E-Learner 2.0.vi

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:26:00 +0000

Awesome best show ever

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:27:00 +0000

Freaking crowded

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:58:00 +0000

Now we have some dance greatmusic

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:51:00 +0000

Audience and stage is awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:50:00 +0000

Finally able to get in school gate forgot student card

Fresco20.com

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:48:00 +0000

Hi,

I've officially moved to http://www.fresco20.com

Thank you very much for your participation so far. I hope you like my new site, its content, etc. as basically they are pretty much the same as here.

For RSS subscribers, please head to the new site and you can see a lot of more visible subscription options.

Thanks and regards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:37:00 +0000

The presentation on RoR is a bit boring though, nothing new

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:34:00 +0000

Hy Chan Han from Open Institute is talking 'bout Ruby on Rails at barcamppp

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:30:00 +0000

a guy from Open Institute is talking about Open Source at barcamppp

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:25:00 +0000

@csokun fith row, first column near the door

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:04:00 +0000

Vista has the least security bugs in first 6 months? Well, nobody cares to attack it anyway

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:02:00 +0000

@csokun right at the door seat

An enquiry to the fall of Cyvee.com

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:09:00 +0000

Cyvee.com was launched as an experiment at vnSpoken.com in March and at that time gathered quite a lot of coverage from local newspapers and received an investment deal from IDG Venture, a tech venture capital. I was fascinated by the emergence of yet another web 2.0 start-up in Vietnam and immediately joined the site.

Targeting the wrong audience
Connecting professionals? How many "professional" companies are there in Vietnam? How many professionals are actually working in those companies? And how many professionals are working in those that are not considered professional? And how many people out of those have frequent access to the Internet? But the question is: how does Cyvee define professionalism in a Vietnamese context, where most are still farmers and most of those corporate workers are not of industrial quality.

I would say the people that Cyvee's been targeting make up quite a small userbase and unfortunately the people who they are not aiming at, and who think of themselves as professionals 've also jumped on the bandwagon.

This makes Cyvee people a mixture of everyone, either professionals or not. And this has severely affected the quality of user-generated content on the site, which puts people away because they find it so bizarrely confusing. If you look at how people interact with each other on Cyvee, you will see what I mean.

I think Cyvee has failed since they got the ball rolling.

A bit of everything
Idea? LinkedIn. Q&A? LinkedIn. Slogan? Nokia. News? Digg.com. Groups and Quick Comments. Facebook. Jobs? Thousands of other sites.

Instead of going into detail of each and every of them, I would propose to analyze the business model that Cyvee is currently applying and from that depict the failure of it becoming a successful technology start-up.

The underlying monetary system of Cyvee is CVD, or Cyvee Dollars. This is the second reason why it fails.

Take a look at LinkedIn. Does it cost you anything to connect to people? None. Money seems to be a problem at Cyvee and this is a deterrent to people who want to expand their network. Who would pay 1.500VND for 10 contacts. I'm not buying my friends and connections. One friend is worth 1.500VND? Seriously, this is a joke. I'd rather pay nothing to get friends or pay nothing for nothing. And even if someone is keen to pay, how much would they get?

Let me draw you to a smarter way of making money. It's Twitter, our beloved friend. Twitter is making money by charging people text messages from their mobile phone when they want to twitter an update. Certainly this costs them money but considering the current charge rate, it's not that bad. I see people text messaging all the time and they are quite happy with that.

But there are more in Twitter. What if you have 1000 friends. Would you sms every single one of them to tell them what you're doing (and an increasing number of people are using Twitter for various types of updates).

In fact, Twitter is helping people to SAVE money (and time) while at the same time bringing a great number of benefits to its customers. And this is because of this very reason that people love Twitter. They don't even feel they have to pay. It's just another text message that sometimes shocks the world. Trust me. You can rock in Twitter :)

So let's come back to Cyvee. People see very little potential in the ROI they can get from the small amount of money they spend. No matter how much the money is, it can always be a deterrent when people are not willing to pay. WTP is an important terms in economics because: people respond to incentives.

If people they have to pay to get their network expanded, they won't. And because very few of them are willing to pay, they may either wait for others to pay, or just quit the game. How do you attract customers if they feel they are being restrained from what they want to do. A company which at one time provides a good service and at another time tells its clients not to use the service in a nice way.

