Marouen Bloggin' his Life

I can barely remember the details of the few times I spoke on radios. I can remember that everything started; I imagine it is the case with many Tunisians from my generation, with the interest for the international radio RTCI and the interaction with the presenters via snail mail. Many live interviews followed this beginning linked to several events I organized or subjects I was keen advocating such as the Free and Libre Open Source Software model.

I never imagined that few years later I’ll have my own “show” with a complete freedom of the topics I can present or the guests I can invite. Of course, this have to be linked to my interests and the subjects I can really present.

Few days ago, I was contacted by Radio TounesBledi team for an urgent matter they wanted to discuss with me. The matter was just an offer to take care of the English speaking program on this radio (which is broadcasting on internet from Canada). I tried to convince them that I don’t have any such experience and I never spoke in public in English (It’s a white lie). All the trust they are placing on me is based just on the content of my blog. They managed to convince me that I’ll be able to do it without even the need of an evaluation.

I had less than 14 hours to prepare the content of two hours of the “on air” program.

I managed to plan few things to speak about including of course the couchsurfing spirit (http://www.couchsurfing.com) and to include two interviews that went pretty well. Honestly I wasn’t convinced of my performance after the program but I believe that I’ll work it out in the future if I learn from my mistakes. My father, who doesn’t speak a word in English, managed to listen to the complete show from home and made an effort trying to understand what I was speaking about. My cousin who living in France told me later that she liked the program but not the “old fashion” musical selection

The program’s name is “bridging worlds”. It is scheduled for Thursdays between 3pm and 5pm (Tunis time, GMT+1). The time might change starting from the beginning of February 2008. I’ll keep you updated.

The link to listen to the radio is: http://www.radio.tounesbledi.net/live.html

I’ll talk about the radio and its amazing team again soon.

Until now, I can say that I lived in three different countries in three different ‘worlds’. I lived almost all my life in my home city, Tunis. I had my first and short stay of four month by my own in Mali (one of the poorest countries in the world). And lately, I just came back from more than a year spent doing my masters degree in London.

If I have to compare Bamako with London in terms of social relations, I would say and confirm that I never felt so lonely before going to live in Britain. I almost never feel lonely in Tunisia and enjoyed very much my life in Mali. I’ll spare you the reasons and the social analysis of the Londoners daily life (maybe I’ll do it another day) and I’ll tell you the ways I found to overcome this loneliness issue.

The first one was the meetups I found through the website http://www.meetup.com . In this website, very active especially in big cities like London, somebody can find anything (or anyone) he is interested in. From the singles gatherings to artists’ fan clubs or wine and dinners meetups, everything is there. I started just with some languages exchange meetups and international students’ gatherings always in pubs (bars). It was a good way to make friends …. but mainly foreigners. Don’t ask me where the real Londoners are, they have other interests.

The second solution was interesting at the social and the professional level. People that know me will guess that I speak about the charities. I started by joining YouthNet UK (http://www.youthnet.org) which is a charity providing software for other charities in order to manage their volunteers and volunteering opportunities. I was able to volunteer for them through two of their staff I’ve met in Tunisia (Thank you again Simon and Patrick). You see, it’s useful to have contacts 

After that, I joined also the British Computer Society (http://www.bcs.org.uk) thanks to my Nigerian colleague Boma who convinced me just by saying that all our lecturers are registered to this professional body. Later, I found it interesting but very serious for me until when I joined the Young Professional Group and I found myself in the “National Committee” helping with the students’ stream and attending the monthly or non-official meetings. I said once to one of the members “David” that what I enjoyed the most in these meetings is that nobody manages to speak slowly as do my lecturers. My English had no other choices than to improve to be able to understand their jokes. “Cheers mates!!!”.

The third solution was the CouchSurfing Community (http://www.couchsurfing.com). I’ll dedicate the next post to explain what it is.

I want to dedicate this post to our taxi driver in Rio. Luiz is an amazing guy who has the advantage of speaking English (enough to make us laugh at least) and Spanish too. He is proud of his carioca origins (native inhabitants of Rio) and who shares his love for his city. His taxi is endowed with a DVD player and 2 screens (with a remote control which freaks me out every time he uses). He started his tour with a formal touristy DVD in English language to avoid us looking at the bad weather but he never stopped speaking and showing us, by pointing with the fingers while driving, beaches, places, favelas, mountains, local girls … It was amazing to see how easy it was for him to jump from a subject to another while driving : talking about history, national and international politics, saying jokes, speaking to his colleagues over the radio and, the best part, listening to our discussions to catch any appointments or occasion to offer his services. He told us that few years ago he attended a 2-years course funded by the city council to learn English. He also has a small notepad where he used to write small sentences in Arabic and other languages I guess to astonish customers. Other ways are used for the same purpose, such as the Special Police Operations Battalion of Rio in action video in the war against Favelas’ gangs or a concert of local music or U2 (don’t ask me why U2).

