Rethinking 42

Rethinking 42 with Cambodia's Channe Suy Lan, Innovation Leader

2014-05-19T04:24:00.001+01:00

This interview was conducted by Mitty Steele, and originally posted on Banyan Blog. I am reproducing it here (with Mitty's permission), because it is a great interview with an inspiring leader, to which I am very lucky to be married :)

Channe Suy Lan, 33, manages the InSTEDD Innovation Lab, Southeast Asia, a technology non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to building local capacity and open source solutions to address development challenges such as health, safety and disaster management of vulnerable populations in the Mekong region. She is recognized as one of the few women leaders in Cambodia’s IT community.

Born in Kampong Cham Province in 1981, Channe went to Sisovat High School in Phnom Penh, earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Norton University and received her Masters degree in Computer Application from Bangalore University in India in 2006. In 2011 she spoke at the first TedX in Phnom Penh about Building the Future of Cambodia. In 2013 she was the co-organizer of Startup Weekend in Cambodia, which helps to foster entrepreneurship and connect technology and the private sector.

She is a co-founder of ShareVision Team, a grassroots team of Cambodian software developers sharing real world software engineering practices, skills, and technologies with the software developer community in Cambodia. She is also a Board member of the BarCamp of Cambodia, which brings together software developers, IT professionals, innovators and students from all sectors to network and learn about the latest technologies.

I interviewed Channe to get her thoughts on how she became interested in the IT world, how to get more women interested in the IT profession, how InSTEDD is leveraging technology to address challenging development issues, why it is important to build local capacity, and the future of technology’s role in Cambodia’s development.

Q. What was it like growing up in Cambodia? What were some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome to get to where you are today?

A. I was born in a poor family but I am lucky that my parents highly valued the importance of education. My parents decided to move our family from our village in Kampong Cham province to Phnom Penh when I was at 4th grade because they believed Phnom Penh would be a better place for me and my siblings to get a good education.

Due to our challenging financial situation, it looked unlikely that I would be able to continue to university after finishing high school. However, my parents decided to let me continue the study despite our severe financial difficulties. I promised them that I will try my best to get a job by year 2. It was not year 2 but I got my first job as a programmer when I was in year 3.

Studying abroad was my big dream. I applied for an Indian Government scholarship to study in India in year 2002 and I was fortunate to have been selected. I must say, studying overseas contributed immensely to who I am today, not only the education itself but more importantly the life experience of living independently in a foreign country.

Q. Who has been the most influential person in your life and why?

A. My mum. She is the most hard working person I know and she is very smart. With her dedication to our family and her children’s education, she made the strategic decision to move our family to Phnom Penh even though we had no home in Phnom Penh and no money. She gave me and my siblings an incredible example that hope and working hard can make a dream come true.

Q. Which women leaders have influenced you the most and why

A. I love Mother Teresa for her kindness and spreading her love and compassion to the world. It is the core essence of being a human being, everything else follows.

Q. What sparked your interest in IT?

A. If we look at the major world ‘s revolutions, first came the agricultural revolution and after that the industrial revolution. We are now living in the age of Internet revolution. Technology creates the globalized world. Technology is a stepping stone for Cambodia and the country’s development.

Q. In your opinion, why is it important to have more women in the IT field and what will it take to attract more women to that profession?

A. Cambodia, like many countries in the world, has low number of women in technology compared to men. This field, in particular software programming, is among the highest paid jobs and is in high demand worldwide. I think many Cambodian women still have a stereotypical view, that working in IT is to do with climbing on walls to install cables.

It is important to attract more women to study IT by reaching out to them and providing more information about this field when they are still in high school. Recently, I teamed up with Sikieng Sok, a teacher at Royal University of Phnom Penh to create a Google group “Cambodian Women in ICT”. The idea is to use this group as a platform to share and support women working in- or studying ICT. The group also conducted a recent visit to Sisovat high school to share with girl students what technology can do and sharing with them our experience of working as women in IT profession. We encourage our IT women network to conduct this kind of visits to their former high school. The resulting momentum would be to help to greatly encourage more women to become interested in studying IT related subjects.

Q. You are a Board member of BarCamp and a founder Sharevision, both of which bring together different communities to share ideas around the topic of technology and innovation. Why is it important to bring different communities together?

A. Technology-focused community events like the Barcamp and Sharevision events bring the community together to share experience and knowledge, improve skills as well as provide an important professional networking opportunity. The ecosystem and momentum of the technology community is very important. It not only benefits the local members but also attracts the international technology community and multinational companies as well.

Q. Technology can be leveraged to create powerful tools for development. How is InSTEDD Lab utilizing technology to create innovative solutions to address development challenges. What are some success stories and what interesting and innovative projects are you working on?

A. InSTEDD iLab South East Asia is a local team in Phnom Penh that designs and develops software systems to address important social needs.

Some success stories include our work with The National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD Control (NCHADS). We built an information system for Community Health Workers, so they can provide home-based care into a workflow to remind patients of treatment and testing appointments using text messages as well as mobile phone applications.

One of our widely used platforms is Verboice. Verboice is an interactive voice response technology. It is open source and customizable, and can serve organisations of all sizes for social good. For example, using our system, Cambodia's National Election Committee (NEC) can provide necessary information to voters using voice messages. Verboice also helps health organisations like Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC) and Marie Stopes International deliver health tips and advice to their target groups. This mobile technology also plays a vital role in labor rights. The International Labor Organisation (ILO), through its Better Factory Cambodia (BFC), utilizes our platform to help educate garment factory workers in a very entertaining way, through interactive questions and answers.

Q. In your TedEx talk in 2011, you stressed the importance of building local capacity in development to build a better future for Cambodia. In your opinion, why is this important? Has it improved since you gave that talk, and what can the development community in Cambodia and abroad do to improve this?