Ah yes, you can make CVD - Cyvee Dollars - on their site. And you will be fine. This can be achieved by either you posting a piece of news and receiving1 CVD when it gets popular (similar to Digg) or answering a question.

This is interesting to talk about. Because it looks a bit different from the way Digg functions. The news is still moderated. It means your submission has to be approved by a Cyvee editor before it gets posted. This doesn't look very interesting because it prevents information from flowing smoothly. I would rather it function the way Digg does and get each CVD for each vote my peice of news receives from readers.

Asking questions cost money, everyone. Am I willing to pay for it? Not really. I don't know if the answers I get are those that I want. Why would I pay for a product that I have no clue as to whether it would yield any benefits? This is economically flawed. Hey, I can ask 10 questions per month on Linked in, and can receive professional answers from people around the world. What gives?

Why would I, at the same time, try my best to answer a question? The usual reason would be that I want to help my peers out. But look, Cyvee puts money right into the game and it turns out it's a treasure hunt rather than a "relief effort". How ironic. Similarly, I don't know if the service I provide will yeild any benefit for me. Vietnamese online interacting behavior gives me the impression that they are generally unresponsive. Even if I give the most wonderful answer they've ever encountered, will I get some CVD? Probably no. This looks as if my service is paid entirely by the mercy of others. A professional-turned-beggar :(

Please also allow me to look at its business model from another perspective. GE is one of the most successful corporations in the world (even though it is falling pretty fast due to the transition from manufacturing to financial services). Jack Welch, the one who gave GE a name in the business arena, and the most highly respected management guru used to say: for any single area of business that is not top or next to top in the industry, forget about it.

If you look at the Cyvee website, it looks like an online corporation with various satellite companies servicing different businesses. Unfortunately, none of these is top or second.

Final words
I know the people at Cyvee have a lot of patience to wait for the day they can really achieve something. But asking your customers to be patient is simply not a smart way of doing business. If something is not about to change, they're not gonna achieve anything. Before Cyvee thinks about how to monetize their service in the way that facebook and other web 2.0 start-ups are doing, which is tremendously difficult, they should think about how to make their business sustainable in the long term and start to please their customers. I see more Cyvee people getting together offline.

E-learning 2.0 Platform

I was on a quest for a suitable Vietnamese network suitable for disadvantaged children. Cyvee didn't score.

Google Chrome, it's not worth the Buzz

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:28:00 +0000

News surfaced the web on Sep 1 that Google was releasing its own browser code-named Chrome the next day. It seemed Google was imitating the secrecy culture of Apple. Certainly this news surprised everyone with a great amount of excitement that ensued. It didn't take long for the release to make it to the front page on Digg.com and at the same time cost bloggers tons of letters to write about it.

Since Mozilla rolled out its Netscape-based Firefox in 2004, the browser war has become one of the most heated debate over the Internet, even more than the Linux vs Windows bloody one. People were given a choice, and so much more.

Then suddenly Google jumped into the game with Chrome and stole the spotlight of the day?

Why Chrome?

Having a browser of your own looks cool, doesn't it? But what it means for Google is about saving the millions that they are paying for third parties (Mozilla, Apple) to draw traffic from these browsers to their search page. You can check it out here

So far I've heard Chrome rendered Javascripts extremely well and this means so much for the Web 2.0 movement. This will give Ajax developers more room to expand their creativity and push the boundary of technology to another high.

Including Google. As a big supporter Ajax technologies (Gmail, Apps), certainly Google is doing this out of its intersest. If you look it a bit differently, Google might embed those little cool apps directly into the browser toolbars and make it all a bit monopolistic. Sorry Google, but I'm afraid this is to be true.

So, my conviction is that Google does this out of its pure interest and at the same time to contribute its technology to the community (that's why it's open source). While the latter is a good cause without a doubt, don't be overexcited.

TaiTran argues Chrome is gonna be an OS for Google Apps. This maybe true. If Chrome can become the leader in the browswer. If it fails to do so, and it seems to me it will fail to do so, then this leaves much to be desired.

Why not Chrome?

If you look at how IE is dominating the game, it's not because it is the most advanced browser (in fact, it is the least one), but because it is a built-in feature of MS Windows and this gives people the impression that IE is the Internet.

So far Firefox is gaining momentum (approximately 20% market share) but the wall is too big to be demolished because many applications are still strictly dependent on IE.

I can be pretty sure that FF will make it because eventually the shift from IE to more viable alternatives is unavoidable.

