Panel Discussion | Women in ICT

28/11/12

Changing the game: The role girls and women play in domestic internet economy.

After the full day of gathering content for our app "Food for thot" we were all invited to stay back for the Panel discussion on Women in ICT. While helping set the place up for the evening function I was notified that I will be one of the four panelists. The other three are also young women participants from this Forum.
The Key Note speaker was Mrs. Stephanie Danclair (Chief Operations Officer of Bright Path Foundation) and remarks were given by Katalaini Duaibe (from United Nations Women department).

I do not consider myself in the ICT sector so I was extremely nervous about being on the panel. But it was not that bad.

The first question was:
What do think about the development in Fiji and what role do you play in this? 
The developments taking place locally are escalating at different wavelengths and Youth development is huge. Young people are developing in all spheres of life. They are excelling in Education (experimenting with different types of careers, doing volunteer works, going abroad for studies and also engaging in vocational studies), Sports and Advocacy work as well. The Youth community uses the Internet for communicating and searching for information daily and they too become part of the ICT network in doing so.

What is my role in this? 
I thought that all this time I am not a part of the ICT world. But my blogs are also a big part of the ICT world. The blogs I write are also a big part of this ICT World. It is helping me connect the information I have to people in the wider community and most importantly with my Internet family.

The second question was:
What challenges do you face in your professional work and what are the solutions?
Challenges we face are one too many.
1) Time: Timing of events are usually in the evenings and many young women face difficulties in attending forums in the evening. One reason is because they have home commitments and the second reason being many of them do not feel safe to travel in the evening.
2) Being taken seriously is an issue. Just because we are 'youth' we do not have enough experience to make decisions - is a common myth!! Youth also have experience (even though it is not much) even if it experience of a few weeks, months or years.
3) As a tutor a challenge I have faced is the two set of students I have. The fresh out of high school students know more about ICT than I do, while the matured students face more difficulties. So I have to learn from the students on one end of the wavelength and try my level best to impart that information to the students on the other end of the wavelength.
4) Commitment - Not everyone shows the same level of commitment as you would want them to. This I have noticed in Youth groups and in Students. Weather it is doing community outreach or completing assignments some youth are very reluctant and leave things to be done last minute. A better time management system needs to utilized for effective results and for us to be taken seriously in the community.

There is a grave need to change the mindset of people regarding Youth and ICT and most importantly towards women in ICT.

Till bad internet connection do us part . . .
Alzima Elisha Bano

DAY 3: YTC_MAD 'Food for thot'

28/11/12
Day 3: Youth Tech Camp | Mobile App Development

And today the good people of Bright Path Foundation announced which six app's we will actually design and launch on Friday. And Food for thot is one of the six apps to be developed. This is a very exciting achievement for me personally and the rest of the team was overwhelmed as well. A slight moment of sadness for the team because we have been divided into different groups now - Developers, Designers and content. Shareen has joined forces with the Development elite :-) While Micheal is drawing with his design team. I felt stranded and a little alien because I was in the content team with 8 new people. At first I thought the idea I had is going to be bulldozed but the members of the group were very helpful. They worked together with me and shared useful feedback. 

We went into the City after lunch and divided ourselves into pairs. We covered four categories of restaurants: Local/Fijian, Indian, Oriental and Fast Food.
We approached approximately 15 restaurant owners and received positive response from 12.
At present our database has:
1) Natural Blends (MHCC)
2) JJ's Takeaway (At the market)
3) Maya Dhaba (Victoria Parade and MHCC)
4) Curry Hosue (Waimanu Road)
5) Ashiyana (Victoria Parade)
6) Vine Yard Palace (Victoria Parade)
7) Korea House (Waimanu Road)
8) Tui B. (At the Market)
9) Chopsticks (Renwick Road)
10) Jodys (Central Suva)
11) McDonalds (Central Suva)
12) Chicken Express (Mid City Mall)
13) Wishbone and Pizza King (Central Suva and Sports City)

It has been a great experience collecting the content and tabulating it  but it has been tiring as well. We have slotted the Restaurants into the different categories. 
For homework we have to follow up with a few more restaurants and also put all these information into tables. 
Some changes were required for the wire frame since the app will not do what we initially pitched :-) 

So it has been a very productive day for the team.

Until next blog. . .
Alzima Elisha Bano

Day 1: Mobile App Development

26/11/12      Day 1 of Mobile App Development.

This week of the Youth Tech Camp sponsored by U.S Department of State is being held at Novotel Convention Center, Lami. We have some amazing facilitators from Bright Path Foundation, US and from Pasifika Nexus. 
Some of the information shared were on the lines of:
- Importance of internet in the world.
- Issues with technology in the world.
- Statistics on Internet users and Mobile application users.
- Types of Applications that we need to and should be creating. 
- Apple generally has two handsets.
- Android has many types of handsets so when making an Android app the developers need to consider the type, size and resolution of the different android phones. 