A. Universities in Cambodia graduate many students every year. Somehow there is still a big gap between the academy and material taught in academia and the knowledge needed for real work in the industry. Cambodia’s development depends on the skills of its people. Communities play very important roles in contributing to building up the skills in the local market. Starting from the first Phnom Penh Barcamp in 2008, the technology community ecosystem started to move forward. Many specialized communities have been created, which contribute to the skills of Cambodian people through knowledge sharing and supporting each other. This page lists many of the existing technology communities in Cambodia.

Nowadays it is easy for the technology professionals outside of Cambodia to contribute to the knowledge sharing or training. They can do this from overseas using video calls or even in person if they travel to our country. One example that comes to mind, is this experienced trainer and software developer from Singapore who attended Barcamp Phnom Penh in person. Ever since, he has kept in contact with the ShareVision team and organized a series of trainings via video calls to our students and software developer community.

Q. How do you think the relationship between technology and development will change in Cambodia in 10 years and where do you hope it will be?

A. I believe technology is a stepping stone for the development of Cambodia and many other developing countries. Today, the technology startup scene is still nascent in Cambodia, but still the technology ecosystem has been growing in a positive direction. There are also more and more entrepreneurial programs and competitions in the country. In 10 years time, I believe there will be more technology startups in Cambodia that will result in the improvement of the skills in the market and also contribute to the economic development of the country. I hope to see by that time, all young Cambodians - not only urban but also in the countryside - having access to the Internet and as a result their life will change for the better.

Q. You’ve been able to build a successful career at a young age. What advice would you have for young people who may be struggling but want to follow a similar path?

A. I love Cambodia but I must admit that growing up in the Cambodian society, it is sometimes hard for children to develop self confidence. The barriers are in school, family and of course the society around as well. My advice to young people is to dare to dream and work hard for your dream no matter what. Hope is always there for those who work hard. Embrace the opportunity of the growing technology community around, by joining one of the many groups. It will help you accelerate your learning, getting the support you need and building up your confidence and opportunity for you is bound to show up.

Rethinking 42 with Ilham Hasan of Somaliland, first woman to be elected, who almost made it

2013-01-27T04:08:00.002+00:00

I met Ilham Hasan on my recent trip to Hargeisa, Somaliland. I met her at Shaqodoon, an NGO, where she and her team are focused on harnessing the power of the Internet to develop the job market for the youth in the Somalia and Somaliland. Prior to Shaqodoon she was a presenter on television. However, the reason for this interview is to catch up with her after she ran for office as a representative of the city of Hargeisa, in Somaliland's Local Council. The Local Council, in Somaliland's complex political system, is one of the three layers of representative bodies, along with the Parliament and the Council of Elders. Not a bad career track record for a 25 year old Somali woman.

Divon: So how did you get it involved in politics?

I was always a social activist. Initially, I was a Youth Leader in the NDB party, under Mrs. Fawzia Adan who is now the Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia (our neighboring country). I have a strong desire to make sure that all people are treated in a fair and just way throughout their lives.

Divon: It must be unusual for a woman to run for a public office in Somaliland, how did your family take it?

When I decided to run for office myself, my mother was supportive, but my father strongly opposed, saying that its not the place for a girl to get involved in politics. Finally, I was able to convince him to allow me to run, and he was one of my biggest supporters - campaigning for me with the Council of Elders.

Divon: Tell me about the election

I campaigned from door to door, and got a lot support from my friends in Somaliland and in the diaspora overseas, and also from people that knew me from television. However, it was very difficult, as most people vote according to their clan, and they say "you are a woman, women don't have a clan".

The issue of women running in the election was a hot topic, with the Council of Elders strongly fighting to disallow it, and on the other hand Woman Right and Civil Rights organizations were supporting it. Since I was the youngest candidate I got a lot of media attention and the newspapers kept on writing about me.

Finally, my party, Rays, managed to get one seat in the Local Council, which was very good news for me, as I was the top candidate on the party's list.

Divon: So you are now a member of the Local Council?

Unfortunately not. I got disqualified because I am a woman. In fact, the National Council decided to disqualify all women from all parties. So my male friend in my party, who was #2 on this list, got in instead of me.

Divon: Wow, that is outrageous! Is there anything that can be done to change the decision?

Women in this country have done a lot to contribute to peace and political stability, but we need to work more on establishing a strong relationship with our traditional leaders, to make them aware of the need to change our society's approach to women - both in urban settings and in pastoral communities.

We, the women that got disqualified, are currently engaged in a public debate on television and the media, to try to get the National Council to revisit its decision, but we are a very traditional country, and it is very hard.

Divon: Thanks Ilham for an inspiring story, and good luck

you may contact +Ilham ALI on ilhamali8@gmail.com

Rethinking 42 with Roya Mahboob - Afghanistan's first female tech-entrepreneur

2012-10-26T23:49:00.000+01:00

I first met Roya Mahboob when I visited Afghanistan over a year ago. She left a strong impression on me as a young, energetic and optimistic entrepreneur, in a country not known in particular for female entrepreneurship. Today, I circled back to her to hear about her experiences.

Divon: It is quite unusual for a young woman in Afghanistan to start a technology company. How did you get started?

Roya: We started as an association when I was studying at Herat University. After graduation we incorporated. At first it was difficult. We didn't have experience or financial support. Even when we offered a client a better technical solution and a better price, we still didn’t get projects.

We are the first ICT company owned and managed by women in Herat. There is only one other in Afghanistan, in Kabul. It is quite scary.

Now we are doing quite well - we were able to establish partnerships with Indian and American companies, and have learnt a lot from them about how to conduct ourselves on the global scene. Our clients are mostly in Kabul, where people are more open minded than in Herat, and we are now trying to expand to Central Asia. In addition, we often bid on government and education-related projects. So far so good!

Divon: How do the families feel about their girls working in the IT industry?