So this leaves Firefox and Chrome (I don't think Safari will make it, sorry Apple), in the table.

It is natural for me to think that if Chrome is to make progress and gain market share, it will eat that of IE, not Firefox.

Let me give a bit more in-depth analysis to Firefox:
- It is community-driven and possesses a trememdous amount of enthusiasm from its users. Most of the success Firefox is enjoying today comes from its community.
- It is at the same time developed by this very community.
- It has a great number of astounding addons.
- It's constantly improving. How many of you have forgotten about TraceMonkey? It can run Javascript that fast, people.

What does Chrome have?
- Google, quite big a name. Look at IE and Microsoft, they are fading away.
- Outstanding slew of engineers. Do you think they are smarter than the collective brain of the Firefox community? And if they are to build a community around Chrome, do they think they can gather the same amount of enthusiam that Firefox 's already had? Did you feel yourself apart of some community when you downloaded and installed Chrome? Do you think you are supporting a cause? Do you think you are doing this because you want to spread out Chrome to the world?
- Addons. While I think these will eventually make it to the Chrome platform, I can assure you not every good addon will do. This is a competition between Firefox and Chrome and I guyss Chrome won't be based on the same community as that of Firefox, if it is to be the case.
- It's still in Beta. When Google tells you something is in Beta, it's not a joke. Take a look at this.

And how many months, years to come before Chrome can get mature enough to go out of beta?

Look, Firefox is not Beta. And it can render Javascript as well as V8. And Firefox developers are constantly trying to improve its memory usage.

On top of that, Chrome has not been released to Linux, and I can guarantee you many are disappointed bearing in mind how much Google has benefited from the work of this community.

All in all, this looks great. But writing about Chrome on an Ubuntu machine is a bit bizzare. But hey Google, you forced me to do so. It's not my fault. If a faster (renfering) and faster (resources usage) are what Chrome's worth the try, Firefox wins.

E-learning Platform 2.0

I was considering using Chrome as the browser of choice for our upcoming Platform. But it looks like it may take forever. Firefox is still a good choice, and perhaps a better on.

Enjoy Chrome, everyone :)

Update: Sergey Brin on the launch of Chrome:

E-learning Platform 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:04:00 +0000

Levitt had an interview for the Society of Fellows, the venerable intellectual clubhouse at Harvard that pays young scholars to do their own work, for three years, with no commitments. Levitt felt he didn’t stand a chance. For starters, he didn’t consider himself an intellectual. He would be interviewed over dinner by the senior fellows, a collection of world-renowned philosophers, scientists, and historians. He worried he wouldn’t have enough conversation to last even the first course.

Disquietingly, one of the senior fellows said to Levitt, “I’m having a hard time seeing the unifying theme of your work. Could you explain it?”

Levitt was stymied. He had no idea what his unifying theme was, or if he even had one.

Amartya Sen, the future Nobel-winning economist, jumped in and neatly summarized what he saw as Levitt’s theme.

Yes, Levitt said eagerly, that’s my theme.

Another fellow then offered another theme.

You’re right, said Levitt, that’s my theme.

And so it went, like dogs tugging at a bone, until the philosopher Robert Nozick interrupted. “How old are you, Steve?” he asked.

“Twenty-six.”

Nozick turned to the other fellows: “He’s twenty-six years old. Why does he need to have a unifying theme? Maybe he’s going to be one of those people who’s so talented he doesn’t need one. He’ll take a question and he’ll just answer it, and it’ll be fine.”

—THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, AUGUST 3, 2003

We are only one month old. Why do we need an identity? Maybe we're going to be one of those people who're so innovative we don't need a traditional one. We've spotted an issue, and we'll just tackle it, and it'll be fine.

While we're compiling an e-learning package that we think nobody has done before, we've still stuck to the traditional way of identifying ourselves: become a part of an organization. Ironically, the core technologies of our e-learning package is entirely based online (except for the Edubuntu platform).

What do you think if we call ourselves an E-learning Platform 2.0? Or something similar? I mean, the naming is secondary at this stage, but the idea is we will define ourselves as an online platform delivering E-learning 2.0 packages. To be more specific, we do not exist offline when it comes to what we're doing.

What's the point of doing 2.0 when you're not 2.0 yourself? Ever since the idea was born, I've had a strong feeling that this is gonna change everything, but didn't foresee that this will today change the way we want to identify ourselves.

