Julian Mwine's Blog

So, James Gandolfini is dead . Ordinarily an American actor's death would mean nothing more for me than a few minutes on the news and I'd be back to whatever I was doing. However, Gandolfini's passing triggered some personal memories. No, no, I didn't know "Tony Soprano" personally. However, 5 years ago I moved to Beijing where I was to live for almost a year and the first few weeks were quite lonely because I had just moved into a sparsely furnished apartment with no TV or anything I could pass time with and I had no friends. I bought a used laptop shortly after and one day as I was going home I came across a street vendor with all Six seasons of the Sopranos (which had just wrapped up a few months before). I cannot say I was a fan of the show having only watched a the first few episodes of season one on DSTV around 7 years earlier, but it was the only one he had in English and I was really not looking forward to another night in an empty flat with only

These days its hard to open a newspaper, watch TV or traverse the information superhighway without coming across an article or blog post praising IT and what a positive impact it has on business the world over or how information technology is literally capable of solving most of the problems known to man. However, despite the undeniable importance of IT in today’s world, sometimes the role (and importance) of IT seems to be overstated for different reasons and in a number of ways. A graphical representation of the Digital Access Index.  See how poorly Africa is  doing (Source: International Telecommunications Union) The rapid growth of IT and ICT use has led to a digital divide between those who have and those who do not have access to IT facilities and services especially in the poorest parts of the world. While the importance of IT is being discussed, it is worthwhile to realise that in some situations only a small section of the population can access this IT and thus the benef