factors

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