What matters is what you do, not how we are. But it comes in handy when we want to communicate with our sponsors and other stakeholders, including our partners, effectively.

This is gonna be challenging, but as the philosopher put it: "It'll be fine". Need more time to mull it over. :)

$2.5USD for a legitimate copy of MS WIndows and Office

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:39:00 +0000

I was taken aback to learn from Chris, my teammate + roommate during PV08, that Microsoft is giving away its Windows and Office licenses at a dirt cheap price: $2.5USD to people in developing countries. It looked like Microsoft is doing something good.

The team was very happy with the news because we intended to use as much legitimate software as possible in the lab that we were preparing for the next school year the 15 May School. A fairy tale has become reality I guess.

So I started to contact people at Microsoft Vietnam and fortunately they had launched this program in our country. Great! And guess what, the Microsoft people were really nice to me.

However, Microsoft itself said this was not intended as a philanthropic crusade. It is still a business model. And the reason behind this scheme is that people are stuck to MS Windows forever without really realizing that they've beome technology slaves. From an economic perspective, people respond to incentives. Who on earth would not pay $2.5usd to get a legitimate license of Windows and Office, everyone? This is not Africa. And this is a smart move from Microsoft to combat privacy and push Linux away in emerging markets. You deserve my admiration.

The response got from Ms Ngoc Anh, Education Account Manager delivered the following messages:

- We work with the Department of Education only, not you :)

- You have to buy at least 100 licenses. We don't deal in pennies.

What? 100 licenses? We only have 20 computers. And we don't want to make life complicated by asking the Department of Education. Bureaucracy, remember? This is Vietnam!

I then nicely asked if we could buy 100 licenses and give the rest 80 to others. Unfortunately, the request was rejected because it was not a part of their policy.

Even though I am aware that working through the Department of Education is the right way to promote such program, I still have a feeling that this is politically intentional. I think both the Dept of Edu and Microsoft benefits from such a deal. But why don't they make it more flexible. This seems so much to me a deterrent, not an incentive at all.

Windows XP Pro 110$ / 1 PC

Office 2008 65$/ 1 PC

Are you seriously kidding? I'm not going to spend that much for 20 computers.

Microsoft has simply got me frustrated and I'm not gonna tolerate this monopolistic and unethical business model any longer.

Here are two solutions:

- For the 15 May School, I've left everything as is because it was not us who installed pirated versions of Windows onto those machines.

- For our upcoming program, goodbye Microsoft. I highly appreciate your clever trick, but Ubuntu is way better an alternative.

For those of you who still think you can get something decent from Microsoft, forget about it. Take a look at Ubuntu instead.

Tip: If you are working for a school, and find you cannot live without Microsoft, do contact them and pay a small amount of money to get what you want. But I can guarantee you this is not a smart move on your part.

On another side note,for any business model that wishes to be successful, principles are of utmost importance. Look at how Google is moving forward and Microsoft is falling behind. No matter how smart you and how great your techniques are, principles matter.

Initial Failures

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Before writing this post, I tried to mask its title with something fancy because failure seems to be so unappealing a word. But I guess people tend to hide themselves from failure and that's why they cannot move forward. Come to think of it, it's not as bad as it seems to be. Failure is, afterall, a word, and it comes before success in the dictionary.

Stakes
For the first time in more than one month, I've come to feel what is called a pain. Ok, not as bad as you may think of. But it was how I felt like, when receiving a message which in essence told me that working as a part of the ICT4DEV wouldn't work out. It might work out, but not in the way that I wanted it to do. This is quite a setback because even though I've got to know this Working Group for only a few weeks, it's gained my full trust. A partnership with, or integration into the Working Group, for our Program (well, Edubuntu & Web 2.0 Technologies for educating Disadvantaged Children in HCMC, in plain English), would provide us with a solid platform to carry out what we've planned. Simply put, Plan A failed. I'm thinking of other ways to work with the WG :). This is called Stakes.

As written in a previous post, I would ask Matt to set up a Student Group at UPenn. But well, he's attempting double major in Computer Science and Bio-engineering. Despite knowing how smart he is, taking up this huge responsibility would kill him without doubt. I'm glad he declined the invitation and this had been expected. Plan B failed. I'm still working with him. Stake number 2.