An important point stressed over and over was the need for Local Content. We can not expect the International market to develop app's that can work and meet the needs of the local market. 

Our Task:

• To understand what constitutes local content.
• To develop the mobile app and services that can meet local, regional and International needs.
• To build the local ecosystem needed to support and sustain true ICT-based industries. 

By the end of Lunch time we had (in groups) pitch a few ideas we had for Mobile App's. 
Our group (members: Alzima Bano, Shareen Taiyab and Micheal Irava) Pitched a few ideas.

1. Food for thot - this app will show a list of restaurants in the local area  (that have subscribed to this app) and the availability of seats in that restaurant. It will also show a rating from customers on the quality of food and service. So before you go to the restaurant you will know if there are seats available and what ratings have been given to these restaurants. 
2. It gives tourists an opportunity to see reviews before they got dinning.
3. It gives restaurant owners an opportunity to see how customers are rating their food and services.

So that was Pitch one. 

The other pitches will be posted/updated in time to come :-)

Untill next blog...

Alzima Elisha Bano.

DAY 1: Food for Thot _ Mobile App Development.

27/11/2012 

Day 2 of the Mobile App Development workshop at the Youth Tech Camp carries on at Novotel, Lami. 
Bright Path Foundation members are facilitating this workshop and they are doing a great job!! :-) 

Yesterday we pitched ideas for Mobile App's that can be developed. I had pitched two ideas.

1) Food for thot: Save your time. Enjoy your food.

This app would allow you to check if there are seats available at your choice of restaurant (if they are registered with the app). Above is a sample of the Logo we created. It was actually the original work of one of our group member: Micheal Irava. 

This app will benefit consumers (local and tourists) and it will also benefit the Restaurant owners. How? 
Consumers: You get to check if there is a table available at the restaurant and it shows the rating given by other customers. 
Eg: 
The restaurant layout will indicate which/how many tables are available. A red table means NOT Available while a green table indicates Available. 
Food: 3 Stars Service: 2 stars Space: 2 stars - So this means the food is great but service is not - so Take away your food. 

This is what it will look like in the initial stages. You would click companies and it will take you to the next screen and list the companies that are registered with the app. They will be classified into categories like the second row of icons showing [Curry][Chinese][Oriental] and more categories can be added as the companies register themselves.
Once you click on the category it will shoe which restaurants are listed under that category. You can click on a restaurant of your choice (listed with the app) and it will take you to the seating available (or not) in that particular restaurant. At the bottom will be 3 stars which you can use to rate the food and the service offered. 
The reason for three stars: You either Like the Food or you Dont!! But we went with the traffic light concept that indicates: RED: Eww [food was bad] EMBER: Digestible [It was so-so] GREEN: Yum [food was great].
Once more companies register than there can be two choices on the homepage: Dinning | Review. If you click on dinning it would show what restaurants are available on our search and if you click review it will the review by customers for restaurants that are in our database. 

We thought of starting the idea small and keeping it open to recommendations and comments, depending on resources available we can make changes. The changes would also depend on our taste as the developers for the app. :-)

This segment of learning has been 'information overload' But I am glad I have been able to input up to this wireframe segment. I feel more tech savy than I ever did before :-) 

Untill next blog . . . 

Alzima Elisha Bano

Random act of kindness.

6th October 2010. 

I went to the Post office to send a letter to a dear friend. 

After the lady at the counter weighed my envelop she typed in some numbers in her computer and said: "that will be $1.95 ma'am".

i was glad that some people still know customer care - the lady had a beautiful smile on her face. but seconds later my beautiful disappeared ... Why?? Because a very smart me had only $1.90 in her purse!!! 

How??

Why??

I was thinking where my money went. Than i realized i had changed wallets the other night and most probably forgot my notes in it. Not to worry.

Very politely i replied to the kind lady at the counter: "sorry but i am down 5cents. it's ok, il come back later".

There was a man standing next to me and he turns and says: "you need 5cents?" and passes a 50cent coin to me. i said thank you but couldn't stop laughing. 

So i paid the nice lady at the counter and thanked the stranger and left.

while i walked back to the car i couldn't help but think, just a day ago one Stranger ruined my afternoon my his nonsense email and today a stranger helps me out for no reason.
Strange is work of Nature. but YAY my mail is on its way!!

Thank you kind Sir.

Xoxo

Video Editor. [19/11/12]

Good Morning World!!