Roya: My family was ok with it. My father is educated and encouraged me, and my mother works, too. However, many families don’t approve of girls doing this kind of work - which involves interacting with men, and getting out and pitching to male customers. The few women that work in Herat, are mostly either creating handicrafts at home or are teachers in girl schools - those are the acceptable professions for women. Of course, I strongly believe women should be able to do software engineering as well, but we also have to be pragmatic with the reality. We have one engineer whose father doesn’t allow her to leave the house for work, and another that her husband doesn’t allow her. They both work for us, developing software, from their homes. In the case of the married employee, as is typical in Afghanistan, she and her husband are living with her husband’s family. The family would not approve of her working, even from home - so only her husband knows. The rest of the family are not very tech-savvy and they think she is just playing around with the computer.

Divon: How did the society react to you starting a company?

Roya: We got many threats and warnings. People called to threaten, sent SMSes, went to talk to our parents, posted papers outside of our homes. There were also rumors started - while everyone was nice to our face, when we won projects - people whispered behind our back “what did this woman do to win the project?” - nobody could believe that women can actually just be good engineers.

Divon: Wow, sounds extremely stressful. Weren’t you afraid for your physical security?

Roya: At some point, when things got bad, I had to move to Kabul. After a while, I moved back to Herat, mostly because I had commitments with the university here.

Divon: What are some other barriers women need to consider when opening a business?

Roya: The obvious big barrier is the threat to their physical wellbeing, with the risk varying depending on the type of their business and their location in the country. Another big one is access to startup capital. It is very hard for any new business to get investment or a loan from a bank, but for a woman it is simply out of the question. So the only option is family capital, but even that is really hard, as normally families would prefer to provide capital to their sons and not daughters.

Having said that, things are slowly changing for the better for women, and some of them are starting to understand their rights and how they can operate in this society, how to effectively deal with the problems and struggle for independence.

Divon: Herat is very close to the border of Iran, and the language is the same. It was easy for me to observe that there's a lot of Iranian business investment in Herat. Is there also cultural influence? Do you feel that Iranian culture is a force for moderation?

Roya: I think that due to our proximity to Iran, at least 80% of the residents of Herat have had an opportunity to visit Iran. The interesting thing is that while they are in Iran, they allow themselves to behave more freely and openly, but when they get back home to Herat, they resume their very conservative stance.

Divon: Do you think things will improve or get worse in Afghanistan after the US withdraws from Afghanistan in 2014?

Roya: This is a very important question for every Afghan, in particular for women. We are worried - will the Taliban come back? Will the fighting resume? We don't know. I think the best case scenario is that nothing happens. I don't think things will improve, but I hope they won't get worse. On the other hand, we really need to stand on our own feet - just like the Japanese did at the time. We are not seeing any good people stepping up as candidates to replace President Karzai so naturally we're very worried.

Divon: Where did you grow up?

Roya: I grew up in Herat. When the Taliban took over in 1996, I was a young girl, but I remember vividly that all of a sudden I was not allowed to get out of the house to play with my friends. After 6 months, we moved to Iran, like many educated Afghans did, and spent the Taliban years there. We came back to Herat in 2003, after the fall of the Taliban.

Divon: What are you working on right now?

Roya: One the projects I am most excited about is starting a new Woman Channel on Afghan TV. It will have programs for women - including topics like health, economics and woman rights. In addition to showing on local TV in Afghanistan, we plan to translate everything to English and publish it on the Internet for the global audience.

Divon: Do you think you will marry an Afghan man?

Roya: I am only 25, I still have time. But I don’t think I can marry a man that will not let me leave the home. I am hoping to do my Master’s degree in the US, perhaps I will get lucky and meet an open-minded man over there.

Divon: Finally, what will you advise other young Afghan female entrepreneurs who are considering starting an IT business?

Roya: Never despair - there are problems in every business, and every problem has a solution. Go ahead and start your own business, and don’t pay too much attention to what people say. Use your knowledge. Also, the great thing about the ICT profession, is that you can make money from ICT, perhaps start your own small business, even if you are not allowed to leave home.

Divon: Thank you Roya for your inspiring optimism, and best of luck!

Did you like this post? Please feel free to share the link on Facebook or Google Plus. If you care to share your thoughts and feedback, I would love to hear them either in the comments section below or directly to my email divon@shablife.com. Thanks! -divon

Rethinking 42 with Nin: A failed Lao monk turns top filmmaker

2012-09-06T05:05:00.000+01:00

I've been working with Lao filmmaker, IT activist and ex-monk Thanavorakit Kounthawatphinyo (better known as Nin) on a number of projects over the past year, and in the course of working together, we became friends. Nin has a unique view on life, which I thought is worth sharing. I sat down with Nin, and Puppy, his horse-sized dog, at Pha That Luang - the 1800 year old Buddhist stupa in Vientiane, Laos, for an chat.

Divon: So, how does one successfully fail in a career as Buddhist monk?

Nin: In 2007 I left my hometown Luang Prabang for Vientiane to go to college, and I ended up studying IT at the National University of Laos. At the university, I met a Novice (a monk "trainee"), who asked me to help him find a digital version of Tripika - an ancient Buddhist script. I found it and started reading it, and it caught be. I was especially intrigued by the part that discusses reincarnation, the fact that we go through successive miserable lives in an infinite loop, with each life starting with erasure of all previous memory. The book discusses how to break out of the loop and stop being reincarnated. Most compelling, in the context of being as broke as I was, was the fact that I could try it on my own, without needing to pay anyone.

So after one term at the university, I dropped out and became a novice monk at a pagoda in Vientiane, and then moved to a pagoda in Champasak province, in the southern part of Laos, but I still felt my meditations are not coming along as I wanted.

Then I met my mentor who convinced me to go to a pagoda in Ubon Ratchathani in northeastern Thailand. I spent 6 months there, but still failed with my meditations, this time because it became known that I am an "IT guy". I was therefore assigned to develop the pagoda's website, and had to focus more on that than on meditating.

Frustrated with being the IT guy of a large Thai pagoda, I figured I need some place small where I can focus on my meditations. I heard of a small pagoda in a very remote rural area in southern Laos, and they told me that there are no monks there yet. I figured that I would probably not be asked to develop a website, so I moved there. The description was indeed precisely accurate: I was the only person in the pagoda. After a month in solitude, I ended my career as a monk, and went back to Luang Prabang to work in my family's restaurant.