Of course, in terms of planning, he was a king. He never stopped suggesting new places to visit, drinks to try, flats to rent, and even sports to try. I think there isn’t better than a taxi driver to give you a feeling of local people and their dreams and opinions.

While going to the airport, I remember asking him a lot of questions about his family, the taxes, and the cost of life in Rio. Luiz likes the fact of having his entire family living with him including his mum (he told me grandma but I think he’s wrong) and even the girlfriend of his older son who is “a good man like his father”. Luiz has even internet at home but he wasn’t able to spell exactly his email address. Later on, he gave me again his business card (for the 5th time in 2 days) and asked me to come back again with a group for a real tour in a sunny period and he will take care of us.

If one day you go to Rio, you should contact him (I don’t advise to contact him by email): Luiz Tours +55 2199456542 luistour@hotmail.com

After a long journey back from Rio to Tunis with a transit in Sao Paulo and then Milan, I needed a long rest and few real dinners (no comments about Alitalia dinners). Now I’m back to my dear laptop (I call ‘wife’ too) to write about Rio.

Rio was wonderful and charming. The only issue was that it was sunny just the day I arrived and the day I left. This is called bad luck especially when I saw the pictures of my colleagues who managed to have a good afternoon far from the atmosphere of the Internet Governance Forum. Nevertheless, as a group we managed to rent a taxi with a crazy driver (it is a compliment – I’ll dedicate the next post to him) to see what we had to see in Rio even if it was so cloudy that we were almost not able see anything.

We started the tour by going to the botanical garden which should be very beautiful but it was so cloudy and windy with a funny rain that we were not able to see it. Through the clouds we were able to see some buildings and sometimes some beaches. The next step was, a bit higher in Corcovado Mountain, Christ the Redeemer was standing proudly, facing the freezing wind and the shower of rain. The issue is that we were barely able to see him with all the clouds surrounding his huge statue. The Clouds were so low that we were not able to see other than a white landscape all around the place. That place was magic, and not only because it was one of the new seven wonders of the world, but because I can’t confirm if anyone in the group was enough Christian or even just Christian to be welcomed by Jesus himself.

The next day, the plan was to visit Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açúcar) which is also a magic place we under-evaluated at the beginning. After reaching the top, and being enough lucky to be able to see the beaches and even the Christ, we were so happy to take few picture proving that we were there. I think, when it is not cloudy, the view is worth the 25$ (35 R$) we paid. Copacabna beach was also in the plan and we stopped just to have a look at the funny statues of cows in different situations standing all along the pedestrian way. The taxi driver wanted also to point out some elements to make the difference between local girls, tourists and ... girls-like girls 

Rio, I already miss you.

Before coming to Rio to attend the IGF I was interviewed by a writer/reporter in order to prepare a profile of me to be published in IDRC@IGF website. I like this profile and that's why I decided to publish it also in my blog :

Name: Marouen Mraihi

Age: 27

Country: Tunisia

Main development interest: Helping to bridge the digital divide

Main reason for coming to IGF: Professional – to renew relationships and to offer a North African perspective on the issues. Personal – to identify areas where research is needed for my Ph.D thesis

3 favourite Web sites: Facebook, Google, webmanagercenter.com (first comprehensive IT, business and news site in Tunisia)

For most young Tunisians who earn a university degree in information technology, the future is easy to predict: a job in the IT field, likely in the private sector. For Marouen Mraihi, who recently completed a Masters degree in Information & Communication Technologies from Medway School of Engineering at the University of Greenwich in the United Kingdom, a year spent volunteering in Africa when he was twenty-five inspired a different goal: to use his IT expertise to help disadvantaged people, especially in places where IT is barely used and has enormous potential to give communities access to knowledge and to opportunities. “I’m a geek and an activist for ICTs for development,” he says. “I’m committed to fighting the digital divide, both in my country and in my region.”

During his time in Africa, Marouen was a trainer in community wireless network workshops sponsored by the Association for Progressive Communication (APC) and IDRC in South Africa, Senegal and Morocco, and before that he was system administrator and staff trainer for the Association Municipalités du Mali in Bamako (Mali) as part of the Cyber-Volunteers program.

A life-changing experience

He admits to having no idea initially that his African experience would change his perspective on his work and indeed his life. “At the beginning it was just because I needed some volunteer experience to put on my résumé. But when I saw how I could help improve people’s lives, giving them new tools and opportunities, I felt this is what I must do.”

