Well think again. Whilst at the Africa Gathering I met three important people who were also running seminars.

In this thread I will tell you about one of those people. Dr Chris Hutchison a lecturer at Kingston University. He run a seminar on the University’s Africa project and sat in on my seminar too.

We had brief conversation afterwards, he introduced me to his colleague Catherine we and agreed to meet up to continue the conversation.

May was a busy month for us all and it became near impossible to meet. I had a work assignment that took me off to Uganda, and then there was the BBC Gardener’s World Exhibition during the second week of June. When this ended in the belief that the “fortune is the follow up “I dropped Chris a line with possible dates of meeting him and Catherine

It transpired that he was speaking at a conference in Latvia. I also learned from him that there was a conference at the University on 26 June 2009 and I would be welcome to be one of the speakers, which I promptly took up and my topic was REPRESENTATION and INTERPRETATION

At the conference I learned from Chris that he had been made head of the University’s Africa Project. He and Catherine were currently working on a project in South Africa and want to explore ways of promoting financial independence for the women.

Chris asked if I would consider collaborating with them on this particular project by including them in what I do at Ethnic Supplies Ltd. I agreed to a meeting with Chris and Catherine (who is currently on Holiday) so that I can learn more about this project and consider if I would like to be involved. But I am guessing that collaborating with such a high profile university will be an opportunity not to be missed.

Something else happened at the meeting of 26 June 2009 and that will be the subject of my next post

And it all started with Twitter

I don’t know when or how I got into Twitter but frankly it doesn’t matter. However what does is the ability to connect with others that Twitter provides. I have no doubt folk will debate the inns and out of Twitter for some time to come of as we say in Africa until the cows come home but I would urge you not to dismiss it.

My Twitter story starts with a post sent by Ed whose Twitter handle is chiefmoamba . Ed posted a Tweet in which he mentioned an Africa gathering in London.

This is someone I didn’t know nor he and I can’t even remember how he became my “Follower” nor me his. He politely answered my questions one of which was how could I get hold of tickets to the event in London.

He informed me that the tickets were sold out and asked if I would mind leading on one the seminars! Phew! all of this in just a few minutes of exchanging what is technically text messages!

Having reviewed the details I asked him what on earth I would talk about as the whole gathering appeared to be about ICT. Well those who know me will not be surprised by this.
He suggested that I could talk about my work at Ethnic Supplies

That is easy enough I thought, so I agreed to join them. Here is how the actual day went. I sincerely had no idea how much I relied on ICT in the running of Ethnic Supplies.

What happened next following my appearance at the Africa Gathering knocked me for six. An email arrived in my in box, I along with the other speakers at that event were invited to submit a paper for a conference on Ethics, Roles and Relationships in Interaction Design in Develop and given a deadline of May 10 2009.

I had the usual doubts, will I come up with a good enough paper to submit and even if I do, will it be good enough to be selected etc..

One thing was certain if I didn’t submit a paper I will never know what the outcome would have been or would be. I therefore sat down and wrote a paper and sent it off and waited for the results that were promised on 24 May.

And right on time the results were in on 24 May my paper had been accepted and this is what they said

Reviewer 1
Accept. This author, who is not a part of the traditional ‘community’ of HCI4D, brings similar insights about listening to people impacted by development is critical to success. I think that her perspective would be very interesting – that we could learn from her experiences and vice versa. I also think that there is a potential for interesting collaboration as well. Although she does not explicitly mention ethical issues, they are implicit in what she has written.

Reviewer 2
Accepted, The author has clearly has done some serious thinking about the relevant work. I agree that we can learn by engaging with this person.

I could not believe my eyes and was glad that I had taken the time to submit the paper. I started to reflect on the power on Twitter as well as that following leads through

Have you had an usual experience or amazing results as a result of being on Twitter?