Divon: Today, after just a few years in the business, many consider you to be the top videographer in Laos, doing everything from music clips to documentaries to short films. How did you start?

Nin: It started when I was a child. I grew up in Luang Prabang which is Laos's second city, but in reality it is a small town in northern Laos. One day, the camera shop had a promotion - they gave a free camera if you bought two Kodak films. So I did. However, I couldn't find anyone to teach me how to use the camera. So I just experimented on my own.

Fast forward - 15 years later, one day I was watching a Lao music video on television, and I was really annoyed because the quality of the video was so lousy. I discussed this with my friend, and we looked at a YouTube video that was produced using a camera with a small sensor, but a 35mm lens adapter, that can give a feel of real movie camera. Nobody had ever attempted this in Laos. I told him - "we can make something like this". The device was prohibitively expensive for us (a year's worth of my salary at the restaurant). Fortunately, my Mom miraculously agreed to give me the startup capital for my new business. I ordered the equipment online and couldn't believe my eyes when it actually arrived on my doorstep in Luang Prabang, in northern Laos!

The very next day my friend and I started to work on our music video. Of course, we didn't have any customer yet, so we were just doing this as a demo. We started working at 4am and got home only after midnight. When I got home I found my wife and my mother both furious - how can I work 20 hours, and earn no cash? It was incomprehensible to them, because in all businesses familiar to them, like the restaurant, or the camera shop for that matter, there is a steady flow of cash by the hour.

I then realized that Vientiane is the only place in Laos where I could possibly find paying customers. Finally, I found my first customer for a music video. I commuted from Laung Prabang to Vientiane (12 hours by bus on a bad road, each way). The amount I got paid just about covered my bus ticket, but the video was very successful and was shown on television many times. My uncle saw it and he was sure the video was produced by Thai people - he couldn't believe Lao people could make such a high quality video. He was stunned to find it out it was made by his very own nephew.

My next music video, Super One, which was even more successful, was shown on Thai television, and has over 200,000 views on YouTube, but still the pay was absurdly low compared to Thailand. The music industry here just doesn't value high quality videos yet. Still, I love this work.

Divon: What are you working on right now?

Nin: I am working on a documentary for an organization called Handicap International Laos. The movie will be called Ban Advocates, about the people who survived from UXO explosions (unexploded bombs left over from the American bombing of Laos during the Vietnam war). It is quite a complicated project - we had to study the background of the people, and go film them in remote areas of Laos. Learning more about this topic through this project, I was quite surprised that we still have so many UXOs in Laos, and that people are still getting injured by them, every day. We are now at almost 40 years after the end of the war, and only 10% of the UXOs have been cleared. They are everywhere across the country, even near Vientiane.

Divon: From the outside, it seems to me that there are too few people like you in Laos - creative and entrepreneurial - is this indeed true, and if so, what can be done about it?

Nin: Yes, it is unfortunately correct. People in Laos have a too easy life - they become lazy and start to complain. We have a very generous government - we get everything and people have come to expect that. When I compare ourselves to our neighbor Myanmar - over there, people have a much harder life, but it forces them to be resourceful and entrepreneurial. In Laos, people spend their life, day after day, without any passion - not doing anything they are really interested in or that can help the country develop.

Divon: Do you blame the government for this?

Nin: Actually, no. I blame us, the people. People just don't care. They won't yield in a road junction when they need to, they will drive a luxury car, but throw trash out the window, and worse of all, they tolerate corruption. When a police officer stops them for a traffic violation, they pay the requested bribe without question. When they are requested to pay a bribe of thousands of dollars to get into a prestigious course at a university, they do it. When some (a small number fortunately) of the university teachers demand money for high grades, they reluctantly pay. These are just a few examples I have personally witnessed. And then they complain that the government is corrupt. But how can they complain when they themselves are supporting corruption when it is convenient for them? If everyone thought just a little bit about our country, behaved just a little bit more patriotically in every action they take, the aggregate result would be a much better country and society.

Divon: Many developing countries are suffering for the phenomenon of a brain drain - as if its not bad enough that highly skilled people in every domain are at severe shortage, the few that do exist, many times emigrate out to live in a developed country. Do you see yourself staying in Laos in the long term?

Nin: Nowadays, with the Internet, I can learn anything I want online, and also get my movies to a global audience. So it really doesn't matter where I live. Actually, being from Laos sometimes gives me an advantage overseas, as people are often curious about my country. So I see no reason why I should leave Laos.

Some of Nin’s work:

Calendar - a short film that won the Vientiane International Film Festival 2011, and after which Nin was awarded the United Nations in Lao PDR prize for the Best Young Filmmaker 2011

Super One - the music video mentioned in the interview

(Nin also did our wedding video (except the first 30 seconds which are from another source), as a gift from his wife Farng and him. They traveled by bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to attend our wedding, a 24 hour ride, for which there are not enough words to express our appreciation

)

Did you like this post? Please feel free to share the link on Facebook or Google Plus. If you care to share your thoughts or feedback, I would love to hear them either in the comments section below or directly to my email divon@shablife.com. Thanks! -divon

Rethinking 42 with Anan Bouapha, Laos gay leader

2012-07-22T02:43:00.000+01:00

(some of the sections of this interview containing more personal questions were removed on Monday 23/7 9am Laos time, per Anan's request. The original interview text was approved by Anan prior to publishing, but he had second thoughts after seeing it live, which is totally legitimate dl)

Anan Bouapha is the unofficial recognized leader of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender) community in the Asian country of Laos, who recently organized the country's first ever Pride event, hosted at the US embassy. Anan is involved in a million and one activities around LGBT empowerment and HIV prevention. I sat down with him for a chat on the answer to life, the universe and everything. Our meeting was appropriately set to 11pm at Pack Luck, a gay-friendly bar in Vientiane. On a Thursday night, the bar was empty except for us - myself, being in the midst of a self-imposed no-alcohol month, sipping mineral water and Anan drinking coke. I wonder how this bar stays in business.

