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Forward to the Past back to the FutureIt is now over a year and a half from the biennial conference held in Nairobi and less than a year to go to the next conference and i wonder whether those that we promised will be achieved to the satisfaction of those we seek to engage. Iam one of those acting within the KM Africa network at the periphery, and having had so much experience in this role for many years, Iam tempted to say that knowledge management is truly a nemesis in Africa. As we wait for the next meeting where hopefully an interface for the interaction is created for producers, organizers and consumers of African knowledge products congregate, I cannot help lament to loss of Africa's great libraries. I have seen networks and works that are going on in the region as I was attempting to bring people from all walks to a site that seeks to link communities of practice. The major challenge my colleagues and i had was that of apathy. Apathy not from the public no but from those actors in society whom have become custodians of knowledge through the modern education system. I found it disturbing that a few PhDs and professors participate even when invited to African initiated activities but participate in full force in international networks where in most cases their knowledge and experiences are irrelevant. I am praying everyday that soon we will have African initiatives bringing scholars to dialogue and interact beyond the formal meeting such as KM Africa and the informal international networks they are called in to participate to give voices and authenticity to issues that are sometimes irrelevant to the challenges facing our vast continent. I will come to this again when I have collected myself. I have been overwhelmed by the responses manifesting from me on knowledge management in Africa
Submitted by wilsonmagaya on 2 September 2008 - 10:12pm. categories [ ]
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Participation and Apathy whom to blame
Sorry for the late response I was away in Zim. To answer your question I will direct you to something I have been experimenting with for sometime now. Over the last 3 months i ran a discussion on e-learning in Africa. The focus being that knowledge management in its broadest sense has to embrace technology to move forward in Africa. I invited over 1500 people to participate. In order to do so one needed to register. We had 32 people registering and over six weeks we had 27000 hits on that discussion forum. We used all kind of routes to get attention but we could not get the attention of those who could move the discussion beyond the possibilities dialogue. this prompted us to do some research on e-learning in Africa and some rather interesting results came out. You can see these on http://connactionzim.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=33&func=v....
There is a lot that can be done. There is need to invest in the process however. the hub has to be linked to an ongoing process like KM Africa's conferences, and as well as the process that take place between these conferences. The network called KMAfrica is dead between conferences and so we will have a dead hub. In a nutshell the hub is a vehicle for moving the KMAfrica agenda therefore start by engaging those who have come to KMAfrica and participated but you also need to have knowledge products on the hub that are made and circulated in Africa. Always remember this for it is the downfall of Africa Invest in those important things that are not so urgent and see the urgent but unimportant fall away.
participation and apathy
interesting comment that you make about apathy on the part of custodians of knowledge, At some level, I sense that there is a high level of self-consciousness, especially in front of peers that inhibits people who often wait for someone to jump in first and start doing it,,,like you have on KMAfrica.com. What do you think could be done to encourage participation on electronic fora like www,kmafrica.com?