So the morning began with a visit to the doctor. I was rather unhappy with that because in 5 minutes he diagnosed me with a prescription. On that note - what is the deal with Doctor hand-writings? Like who understands those? Would it kill them to write legibly?? 

Anyways so I got my overly expensive medication *poor wallet* and came home. Had a meal took the meds and got online - because I have nothing else to do really.

Recently I registered a youtube channel because I think it is an awesome way to get people to hear you out. with a little bit of humor you could actually discuss Social Issues and the 'not so bad' Young Generation actually listens and provides their 5cent back to you. 

To check out my 'unlisted' channel you can click here :-)
At the moment I have just used windows live movie maker to edit some home videos because I need to know HOW to use them movie/video editor.

So on my very boring *sick* day ^cough cough^ I decided to use the mighty powers of GOOGLE and download a free movie editor!! :-)  *Videopad Video editor*
So far so good.. it seems simple enough to use and edit the basics. 
Practice makes the Perfection and I shall be doing just that over the holidays... :-)

Untill next blog . . . 

:-)

Peace poety _ IPD _ 2012

Wars fought? who Won?
Lives lost. War won.
Conflict debate
Hate words said
Fear instilled in that child's head.


Peace be on you and your loved ones too
Peace be in the work that you daily do
Peace in your heart and peace in your word
Peace should translate on your action road

Peace a tool we dearly need
Peace a tool we dearly seek
Peace we talk about
Peace we want
For generations gone and those to come about

Peace a word often spoken
Peace a word just five letters written
Peace a word so swiftly said
Peace a word merely in our head

For Peace we fight - what an irony
For Peace they war - what an odd scenery
for Peace we work day and night
For Peace we debate with unreasonable might

Peace be on you and loved ones too
Peace appear in the work you do
Peace a word so swiftly spoken
Peace the message so dearly taken


Peace in our mind
Peace in our soul
Peace in our work
and in our nation as a whole . . .

EID MUBARAK : 2012

Eid Mubarak :-)

2012 Ramadan began on 21st July and concluded on 18th August with Eid being celebrated on 19th August, Sunday. And what a wonderful Sunday it was as well :-)

In the last week of Ramadan we began making sweets =D One of the many reasons we look forward to EID ;-)

The first things we made were: Larki Mithai & Nimkins.

Lakri mithai: the dough cut up 

Mum frying the Lakri Mithai

after frying the Lakri Mithai looks
like this.. it is than dipped in sugar syrup

The cookie cutters I used for shaping the Nimkins

Dad wanted some 'normal' looking Nimkins

After frying the Nimkins looks like this :-)

These two have got to be my favorite things to make and eat. :-)
We also made other sweets like: Rumball, Barfi, Coconut Ice, Gulab Kamun. barra, marsh-mellow and Suji Ladoo..

The table was set with delicious sweets=D

My speciality annually is the Coconut Ice this year I sandwiched the coconut ice - red-white-red... Critics said it was YUMMY :-) 

Coconut Ice: Red Sandwiched :-)

During EID the main sweet dish we make is called Samaii :-) And it is very YUM!!! I always have samaii at home on Eid morning but try to skip it elsewhere because it is made in Milk (do not want an upset tummy)... 

Samaii - made by Mum

I love meeting family on EID day, we are all so dressed up =) And everyone is being so bubbly :-) And I love having my friends and Family come over to visit us and feast :-)

My cousin Nicky and her little neighbor Silvia

The Boys :-) we've been friends since 2005 :-)

And My Girl Friends :-)
They are students at the University
of the South Pacific and just like me they
too come from the Western side of Fiji. 

My friend Roshika (the tallest in the group)
came with her wonderful friends :-)
The more the merrier =D

The day began for us at 5.30am [19.08.12] and concluded at 1.00am [20.08.12] It was a great day and I look forward to the next Ramadan :-) 

Untill next blog . . . 
Alzima Bano :-) 

PGD DONE!!

Finally completed post Graduate Diploma in Psychology!!

Oh what an achievement!! 2011 began with me leaving my job in an advertising firm to pursue my Post Graduate Diploma in Psychology.
In the first semester I took only one Unit because I was returning to school after 3 years of being in the workforce (a slight panic attack there). . .

During the semester I did a job which was semi-related to my field but I also got to be part of the 17th Know India Program (more on KIP here)  and I spent 3 weeks away from home exploring and learning more about India. My personal 17th K.I.P experience can be read here ... At the end of semester I was amazed to have received an A+ for this unit (Advanced Human development). And did my own personal development advance (that a blog for another time) ...