DL: How do you define yourself? LGBT is such a technical term

AB: I am feminine gay, but I am not a transgender, I enjoy cross dressing, but not every day. I enjoy cross dressing because I feel good when I see myself in women clothes, beautiful clothes, nice hair. I don't do that that often, only when going to a party.

DL: How was it growing up as a gay in Laos?

AB: I was born in a very conservative family. We have a big family, and my parents are very old fashion. When I was young we use to talk about gay issues, in other words what my parents saw as my problems, every day. I remember fighting with my sister when I was 5 years old, because I wanted to wear her dresses. Since I am the only son, and the last child - I have four older sisters - my parents have huge expectations of me to continue the family line.

DL: When did you tell your parents?

AB: I actually haven't ever told them, but I think they know, because I am feminine. I try to educate them about sexual diversity in general. Have them accept that being like this is not bad karma or a disease. I have been contributing to my community, and my family are proud of me today, that's my acceptance. I only told them about my work with the LGBT community in the 3rd year of my work. When I told them that I attended a meeting on HIV with the Minister of Health, they were quite shocked, and couldn't believe the government pays attention to "these people". Now they are seeing all the recognition that I am getting, and are proud of me and brag about my work to their friends.

DL: You spent a year going to university in the US, specifically, in Laramie, Wyoming - how do you compare people's attitude towards gays?

AB: Very different. Vientiane is small, but it is a capital city. There are many foreigners living here. It is not as developed as Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City or Phnom Penh, but still, this cosmopolitan environment of a capital city affects people's attitudes, and people are becoming more tolerant of diversity over time. Being a feminine gay like me or a ladyboy or whatever is completely ok here. In Wyoming, everything - infrastructure, education, is 100 times better than Laos. But people's attitude is different. In their mentality they accept straight looking gay people, but they have a hard time accepting a feminine gay that dresses like a woman, and behaves in a feminine way. Even when I visited San Francisco, most gays I met looked straight, it looks like this is mostly what exists in white countries. In South East Asia, we have everything. Its not just about men attracted to men. In Asia, it is acceptable to have a sex change, to just take hormones to grow your breast or what ever. In the US it looks like the sexual subgroups are isolated, don't mix with the mainstream gay, but here it is not like that. Here gay men, cross-dressers, transvestites, trans-sexual we all get together. We also don't categorize each other. We don't need to put on a label on people, and people can be cross-dressers one day and gay the next.

DL: What's your take on the the gay and ladyboy prostitutes that seem to be quite common in Vientiane?

AB: They are definitely part of our community. I have no problem with what they do, sex work is a profession. But of course, it is not a good idea to be a sex worker if you have other options. However, if that's what you do, you need to know what you you're doing. The main problem, is it has a very negative image, and you're bound to have a stigma, and in addition, you need to think how to protect yourself from disease and from being trafficked, but if you know what you're doing, you're ok.

DL: It seems a very high percentage of ladyboys become sex workers. Is it because it is really hard for them to find a normal job?

AB: It's because of the stigma and discrimination of ladyboys in our region. Being gay is hard enough, but being a ladyboy seems you get shot twice - you're rejected by your society, even your own family, you start to go in the wrong direction. You start to hang out with the wrong friends etc. A lot of them become drug addicts. The ones that are doing ok, often get into the beautician (hairdresser etc) profession, because that profession is open to them. It is almost impossible for them to find a job. No company or government office will accept a transgender in a Lao skirt (the traditional female dress in Laos which is mandatory for women in most work places dl)

DL: Laos is a communist, one-party country, in which the government is deeply involved in every aspect of life. How is the community's relationship with them?

AB: It is very difficult for us to raise our problems with the government. We are engaged in a dialog with them, but only indirectly through our organizations (NGOs etc), since we don't have direct access. We are lucky that the government is tolerant of the LGBT community, and specifically the Ministry of Health recognizes the importance of working with us on combating HIV. One of the reasons for this tolerance in society, is that most of our TV programs in Laos come from Thailand, and the Thai media likes to make transsexuals into celebrities. This has a big positive influence. Our nature in Laos is very gentle. People might be curious or even laugh at you if you go to small places upcountry, but they will not harm you. However, the government will not support any LGBT rights in legislation, that is out of the question. Nevertheless, we don't have any problems with the government on a day-to-day basis.

DL: How about lesbians?

AB: Unfortunately, there is no lesbian organization or active community in Laos. This is quite sad. In the Pride event I organized in partnership with the US embassy, I started to involve them as well, for the first time.

DL: Tell me a little about your work

AB: I work a lot in the HIV prevention and awareness space. Laos is still a low HIV prevalence country - about 0.2% of the general population and 5.6% the MSM (men-sex-men dl) population are HIV positive. This is very low compared to our neighboring countries - Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar all have very high HIV prevalence. Since we have open borders and a very large number of tourists from our neighboring countries, we are at risk.

I am the Laos representative of the Purple Sky Network foundation. I do advocacy work, I advocate the government for change the policy, as well as change public perception - reduce the stigma and discrimination of LGBT. I am also working for the Global Youth Network (Y-PEER) which is supervised by the UN Population Fund. This project tries to improve the sexual health, HIV prevention etc, and also empowerment of young people. I am in charge of this for Laos.

A few weeks ago, I collaborated with the US Embassy to organize the Pride event, the objective was to raise awareness in the country of LGBT, in a positive way - we can be a national resource to develop our country. I advocate for positive change for our community.

DL: What would you advise a Lao guy that is facing some of the same challenges you had faced?

AB: Always know your rights, that's the most important thing. First help yourself, then your community. A lot of LGBT people are afraid to be who they are because of the disapproval by their families and society. But they are an enormous resource for the country. A lot of them don't believe in their prospects, they think, "I am gay, so my only option is to be a beautician, do 'gay work' ". They don't think they are capable of working in the government, companies or international organizations, since they only hire straight people. It is very important for them to know their abilities, how they can leverage them to more significant contributions. The number one priority is try to let your family know who you are. If you are empowered by your family, you can do a lot without hesitation.