The only option left is to work with SEALNet. In many aspects I'm thankful for what Project Vietnam 2007 and 2008 have given me. But to be honest, I do not entirely trust SEALNet. My sixth sense is telling me this is a valid concern. But perhaps I haven't worked with anyone from SEALNet directly and this is also a valid prejudice. After a long discussion with Tu, my highschool friend and at the same time Co-president of this Stanford-based organization, it occured to me that this kind of partnership would produce something really useful in the long-term and I shouldn't give up this opportunity. A Fellowship Program worth of $7,500 looks like a good seed funding and the resources that SEALNet can bring to our Program to a success. I'll give this more thought after recovering from today's feelings. Plan C looks rather promising. I only hope that after some SEALNet people read this post, they wouldn't find it offensive. If they do find it that way, well, they don't deserve my trust.

Independence vs Interdependence.

Yeah, cooperation works great. But it's not always the case. I'm reading The 7 Seven Habits of Effective People, and the author's arguement on this is totally true. We'd better manage to stand on our own feet first before thinking about teamworking and partnerships. So, instead of putting my entire efforts to thinking about what the best partnership scenario is like, I should also spend time finding ways to feed ourselves first before eating with others. Indeed, it is our top priority now. Oh yeah, my dad's just said" Nothing is more valuable than freedom" while he was drunk and prepared to sing some Karaoke songs. Thinking of relaxing a bit to reduce today's stressed mind.

Essentially, this is what I intended to do in the first place. But I was hesitant to do so because it would put myself in front of a lot of challenges. For some reason, I'm facing the cons of the easier option and it seems equally difficult.

To sum up, I still remember how Randy Pauch talked about challenges and obstacles: Walls are there to discourage those who are not inspired enough. I'm gonna break this wall. Anther good quote I heard first time from my friend, Loc:"When there's a will, there's a way. If there's no way, make one." Yes, I'm making one, I'm confident in my creativity.

Happy Independence Day everyone. I want to watch The Dark Knight too. This seems to fit the context so much. Independence? Dark Knight? Lol

Information and Communications Technology for Development Working Group - Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:33:00 +0000

As I was playing with my ideas on the Program, I came across this Working Group: ICT4DEV.

It's a long story but I'll cut it short, hopefully. While I was managing the 15 May School mailbox, I kept receiving email digests from local NGO network' Mailing Lists. As my interest in community service increased, I started to join several of these and learnt more about the various activities that NGOs and social organizations were doing here. The VUFO - NGO Resource Center is the one who coordinates the networking and resources sharing between those organizations and it is at this center that information keeps flowing in and out and around. As I was thinking of working for some NGO that promotes technology (ok, it's one of my intentions), I found this particular ICT4DEV Working Group very interesting. This is their goal:

The aim of the working group will be to help NGOs enhance their use of ICT to improve the quality of their development work in Vietnam. Through advising, training, sharing resources and inviting special expert guest speakers, the ICT4DEV WG seeks to maximise productivity and communications in the development community in Vietnam by helping NGOs to fully harness the power of ICT in their development activities. [ICT4DEVWG TOR)

I contacted the people of the working group through their mailing list and "pitched" them my idea. It turned out that they were very supportive and at the same time enthusiastic. This WG is very new but it is catching attention :). There have been a lot of entries in their blog and at the moment they are planning on delivering workshops on Open Source and Web 2.0 technologies to local development organizations, which coincidentally is what my program is all about. But it's a bit different, I'm working directly with the children why they are working directly with NGOs and thus cover a much wider range of beneficiaries.

Knowing from one person who used to be the predecessor of Paul Griffiths, the current chairman of the WG, that technology in the NGO world is 10 years behind that of the corporate world and that working with an NGO to promote our Program would be very difficult as it is certainly not favored by such an organization. While this is a bit discouraging for us, we managed to find other ways to do it right. And this simultaneously encourages me to do my utmost for the Program to raise people's awareness of what technology can do for them, individuals and organizations.

While we are working on our own and there're lots of difficulties so be solved, the WG is already firmly established and can work more easily with local organizations. At the end of the day, I believe we are working on the same mission and all efforts will pay off.

