Long Journey To Africa « Hackers For Charity

Hackers for Charity and the 304Geeks Present Hack3rCon II

For the second year in a row, Hackers for Charity and the 304Geeks will bring you, Hack3rCon. Back in the capitol city, Hack3rCon II will be from October 21st-23rd, 2011 at the Charleston House Hotel and Conference Center in Charleston, WV.

The conference will feature nationally re-known speakers and published authors from around the country, focusing on a wide range of information security topics. In addition, we have added a new event. This year we will be offering several live workshops where attendees can spend time with experts earning valuable hands-on experience.

In addition to the talks and workshops, 304Geeks will sponsor a party featuring musical guests Dual Core. The party will give attendees an opportunity to network with speakers, industry leaders, and other attendees. Friday night will also feature a podcast party with podcasters from the InfoSec Daily Podcast.

Back by popular demand, the Network King of the Hill (NetKotH) challenge returns. Top prizes for the winner!

Tickets are now on sale at http://Hack3rCon.org.

Tim Kettering visited with us today at the Computer Training Center. A former member of Geek Squad, Tim came to Jinja to work with Tukula.org, Ekisa and Amani. He heard about Hackers for Charity and wanted to help us any way he could. I thought first of our technicians, Gerald and Sparks who have been swamped with repair work lately.

Yesterday was a horrible day. More on that later. I did help one lady that came in, and I see that as my single accomplishment. She brought in this thumb drive she had taken to a print shop in town. They put it in their computer and it stopped working. Take a guess why. One computer did this.

I’m back from the US and I just wanted to send a quick thank you to the folks that put in the time and energy to send us gear this time around.

- Sam Kinch for downloading Rachel (again) along with lots of other goodies too big for us to download ourselves.. And for the Tableau.
- ‘Chrisnguyet’ for the load of beef jerky
- Frank Forrester for the hard drive and the massive downloads
- Regina for the really fun LOTR posters
- Andy Rosenzweig at Merit for (still!) handling the packages for us

I really appreciate each and every one of you!

Thanks again!

We have worked with Children of Grace (link) for quite awhile. This week we trained more than 30 of their kids in our computer training center. They were all Senior students (high school equivalent) with limited computer training. We provided classes in typing, Microsoft Word and Excel and gave them free time at the machines to play around. The training lasted for three days and along with our other students really packed the place. The first set of pictures show our center which is completely packed out with students. You’ll see our staff members Teo, Andrew and Gerald hard at work helping instruct and assist the students.

We also worked in the COG office. Their office is very modern, with new furniture and equipment, but it’s also one of the more complex setups we’ve worked with here in Uganda. We helped them troubleshoot some network problems and updated the high-speed Internet setup which we installed a few months ago. The last two photos gives you an idea of the setup we’re supporting for Children of Grace.

Even though they’ve had a few hiccups, they are very happy with their office setup and we’re happy to support them in their mission to assist the vulnerable children here in Uganda.

It started with this and ended up looking like this. We’re OK.

Here’s a short compilation of Solomon, a young guy that lives here in Uganda. I met him about two years ago, and then he disappeared. It turns out he was in Iraq working alongside the US military. That’s a story in itself.

The Keep is the restaurant we started in Jinja, Uganda as a way to support our work on the ground here. It’s also been a great way to network with folks here and connect with individuals and organizations that need our help.

Live music performance really fit the vibe of The Keep. The acoustics in our place are amazing, and it’s an intimate venue. Since we don’t serve alcohol, we also draw those who are a bit more serious about hearing good music.

But the connection with the artists was unexpected. As it turns out the music scene in Uganda is complex and in dire need of something different. Young musicians are drawn more by the promise of big money rather than a love for music. This is spoiling Africa’s deep musical roots, and as anyone that understands professional music will tell you, money is a poor motivator when it comes to producing good music. The scenes is dominated by auto-tune and fruity loops. Poor synth drum loops have replaced the soul-stirring sound of African drums. Twenty-year old synth tracks have replaced background vocals and “real” instruments, not because it’s better musically, but because that’s what “everyone else does” and the music producers (which all charge a fortune for crappy work) just do it that way.

The connection to technology is a clear one. Since a very small percentage of people here have even the most basic computer skills, there are very few knowledgeable producers.

We do computer training to help people get jobs and to change their perception of what’s possible for technology.

Once we started inviting local musicians into The Keep, we found another avenue for training and empowerment. Now, thanks to donors in the US, we’ve got some professional gear and we ratcheted up the quality of our live performances beyond anything available anywhere else in the country.

On my recent trip to the US, my good friend Bruce donated an amazing acoustic electric guitar and my friend John donated a bunch of Shure mics and an mbox. Combined with the camera Syngress donated a while back (payment for filming the author interviews for the final Stealing installation), we’re now recording our live performances to create Live CD’s, video DVD’s and online video copies of their performances. We provide this as a service for our artists to give them a step up.

Needless to say, these services would ordinarily cost more than a young artist could ever afford.

I’m excited about our work in the music community, and I’ve found that there are so many music geeks in the hacker community, and this now makes sense to me. There’s logic to music of course, but good hackers and good musicians understand that there’s an out-of-box thinking that defines true talent in the industry. So thanks to everyone who has donated to help us along. We’re still in the market for good music gear, so please let us know if you’d like to donate your old gear to our cause. We’re outfitting a music studio and we’ve already found a young guy to train as a sound engineer so we’ll use just about any decent equipment you throw our way.

So with that said, I’m going to be uploading lots of live performance videos in the next few weeks which include talented local artists as well as international guests. Thanks again for the support and enjoy the clips.

I’d like to open with a video from a friend of the family, Ryan, who is a really talented musician. But this song is not serious AT ALL. IT’s about pickles and that’s just mean because there are no Vlasic pickles here.

i started up with HFC in uganda and have seen progress, challenges and breakthroughs of all all kinds but still thank full to our God who is the Author and finisher of every thing(beginning and the end). many people are enjoying charity at CTC. mostly Army, and the police department.
thanks to you guys that are making it happen.