DL: What is your dream?

AB: I have an impossible dream. I want to work for the government at some point. I want to the first highest ranking gay official in my country, and I want to make a big change. Not just with regards to LGBT rights, but I want to use my pro-active skills to develop this country. At my core, I am a communicator - I can communicate and convince people from all walks of life. I think that in the next 30, 40 years, I can do something enormous for this country.

Did you like this post? Please feel free to share the link on Facebook or Google Plus. If you care to share your thoughts or feedback, I would love to hear them either in the comments section below or directly to my email divon@shablife.com. Thanks! -divon

Revealing my Exotometer

2012-06-29T20:02:00.000+01:00

"Where are you coming from?" "I am flying in from Laos". The security person at Istanbul airport stares down at me with a look that almost makes me want to confess that I am a terrorist: "there is no such country" he asserts. I reply softly, "Sir, I can assure you there is a country like that. It is next to Thailand".

"Wow!!!!! You're in Madagascar?!?", IMs to me my friend from Cambodia (I always have my current location set on my chat status), "what a wonderful country! I learnt all about it from the movie". Well... ehmm... "The movie is not really about Madagascar, you know... it is a little more crowded and polluted, but the people are wonderful and I love the music" "I didn't realize they have people there"

"Cambodia!!! Cool!!" gChats my Kenyan friend, "didn't realize you also work in Latin America", "That's Colombia my dear, Cambodia is in Asia, and they are more into sticky asian pop than salsa, I am afraid" "no salsa??" "nope."

"I can't believe she doesn't know where Cambodia is! That is so lame!" frowns my Cambodian wife and takes insult on behalf of the entire Khmer empire. "My love, Own Sum Lahn, can you tell me where about is Burkina Faso?" "You are making that up, right?"

"You're where?? Somalia?? Oh my gosh! Don't they chop off people's heads there?" "Today's Wednesday. I don't think they do it on Wednesdays" "Oh good. SMS me if you need help".

What makes one country sound exotic vs another sound mundane? Since I work a lot in countries which some people consider exotic, I have been applying my "Exotometer" - essentially measuring the number of written or verbal exclamation marks after the words "cool!!!" or "wow!!!!!" or similar expressions my friends around the world use when they learn that I am in country X. Many of these friends, incidentally, live in countries others would consider exotic. Finally, after collecting enough raw data, I have proceeded to reverse engineer the data to discover the underlying algorithm for determining the level of exoticness of a country. Here it is, v1 of the discovered algorithm:

Level of Exoticness of country X, as perceived by person P living in country Y:

(1) Is the country less than 3000 km away? NOT exotic! END

(2) Was it in a children's book or a movie that you first heard of the country? (Madagascar, Winnie the Pooh)? DEFINITELY exotic. END

(3) Does the country have at least 8 letters in its name and/or starts with a Z? Gain 2 Exoticness points

(4) Is the leader's title Sultan or King? Gain 2 Exoticness points for Sultan, 1 for King

(5) Has a rich acquaintance of yours gone there on an unaffordable "getaway" and can't stop talking about it? Lose 2 Exoticness points

(6) Is it a tropical island? Gain 2 Exoticness points, unless you live on an island yourself

(7) Do the locals have the same skin color as you? Lose 3 exoticness point

My Exotometer is still in beta, and the reverse engineering is still in progress, so feel free to comment if you have different observations!

Life and Death of Written Languages

2012-06-26T19:38:00.002+01:00

First: a quiz: how many "primary written languages" are there in the world? By "primary written languages" I don't mean languages that merely have an orthography (writing system) developed in academia - I mean languages which are truly written in the real world - in other words, languages which their native speakers (or other nationals of their respective countries) use as their language of choice for reading and writing. Examples: English, Amharic, Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese. Examples of languages that are widely used verbally, but their native speakers do not use them as their primary language for writing: Swiss Deutsch, Hausa, Balinese, Zulu.

So how many written languages are there in the world? Ok, some stats to help you guess: there are about 6,000-7,000 living languages in the world today (depending on how you define "language") and there are 200 or so countries in the world (depending on how you define "country"...)

Your guess as to how many of these are written languages?

Wrong! The correct number is about 80. Yes, that's right, only 80 of the 6,000 or so living languages are used for writing. This includes all the written languages that originated in Europe (and are now the primary written languages in all of South, Central and North America, all of Oceania, almost all of Africa, and much of South Asia), only five non-European languages that are primary written languages in Africa (Amharic, Tigrinya, Somali, Kiswahili and Afrikaans), four in the Middle East (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi and Turkish), the national languages of the countries South East Asia, Central Asia and East Asia, the regional languages of South Asia, and a very few other ones. If you count them (like I did), you reach about 80.

Before you jump in protest, yes, I have seen a few children books in Yoruba and Lingala, a couple of websites in Shona, one newspaper in each of Luganda, Zulu and Kikuyu, street signs in Dzongkha et centra. I am close with the passionate regional language promoters in Indonesia, Philippines, DR Congo, Bhutan, Laos, Nepal and others with whom I frequently interact and deeply admire. However, for the purpose of this discussion, I don't count these as "primary written languages" because their native speakers most of the time use another language for writing purposes (English, English, French, English, English, English, Bahasa Indonesia, Filipino/English, French, English and English respectively). I will get back to that in a sec.