If you are interested in how the WG is doing and in the development of technology in the social development field, you can keep yourself update by subscribing to the mailing list at:

http://mailman.ngocentre.org.vn/mailman/listinfo/ict4devwg

If you happen to work for a local NGO and hasn't heard of it, these are the workshops that you may find useful:

http://www.ngocentre.org.vn/ict4dev/?page_id=115

Think Big, Dream Wild, and Start Small

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:23:00 +0000

How did our program (or story) start?
We, 20 people from around the world and different backgrounds, met each other in SEALNet Project Vietnam 2008. Our team worked with the 15 May School, a school for disadvantaged children where I had worked for more than 1 year as both a volunteer and a member of staff, to build a sustainable Computing Program, a Competition Day for the kids in the English Program that Project Vietnam 2007 started, and workshops on Service Leadership for students from top-notch highschools in Ho Chi Minh City. I was co-leading a sub-team of six people: Chris, a Redmond Alumni; Matt, a UPenn freshman majoring in Computer Science; Caroline, a recent Stanford graduate majoring in Economics and a would-be Boston Consulting Group employee; Rongkun, a recent graduate from Beijing University who is doing his Master of Evironmental Policy at American University; Nary, a very kind-hearted sophomore from Cambodia's Internation University Pannasastra. All of them are wo nderful and working with them has been the most rewarding experience I've ever had. But on top of that, we've build a long-lasting friendship and even more. As the project moved along, we encountered an increasing number of obstacles and solving them was really an interesting part of the project.

One day, I came across $30,000 grant for projects that bring innovative technologies and internet applications to make positive change in the Asia Pacific region. Since then I began to work on the brainstorming of the project as my teammates were coming back to their normal life and taking charge of new challenges.

But Matt remained with me as it is one of his dreams to work for a non-profit or become an entrepreneur to make positive life. Both of us were really excited about this wonderful opportunity to do what we really love to do.

So, this is how it all started.

Where is the program standing right now?
After days of thought and discussion, we have come to the following final ideas:

Firstly, our program's focal point is personal development. It means we concentrate on the skills that the children can acquire after they "graduate" from our program and empower them to feel special about themselves. Kids deserve the right to feel special about themselves :)

We will use Linux, or to be more specific, Edubuntu, as the platform. I was constantly seeking answers as to why Linux is better than Windows and here are some brief ones:
- It's free, and it works :)
- Children have the opportunity to explore something different from Windows.
- Even if children have to use Windows when go to work, the learning curve will be much shorter, as mastering Linux gives them a much more advanced level of computer usage.
- Eventually Linux will take over the corporate world (it seems have been doing that), and having mastered this particular OS will be an advantage for them to get a good job.
- It teaches them the sense of freedom.
- Edubuntu has a lot of educational applications that no other OS has to offer at this stage.
- It's all about humanity (I hate Microsoft, sorry Bill!)
The entire curriculum will be web-basde, with applications ranging from Google search, IM, Google Docs, etc. All of these will provide kids with skills that they need for a better future. Even though the focus is about personal development, children can still work well in a coporate environment: they know how to use a computer, do word processing, send emails, communicate online, share and collaborate, do research and look for information and they can blog too.

What needs to be done now?
Initially we wanted to work with a local NGO to get the grant. But it turned out NGOs are not really in favor of technology and thus we decided to do it ourselves.

We will build a website for our program, from which we can promote our ideas and raise funds for our projects.

For a project to be implemented, we need to find a specific school or location that serves the needs of disadvantaged children. So this is where we Start Small :)

Dream wild and think big?
Everyone I've talked to think this program is very scalable and can be applied everywhere in the world. So that's why we've changed it from Project to Program, which basically means we have a program with different projects at different locations.

So, our dream is to make this as big as possible and cover as many locations as possible.

The realistic questions is HOW? Well, we will implement the pilot project first, either by:

- Identifying ourselves as a Student Group at UPenn and promote the project, then come partner with SEALNet to bring the program to South East Asian countries. SEALNet has the available resources to make that happen, and as it is Stanford-based, many of the members have expressed their interest in bring modern technology to SEA.

- Identifying ourselves as a Computing Project under SEALNet and work directly with them. Each year when SEALNet comes to SEA to carry out a project, our program can be added as a bonus. Since we've already had the model, implementation can be easier.

Even if this sounds Big and Wild, it is indeed very practicable. But first, we need to solve the puzzles :)

The power of imagination

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:18:00 +0000

For all my life, I've been trying not to be imaginative. I know being imaginative is good in certain aspects but being constantly day-dreaming is a little bit uncomfortable.

I still remembered how I often got scared to death when I almost crashed into someone on the road as I wasn't really "there".

I must say it affects many areas of my personal life and is one of the reasons why I am so absent-minded.

