Ubuntu in Zambia was the title of my talk at OggCamp10: I described our recent work using Ubuntu based low-power computers for training in rural Zambia.Telling this story to the geeks at OggCamp reminded me of the role the Open Source desktop operating system played in this successful project.
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Archive for May, 2010
Ubuntu in Zambia
Friday, May 7th, 2010Mark Skipper joins the team
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
Today we’re celebrating Mark Skipper’s first day with Aptivate. In fact Dr Skipper has been working with us for over a year now, as a volunteer and as an independent consultant in IT and training; this is his first official day as staff.
Mark has plenty of practical experience of both IT and education. As senior lecturer in computer science, researcher and IT trainer he has worked at Xerox PARC, De Montfort University, Imperial College London, and INRIA Rennes. As independent IT consultant he has worked with large organisations like IBM and the BBC as well as with many very small ones. Somehow, into this full career, he managed to squeeze two years in Kenya, with VSO, as trainer and capacity builder for a rural IT college.
His technical wizardry is balanced with a deep passion for the human aspect of learning, change and development. In addition to a PhD in programming language theory (but really about supporting different points-of-view in software development) he has a Certificate in Education For Sustainability from Schumacher College and lots of training in Nonviolent Communication.
“I’m thrilled to be working with Aptivate”, says Mark, “they’re a great team bringing fun and participation to development projects through IT”.
When not working for us, you’ll find him doing facilitator training for Cambridge Carbon Footprint, communication
consultancy for the Cambridge Climate Change Charter, or growing vegetables, tending his chickens or installing Ubuntu. He tweets as axiologic and blogs, occasionally, as Bitterjug.