In the second semester I took up a Volunteer position with Fiji Media Watch as a Media Monitoring Volunteer. I also took up PS402 - Advanced Cross Cultural Psychology; and PS406 - Abnormal Psychology (here we learnt more about DSM) and this unit felt like I was sitting in a medical class (from time to time). Later on in the semester I received the opporutnity to be part of a research project with SEEP. This research project was basically going out into the communities and conducting Focus Group Discussions with indo-Fijian groups, transcribing their interviews and giving in the reports. AMAZING experience!! At the end of the Semester I had been multitasking 2 units and 2 jobs. (WOW) and I managed to get a B+ in PS402 and an A+ in PS406 =) [YAY me]

2012 . . . Semester 1: the unit I dreaded the most! DG400| Advanced research Methodologies (if only I could insert dramatic music playing in here)... I had only heard negative things about the way this Unit was set out... A little sigh of comfort came about when I was told the unit will be taught by a new lecturer (he is very capable and has done numerous research in Fiji_which was good as he brought to the table some very interesting issues). The semester was okie_ I was given the topic Tourism Impacts to compile my 60% research paper on (FAINTS) but I managed to do so... When it was time for results to come out - I could have collpased when someone said 60% of our class had failed (mind you there were only 62 or so students in the class) So you can imagine my surprise when I saw i passed with a B+  :-)
2 B+'s and 2 A+'s sits me on a Grade Point Average of 4!! Which means and A and I am more than Happy with this achievement =D =D

Now to look forward to the Graduation!!!

until next blog . . .
Elisha!!

Spegetti Friday

Spegetti Friday!!

So I cooked Spegetti for a few friends ELLY Style :-)

of course first you boil the spegetti :-)
Than I cooked the chicken (with a little bit of garlic, chillies, ginger and sauce) and than I melted cheese into it (drool) . . .

Once we were done cooking we took our food and went down to the every so cold sea-wall (by the sea)... And enjoyed a nice meal :-)



:-) TADA and these were the Happy Customers of Elly's Cooking... All of them are still alive and well_therefore proving my COOKING is EATABLE =D

Until next Blog |
الزما  الیشا  بانو 

Tutor Bano

2012, Semester 2, Week 2 | 3rd August - Friday.

I taught my 1st tutorial class at the University of the South Pacific :-)

This semester I will be teaching Psychology PS102 [Human development] on Fridays and I have 2 tutorial groups with more than 20 students in each class.

Both the set of students are very dynamic in nature and seemed to have a great sense of humor (YAY for me!!) I am so looking forward to other sessions with them... :-)

Cheers to a wonderful Opportunity!!

Till next blog. . .

Elisha!!

Glycemic index

I was reading a book and came across the Glycemic Index.

You can read more about GI by clicking here
Foods with low GI are broken down by our body in a longer time - that is why when we eat certain foods we do not feel hungry for a long time, whereas if we eat food with a high GI we feel hungry very quickly. That is because our body takes quicker to break it down and HUNGER strikes quicker :)
 
And a chart showing GI for different foods can be found by clicking here

It is very important for us to resort to healthy eating and healthy lifestyles.  

ENJOY :-)

McScreamy's in the car.

ONce upon a time there were two sisters. They would travel to work together. Loriza would drop Elisha (me) off and take the car to work. 
On a beautiful Wednesday Loriza drives the car out to drop us to work and school. I was seated in the front seat of the car. We dropped mum to work and drove off to pick Princess Road. 
As usual we picked up Tanz and Simran, they both set in the back of the car. 
Suva is rather flooded with vehicles so we usually take the back routes to work and school. We were driving by listening to the music when all of a sudden we hear Tanz screaming in the back seat. The newspaper she was holding was being utilized to slap a tiny little lizard that had found its way inside the car. 
Of course we all panicked. Loriza pulled over (not fully pulling over, she was still slightly on the main road). Any way - Tanz, Simran and I got out of the car. Tan still screaming while Simran and I tried to locate the lizard. 
A man was walking by on the other side of the road and he slowed down (Probably wondering why these young ladies are acting weird at this hour). Next thing we know Loriza screams! The lizard was on her seat by now. She jumped from her seat - onto the passenger seat - and out of the CAR!! This all happened in a split second. The sight was LOL - AWESOME - LOL.... By now Simran and I are almost 'rofl' but we are not that mean. So we checked the entire car for the poor falla (the Lizard). Sadly we couldn't find it.  Looking at the time and knowing we all get late we stand around waiting for the Lizard to turn up some where. I took the car keys and asked everyone to get back in the car. Simran took the front passenger seat and we requested McScreamy's to sit in the back. 
On the road again - a few minutes later Tanz starts screaming again saying the Lizard was on Loriza. OMG!!! Not again. Phew. Tanz was joking. But it did get Loriza screaming and almost jumping out of the window. 

So that was the story of one Screamy morning on our way to work and school. 
Oh how I wish I videoed that moment. =)