Until recently I've come to realized that this is, contrary to previous belief, an advantage. As long as I maintain the level of being far-fetched, my imagined world will allow me to go as far as I want to since it's the only clue I have about the future.

I would say I am led more by instinct and gut feelings than rationality and planning. But these days I'm planning more than ever before. Though these two things : imagination and planning, go hand in hand with each other.

Will write more about this if I have more time :)

Update1: I'm keeping a notebook to tackle my absent-mindedness by taking notes of important things that I may forget a few seconds later. Also, I'm trying to get the most our of my miraculous imagination by doing the same thing :) To be more exact, I'm letting my imagination flow and lead my life.

Update 2:
I'm thinking of writing to Mark ShuttleWorth, the founder of Canonical Ltd, the commercial power behind Ubuntu, to tell him about our Program. This is one highly qualified example of my imagination. But I write it here to remind me that I WILL write him a letter at one stage.

I will also write to the people at ISIF.ASIA because I think they should know how we got inspired from their Grant

I'm also imagining a community built around our Program. What should it look like?

As of Aug 28, 08

Tips of the iceberg

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:42:00 +0000

Update: As you can see, the blog has just been updated to a new theme, which looks brighter and more Ajax-like :). Hope it won't break anytime soon.

We've gotten our hands dirty. Just let me brief you what's been going on so far.

- The focal point of our computing program is "Personal Development". In essence, we help children develop a variety skills ranging for work to life ones. Even though it's a development approach, children know how to use a computer, surf the net, send emails, do word processing, share, collaborate, and so on so forth.

- With Edubuntu as a platform, the entire program will be web-based.

- We will build a website for our Program.

However, we are still facing the following problems:

- It's hard for us to define ourselves. Should we call us a TEAM? Or something like that? We are not a registered organization :(

- What's the best way to receive financial contributions? We need to check with the banks.

- And above all, we haven't found a school to launch our pilot project.

Despite these problems, I'm working with an amazing team. So far so good, I guess :) We are being watched closely. Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/anhhung

Return

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:45:00 +0000

Hi,

This is just to let you know that I've come back to life after days of boredom and missing passion.

Also, Our project is officially put into actions :) It's gonna be exciting!

www.ftu2.com: our official forum

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:40:00 +0000

Hi, this is great news. The guys from K46 (my juniors) have just set up a forum for the whole school. Even though the united Foreign Trade University has had a forum for awhile, I never got to like it since most of the activities are FTU1-centered. This is a feeling shared by many of my fellows.

Been playing around and posting several messages in the forum and to be honest, I really like it. The K46 folks have done a great job setting up such a forum and on top of that, a highly capable and enthusiastic administrative board.

Since it's still quite new, and an official marketing campaign hasn't started yet, not a lot of people in FTU HCMC know about the existence of such forum. However, it has gathered some success. Its Alexa has constantly gone up (to be honest, I dislike Alexa, Google PageRank is much better). Its membership has almost reached 1000 in 2 months.

The category is very diverse. Besides academic areas, relaxation and chitchatting are also covered. Thanks to its fame for gathering some of the finest girls in the city, many others are paying visits to the forum, hehe. Ok, I'm stating to sound boring.

If you know Vietnamese, and want to join the forum, just go to http://www.ftu2.com

Asia in a faltering world

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:53:00 +0000

Take a look at the interesting table on the right. What you see is the total amount of money written down in 2007 from some of the largest investment banks and commercial banks in the world. Certainly the bottom line is still growing but it tells one story: the financial world is collapsing. Want an example? Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers is coming up next. Freddie Mac is following suit.

This is bad news,...ahem, not really. As Western banks are falling, Asian banks are looking to spend its money. Temasek has injected some of its US$131bn (latest market value) into Merrill Lynch and Barclays. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's poured around US$7.5b to rescue Citigroup from the ever groomy outlook. The story behind this pretty simple. As the world is faltering, Asia is playing a more active role in the financial market and in fact, it is benefiting from its wise investments.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, already the biggest bank in the world in terms of market capitalization thanks to Citigroup 's voluntary retreat from its previous first spot, is expected to announce "the biggest profit of any bank in the world" [Financial Times] soon. It is yet another simple story: as the world is slowing down, Asia is cathing up FAST!.