The disappearance of verbal (aka vernacular) languages is a hot topic which gets a lot of media and academic attention under the title "endangered languages" - so let me address this first, before talking about written languages. Basically, the way I see it, there are two linked underlying causes for the acceleration of the mass disappearance of languages we are seeing in the past decade - and both are brand new: the first is telecommunications and the Internet - the main reason for the survival of language diversity in the first place is regional isolation of ethnic communities in remote locations. This is the reason DR Congo has 215 languages, Indonesia has 719 languages, and Papua New Guinea, population 6.8M, has 830 languages - more than any other country. The good news or bad news, depending on your point of view, is that regional isolation is so 80s. It's gone. With mobile phones, Internet, social networks and satellite TV all proliferating even in the most remote corners of the planet, there are hardly any people remaining today that are not exposed on a daily basis to the communication coming out of- and/or with the cities, communication that is most often in the dominant national or regional language. As people migrate to the cities, inter-marry, and get educated in schools using the national language, a growing number of them abandon their ethnic language for day-to-day speaking and don't pass it on to their children.

The second reason for the disappearance of verbal languages, is that in the past decade, again due to the influence of the Internet and the resulting global flow of ideas, most countries in the world have become significantly more socially liberal, which of course, is a good thing in general (in my opinion anyway). One of the aspects of this trend, is a higher willingness of mainstream society and its institutions, to include and accept ethnic minorities, reducing explicit and implicit discrimination. In reaction to these new opportunities to belong to the mainstream, many young people of a minority background are happily dumping their minority identity, and adopting the national identity instead as their primary identity. For example, since I am married to a Cambodian, I have recently noticed how very rapidly many of 1.5M people of the Khmer minority in the Isan region of Thailand, which maintained their distinct ethnicity while living as a minority in the midst Thai and Lao people for the past 600 years, are now rushing to become all-Thai, and their children can no longer speak Khmer. The same is also true for the 1.5M Khmer minority in Vietnam and also a much smaller group of Khmer speakers in southern Laos.

Now to written languages - while verbal languages evolve very fast, and become extinct as well as newly born (see for example the recent emergence of the Sheng language in Nairobi), verbal languages transform into written ones very, very rarely. In fact, the only cases I can think of in the past 100 years, in which a language gained significant new populations that adopted it as a primarily written language, other than through colonization, are Kiswahili in Tanzania, Bahasa Indonesia, Filipino and Hebrew in Israel. Unlike the spontaneous grassroots emergence of verbal languages - In all these cases of written languages, these languages gained new populations because of a highly centralized, ideologically-motivated campaign to unify a nation under a single language for writing purposes. In addition, all these languages were primary written languages for centuries (except for Hebrew, that was used only for religious purposes), but of much smaller populations.

Now, after this long background, I would like to introduce the concept of the "strength" of individual written languages, and point out the risk that some specific weaker languages, which I will discuss, will fall off the list of written languages very, very soon (within a decade or two). I would also like to point out the direct relationship between the strength of a language and the availability of Internet content in that language.

My hypothesis is actually very simple - people read a hundred times more text than they write (or maybe it is 2,865 times more, I don't know, let's just say a hundred because it is a round number). Or putting it on its head - people write 1/100 the volume of text that the read in a particular language. In particular, if they don't read anything in the language, they also don't write in the language. If you look at the 80 languages that are primary written languages, every single one of them has a large volume of highly-read written content - newspapers, websites etc. Dictionaries and children text books don't count as highly-read content. Let me ignore the rules of statistics for a minute and assume cause-and-effect here, and make the bold claim that unless there is a large volume of content to be read in the language, a language will not become a written language, or will cease to be one if it is currently a written language. This is a chicken-and-an-egg problem of course. You will say, hey, that's not fair, how can we create a large volume of content before a lot of people read and write in the language? Well, exactly. Here you go. This is precisely why no language in the past century has succeeded in becoming a written language except with massive government intervention.

Moreover, I will submit to you, that in the future offline content will almost not count - the strength and survivability of a language as a written language will depend entirely on the volume of online content in that language. When people become addicted to their smartphones, tablets etc, they are actually addicted to consuming a stream of fresh content 24 hours a day - news from multiple sites, blogs, social networking feeds, random information etc. Right now, only a few of us are as addicted as I am, but as devices and data plans plummet in price, it is inevitably going to become the norm rather than the exception. In this new world, the volume of information we will need to keep our addiction going will have to be produced by many thousands, if not millions, of people in parallel. Of that, the volume information produced by the handful of people that work for traditional newspapers will be negligible. In other words, for a language to survive as a written language, thousands of people must be posting interesting content online every day in my language, so that my content consumption bandwidth is saturated with content in my language. If I have too much bandwidth left, I will start looking at content in secondary languages I understand, and pretty fast they will become my primary language for content creation. By the way, did you notice that this blog is in English even though my native language is Hebrew? Its because gradually over time my primary written language switched from Hebrew to English, because there is just not enough fresh content in Hebrew published every day on the Internet to satisfy my content consumption addiction.

Finally, let's look at some weaker languages that are at an inflection point right now, and see where they are going:

(1) Kinyarwanda (national language of Rwanda) and Malagasy (national language of Madagascar) - the various governments of these countries over the years have had inconsistent policies regarding emphasizing the national languages vs. English or French. The situation is that most of the literate population can read these languages, but there is almost no content out there, resulting in the primary written language, and hence almost all written content being in English or French. There's still an opportunity for a U-Turn for the government and going in full force with these national languages, but it doesn't seem to be happening, therefore I predict that these languages will never turn into primary written languages, and that literacy rates in these languages will go down dramatically over time.

(2) Chichewa (national language of Malawi) and Setswana (national language of Botswana) - there seems to be a growing sentiment among the young generation to adopt these languages for writing. Clearly, today the primary written language in both these countries is English. However, if this sentiment becomes stronger, we might see a reversal in fortune. This will need massive government support, as well as a large number of skilled content creators, so I think that the chances are somewhat low, but I will keep my fingers crossed.

(3) Dzongkha (national language of Bhutan) - While this is certainly the lingua franca vernacular language, the sentiment among the young generation it to move away and use English for writing purposes. No reversal of fortune is in sight.

