Interview with Andrea Ebert from Microsoft

Click to Play

Following the Workshop held on the INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - ISO/IEC DIS29500 OOXML at African Regent Hotel on the 14th of August, 2007 the Ghana Standards Board as a follow up organised a stakeholder workshop on 27th of August 2007 at the KOFI ANNAN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN ICT to further discuss and ballot on Ghana's position on the standard.Andrea Ebert from Microsoft participated and shared his views with you.

What is Open Standards all about?

Open Standards is one form to achieve the broader goal of interoperability. Interoperability is the technique to connect data, systems and humans together helping to achieve collaboration. Open Standards is one way of doing that. There are other options available like community and services so Standards and Open Standars is one important thing we can use to achieve interoperability.

What does the Government and the people of Ghana stand to benefit from participating in this process of Standard setting?

You need to distinguish between Governement involvement and the standardisation process. Standardisation by itself is an appreciation and specification for the future and the development of specifications is the responsibility of a standard body or a technical committee. Governments separately and independently have the option to use or not to use certain specifications in a way. So there is definately independency between Government involvement but it is more a Country's or standard body's objective to achieve a common agreement on how a standard should be agreed upon and implemented.

What is your advice to the Government on the issue of Standard Setting?

It is hard for me especially from the private industrty to give advice to the Governement but listening to the debate today as an observer, it is a very important role to play in the transformation it society into what is called a knowledg based society, so Government's contribution to this debate is a significant one and it will look forward to solving upcoming challenges and the journey the Governeement and its partners in this Country have on the way to a knowledge-based society.

Interview with Ebenezer Malcolm, the Project Manager of GTP

Click to Play

Malcolm shared his expectations and some skills acquired so far from the ten days wireless training taking place in Winneba from the 1st to the 10th of August 2007

What is your name and what organisation are you coming from?

My name is Ebenezer Malcolm, the project manager of the Global Teenager Project, Ghana.

What do you have to share as some of the skills acquired so far from the wireless training workshop?

We have been taken through a lot of issues such as introduction to wireless networking, how to configure computers in terms of forming an enclave of hot spots. We also learnt alot about creating or building local Antennas where you can develop your own Antenna in case you don't have the proprietory type and I feel that these things have really helped us to uderstand the nitty-gritty of wireless networking.

What are some of your expectations at the end of the ten days training and how will you impact some of the knowledge gained to others?

My expectation at this workshop is that, I will go back to the office at the end of the ten days training to impact the knowledge I have acquired over here to my colleagues and it will become like training of trainers type of workshop. In addition to that, we will also go back to the various Schools where we have School Computers and also try to build the capacity of the teachers that are working in these Computer Laboratories so that they can also know how to set-up simple wireless network. In addition to that also take them through how to solve some of the troubles when they ensue especially when the Computers are not working very well in terms of having Internet access.

I feel these are some of the expectations I will take back.

Interview with Stephen John Agbenyo

Click to Play

Stephen is the network Coordinator for Nothern Information Network for Schools who is a participant at the wireless training workshop taking place in Winneba from the 1st to 10th August 2007. Stephen shared his taught about the workshop.

What is your name and what organisation are you coming from?

My name is Agbenyo John Stephen.I am with NINS short for Northern Information Network for Schools.We are based in Savelugu in the North.Saveligu is just about 26 kilometers drive from Tamale, the regional Capital.

What have you learnt so far from the training workshop?

So far the training has been wonderful. We've undergone basic introduction into wireless technology.We also learnt about Wireless networking,we learnt about setting wireless network, network securities, currently we are on configuring wireless networks.

How will you use the knowledge gained from the training workshop to impact positively on your organisation and beyond?

Like I mentioned earlier, NINS is in Savelugu.We do not have any internet access around except Tamale and so if I want to check my mails, I need to go to Tamale.With this training, it will be of help getting connections from Tamale to Savelugu and it will be easier and also, since NINS is about Schools, it will even be a cheaper means of having access in Schools in Savelugu and around

Interview with Nwachukwu Eucharia

Click to Play

Echaria is a Network Administrator at the Information Communication Technology Centre at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. She shared her views about the Wireless training workshop taking place in Winneba from the 1st to the 10th of August 2007.

What is your name and what organisation are you coming from?

My name is Eucharia Nwachukwu. I work for the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria as a network Administrator and I have come here to get a wireless networking knowledge.

What have you learnt so far from the Wireless Training Workshop?

So far its been good, the facilitators are good, they know how to pass their information across and I now have basic knowledge and I am configuring wireless network from the Router to access point.By the time we are done, I think I will be perfect in that.

How are you going to extend the knowledge gained from this workshop to your other colleagues?

I came here because I have a need for the wireless network to set it up in my own University so that, we can manage the large number of customers we have in the University community. Most of them come with Laptops which has wireless and most of our ports are used by systems that is why I have to pay extra cost to get here and make sure I learnt it so as soon as I get home, I will try and see how I can configure it and start using it.