Where is Vietnam? Or more specifically, what are our banks and the State Capital Investment Corporation doing? Yet another simple answer: they are struggling with the vibration of the financial crisis and at the same time the recession caused by internal economic issues rather than external ones. Inflation caused by overheating has prompted the central bank to suck money from the market and thus made the VN-INDEX the second most terrible performers in the world behind China's stock market. The SCIC , Vietnam's first sovereign wealth fund, has been working on taking control over state companies. If you look at how slow Vietnam is responding to the global crisis and globalization, SCIC is as slow as that.

It may take many years to come until a major investment from Vietnam to arrive at the US's shore or any Western countries'. Perhaps at another downturn of the world's business cycle :)

Doing the right thing with technology

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:59:00 +0000

"Sometimes doing the wrong thing with technology is better than doing nothing," says research associate at the South African-based Shuttleworth Foundation, Steve Song. And, he suggests, when it comes to technology, the unexpected should be encouraged to happen.

Another first off, I'm by no means a technologist (After writing the whole post, I find it quite irrelevant, but I'll just keep it here for your reference ^ ^)

But for the past month, I've been working with several friends from SEALNet on a project proposal that basically brings technology to education. There have been a lot of discussions going on, either between us, or between me and myself.

Until I sent our the ideas to different people around the world and from within Vietnam, I hadn't been entirely convinced by our own ideas.

For now, the direction has been set and it's just a matter of time before the project gets up and running.

So what do I get out if all of this thinking, doing research, and planning?

Passion. For almost ten years I have always been passionate about technology and all, including things that are not technology-related. I guess that's what keeps me going :)

A sense of direction. Oh my, this is hard. Until recently I hadn't known what to do with my life. It's improved now though. However, since when such a complicated person as myself knows where to head for next, different paths keep coming up, and it's an overwhelming task to choose the next destination. ahhhh

Creativity. Am I kidding? I've been telling myself that I'm entirely not creative at all hahaha. But come to think of it, I'm creating something.

Risk-taking. Oh dear, I'm a crazy risk-taker sometimes (though at other times I'm such a coward hahaha). Most of the time when we want to do something, "What-if questions" keep coming up. But the sentence in italic kept me from asking such questions ^ ^

During the research, I've found several cool stuffs on the web, I guess I should share one of them with you. Here it is:

GoAnimate

Extract from the site:

About Us
We are a bunch of guys who love animation and want to share our passion with the world! The problem is that animation requires very specific skills. Animators need to learn Flash or other advanced software before being able to create anything. They also need to know how to draw. That's why we created GoAnimate, a platform that allows people to express themselves through animation without having to learn to draw or install any software.

Seeing is believing, have a look at their "how it works" from their site:

How GoAnimate works

They've really achieved what they set out to do. My admiration extends to those passionate freaks :)) So check it out wont regret it.

Ah, there's some other thing i wish to share with you too. The feedbacks from people that I sent emails to. I guess those are what keep me going too:

The use of open source software and WEB 2.0 technologies for such a project is an excellent idea that would provide the students with a modern outlook.
On a technical level I would be available to help and maintain such project if you require any technical assistance.

This is from the chairman of the ICT For Development Working Group, a newly founded WG at the NGO Resources Center, whose mission is to improve NGO's productivity through the use of ICT applications.

I also agree that learning collaboration and sharing is much more important than learning a particular tool. Also kids can continue using the online office and the document they created even if they don't have a computer. You can also teach them that offline application exist but they are in the generation who actually will not care about offline stuff so they will prefer the online ones.

This is from the chairman's predecessor. This is why I decided to switch the entire program to a web-based curriculum :)

And other encouragements from different people that help shape my vision and direction. Thank you!

Oh, if you still think this is not a long enough post, here's something interesting for you to watch:

Here are the comments from Matt:

If you've a chance, watch Dr Randy Pausch's Last Lecture -- it's long, but you won't regret it a bit. He just died recently, but in the face of death, he taught millions of people how to live. He talks a lot about achieving your dreams..

I guess these words speak for themselves. So if you are wondering what to do with your life, or have one hour of free time, I highly recommend that you watch it, for your own sake, and perhaps for others' too.

Check out Matt's blog also, there's something interesting over there!

Matt's Blog

If you happen to belong to the population who doesn't know who this guy is, he was my teammate in SEALNet Project Vietnam 08, one of the finest seventeen kids (sorry Matt, blame it on your age hahaha) you've ever met. He didn't need to finish grade 12 to go to Uni. Oh well, can't tell you all so check out his blog hehehe :P

That's it!