(4) Lao (national language of Laos) - Lao people have highly nationalistic feelings when it comes to their language, in particular in light of the historical animosity with Thailand (Thai and Lao languages are fairly similar, and Thailand's population is 11 times bigger). However, in practice, a large majority of all television programming, music, books and magazines are imported from Thailand. When you sit in a coffeeshop in Vientiane, you notice the young and educated Lao elite, exactly the ones that are supposed to be the content creators, reading Thai websites, and creating Facebook content - in Thai. Lao is still a strong language, and all locally created offline content in Laos is in Lao - but the warning is written on the wall. There is an urgent need to encourage much more content creation by the average Lao Internet user (not only professional journalists) in Lao language - or else as all written content moves online and offline content because negligible - a process bound to happen within the coming five years - Lao risks losing its status as a written language and becoming a verbal language only.

(5) Hebrew (my own native language) - considering Israel is a country of only 8M people (of which only half are native Hebrew speakers), Hebrew has a disproportionally large amount of content - both online and offline. Still, it is a relatively small language compared to the ocean of English out there. Indeed, I am often shocked when I realize that so many people, like me, have moved to write mostly in English - even when writing to fellow Hebrew speakers. The reason we write in English is because we read mostly in English. Is the decline of Hebrew as a written language inevitable? I certainly hope not, but I am very worried.

On the Perceived Directionality of the World

2012-06-25T07:27:00.000+01:00

In the past few months I have been fortunate to be able to visit some places in which Salafi Islam has a strong following - countries like Somalia, Afghanistan and the Kashmir valley in India. It was when I was sitting in a tea shop having strong Somali tea and chatting with some Somali elders on a quiet Friday morning in Hargeisa, that it suddenly occurred to me.

But first some background - Salafi (aka Wahabi) Muslims follow the most purist version of Islam. To the extent they are known in the West, it is because of Salafi organizations like Al Qaida and the Taliban. A lot has been written about the massive funding by Saudi and Yemeni billionaires of Madrassas (religious schools) across the Muslim world, which draw from the large population of poor and marginalized slum-dweller families - offering their children free "education", along with pride, a sense of meaning and belonging in return for following a version of Islam that forbids any original thinking and emphasizes a non-debatable literal interpretation of the Koran and Sharia law. These Madrassas pour out a torrent of skill-free, unemployable and religiously zealous youth into the environment every year. The number of Salafi Islam followers is growing extremely rapidly across the Muslim world - from the Mindanao in the Philippines to northern Nigeria, from Gaza to Kandahar, it is everywhere.

Most Salafi Muslims, like most people of other lifestyles, are good people. They want to live an honorable and moral life, bring bread to their families and be respected. This is certainly true of the Salafi Muslims I had an opportunity to meet and converse with.

So why is there such a huge chasm of mistrust between the rest of the world (which I will call here the "mainstream") and Salafi Muslims? The world has many different cultures and belief systems - Buddhists and Muslims, Hindu and Christians, Jews and animists, but nowhere is there such a complete mistrust and suspicion as the relationship between Salafi Muslims and all non-Muslims. And the feelings are certainly mutual.

There is a certain variable, which I will call "the Perceived Directionality of the World" which I now know is not well understood, and I believe lies at the foundation of this mutual mis-understanding.

Most "mainstream" people (myself and all of my Muslim friends included) are what I would call Forwardists. Our basic view of the world and of history is that the world is moving forward, improving. With every new version of iPhone or Android, with every percentage growth in GDP, with every new freeway, with every dictator toppled, we are making progress. We enjoy looking back at our life time, or at the past 100 or 500 years, and taking count of the progress we've made. It is quite huge indeed.

This Forwardist view of the world was not always the dominant view - until very recently, most people were what I call Cyclicists. A few years ago, I spent several months researching the lives of Jews in Lithuania in the 18th and 19th centuries (and while I was at it - I built the family tree, starting from my direct family, of 50,000 people of that community - you can find it on geni.com). It became very clear that until around 1870 more or less - the life of this community was very cyclical - people were born, lived and died in the same small town, and more often than not continued the same occupation as their parents. This was probably the state of the vast majority of people in the world until that time or even well into the 20th century, and still is for many people who live a traditional life of subsistance farming in Sub Saharan Africa and Asia. The basic perception of life is that it is cyclical - the cycle of seasons, the cycle of life and death, and the cycle reincarnation in the Eastern religions. Indeed, Buddhism, for example, is all about these cycles. Perhaps it was best put by King Shlomo (Solomon), the great Jewish king (970-928 BCE) "מה שהיה הוא מה שיהיה, מה שנעשה הוא מה שיעשה, ואין חדש תחת השמש" (translation: "what was is what will be, what was done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun").

Salafists, on the other hand, are Backwardists. They believe that the perfect state of the world occurred some time in the past - specifically, during the life of Prophet Mohammad and his direct followers, who lived a perfectly moral life. Ever since, with each generation, the Muslim civilization has been deteriorating. They basically feel a strong urge to hit the brake pedal and stop the deterioration of the world, and then put all the effort into reversing its course back to a state of high morality. They do so by repeatedly scrutinizing their own societies for impurities, and eliminating them. Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Shabab in Somalia eliminated music, football, any contact between men and women, and having fun in general. With every impurity removed, Salafists feel a sense of satisfaction that they are moving closer to a highly moral world, and promptly turn to look for the next impurity to eliminate - creating a cycle that is observed by outsiders to be an ever-increasing level of extreme Islamic fundamentalism. Salafits have a strong intuitive feeling that anything new is by definition bad, and that new ideas are dangerous to morality. Therefore, they surround themselves by metaphorical and societal walls to protect from change and new ideas.

In this difference in the perceived directionality of the world, lies the foundation of the mis-trust. Well-meaning mainstreamers that try to promote "Development", "Economic Progress", need to realize that these terms are essentially Forwardists in nature - they assume the listener intuitively thinks that moving forward ("development", "progress") is a good thing. Lots of people out there don't agree.

Side note: Salafists Muslims are the largest and most visible group of Backwardists, but they are certainly not unique - one can observe the same perception of directionality among groups such as Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Amish and others.