Please Swipe Your Card in this Slot

Ok so being the foreign guy that I am, I'm going to look at an issue facing my country. As many people know Nigeria is very high on the list of corrupt countries (you nod and I will hunt you down and tickle you with a feather!) in the world. People suggest all the time that someone does something to crack down on corruption. So I want to look at two initiatives: a national id card with id number, and voter registration and electronic ballots.

We have ID cards at home but they really serve no purpose except to show to a police officer at a traffic stop if you are suspicious looking. We don't have SSN like the USA or Canada so its really hard to keep track of individuals. There is no database that we store information in about the individual citizens. I am of the opinion that in order to keep track of births, deaths, population and other demographic info, we will eventually need to add some sort of system. So how should the government go about doing something like this? What scale of infrastructure would be required to carry out the registration of over 130 million people? Should the government outsource the operation to a company outside of government in order to accomplish it or should it focus on executing the process locally.

Through this registration process above, we can actually also register voters to vote. So when the time for elections roll around, keep the current basic corrupt system where soldiers are paid to confiscate and destroy ballot boxes or find a new way? I believe we should move towards electronic voting booths. But how do we implement this? Do we outsource the development of the machines to companies outside the govt or does the government create these machines? (This is a not a discussion of bigger government or whatever so keep the politics to yourself :-)). How should a company structure the systems in order to effectively run the polling stations?

Just some food for thought.

If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time

Here we are in 2010, with the ability to do so much with technology. We can order movies online, submit pictures via the web to be printed and ready in an hour, send a text to the smoothie king and order a smoothie before we ever show up. We can do so many things in the interest of luxury and convenience that we could not do many years ago. I still remember the days when I was using the "Mario Teaches Typing" program to learn how to type on a computer. Tough to imagine going back to that point.

But lets do that for just a second here. Technology has in some way, shape or form affected our lives either positively or negatively. Instead of writing about the pitfalls of technology, or the strain on the workforce, I want to look back to a time where we were not so tech oriented. I would like you to share something you believe you could not have achieved without technology that you consider a big deal.

I'll start off with mine. In 2002, when the US decided to invade Iraq, my father was posted to Iraq for work. I was worried because of the impact of the war and there were serious safety concerns. We did not want him to go, and then at one point we tried to get him to quit so he didn't have to go. He eventually did leave to go to Iraq and left us at home. We were worried sick about the impact of the war. Our concerns were eased when my father purchased a Thuraya. Here is a link if you don't know what it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuraya. This was basically a satellite phone that allowed him to cal us from wherever he was in Iraq or any neighboring country he was in at the time. Truly a lovely bit of technology to address the needs and concerns of a family with a loved one in harm's way.

Looking forward to hearing your stories.