Back in Tunisia, Marouen continued to volunteer, this time for a charity organization that offers training in Internet and multimedia technologies. “On my own time I helped some people who couldn’t afford to pay the small fees, so I saw the digital divide. This gave me an interest in helping shape policies that can bring access to ICTs to everyone.”

This interest, and the expertise he’d gained through his education and his volunteer experiences, made him an obvious choice to attend both the first World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in 2003, and the second in 2005 in his home city, Tunis.

Helping shape the future

“I was very fortunate to get funding to attend as a student,” he says. “The first WSIS introduced me to the Youth Caucus, a gathering of all the youth participating in WSIS. The goal of the Caucus is to attend UN summits and to show that we’re very active and very committed, that we’re a force. It’s so important that the youth perspective is heard clearly, because something like 70% of African youth is under twenty-five. These summits are discussing our future.”

Marouen looks forward to renewing at the IGF many relationships that began with WSIS. “Many of my friends from the Middle East and North Africa will be there, and I know we will start discussions there that will continue long afterwards. I don’t expect the IGF to produce major results because the problems are big and complex. Everything will come after, through relationships. Ultimately, regional networks are how these problems will be resolved.”

Marouen also feels that being exposed at the IGF to a wealth of ideas and perspectives will help him decide on a topic for his Ph.D. thesis. “My Masters project was on how to use e-learning in charities, and now attending the IGF will be a great opportunity to renew my academic work. The timing is perfect, and I’m grateful to IDRC for giving me this opportunity.” bb

I'm facing some troubles with my blog (spam in comments) and that's why I'll tell more about my new life and what a crazy September month I had in my next post in few days.

I’m back again as I promised to speak about my experience with the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) which is known as the equivalent of the TOEFL exam. Almost all the British Council centres all over the world are testing centres like all the Amideast centres for the TOEFL.

Few weeks before the exam, a friend told me that the TOEFL exam is easier, less expensive and more recognized all over the world, so I decided to make a visit to Amideast and ask about it. I was surprised to hear that the new examination system is based only on internet (only in the exam centers of course), includes a speaking test and the fees should be paid in US dollars. I’m wondering about all the students who have no bank account and need this exam to apply for a scholarship or so. Anyway, I went after to the British Council and paid in Tunisian dinars to book my seat for the date of the following month. During the entire month, I haven’t had any free time to prepare anything but to read quickly a preparation book for the IELTS. It was imperative to be prepared to the first not-gratis exam I had ever.

About 4 stressing hours with a very fast rhythm to complete the 3 first sections of the exam. The first of all was the listening section of 30 minutes to listen to 4 speeches only once and to answer to the questions on the paper while hearing. Just after, the reading exam including 3 long texts to read and answer to questions in only one hour. Like the first section, the last text and the questions were so complex that you are obliged sometimes to put anything just to not leave the answer blank. Then came the section I hate: the writing. We were asked to write 2 texts, one as a report of a given graph and I forgot the topic of the second one. What is sure that I wrote less than the asked number of words in the 2 texts.

The speaking section was on the same day on the after noon. For some it was the day after. The beginning was so serious but I was prepared to be as open as I can since it was important to have a good mark. And what was funny is that I answered to the questions really from personal experience. And from the silent feedback I had from the examiner who was smiling to my comments I thought it will have the same result when the tape will be heard by the examiners in the UK. 13 days after, I had the result sheet and found 6.5 as overall score (over 9)

As usual, I've done it again. For a while, my blog took the last position on my priorities list and event if I had (and still have) many reasons to do that, I feel sorrow for that and I hope (I'm not promising) I'll not do it again .... after

Well, I don't want to publish all the reasons that made me so « rough » with my blog but I may say it was a mixture of many reasons on the professional and the personal level. Also, being involved in many activities related to civil society on the local and the international level, was supposed to give me a lot to say and to comment but the lack of time is very commun nowadays and I see that I'm not the only one living this crazy and fast life.

At the end, and even if I'm still living all the reasons not allowing me to blog my life, today I had finally a good news which gave me enough power to write these sentences. And this is because I had the marks for my IELTS exam and it was 6.5 which is not bad at all for my needs. I'll write soon about my experience with this exam which may be interesting for the ones who are planning to make it.

Yesterday, I was invited to the 12th bloggers meetup organised by our new friend skydancer. It's true that every meetup we confirm that it's hard to make better and the next one we fing that's not right. After 11 successful meetups (I attended 8), it's the first time we have about 35 bloggers thanks to the great advertising job (also called spamming sometimes) done by the organizer who had also the idea of celebrating of the 1st birthday of our meetups by offering us a big cake (and paying my drink too ... nice no ?).

I'm not going to do like him and comment everyone but I was very happy because I discovered many interesting new bloggers, some are just new to the meetups and some are new to blogging phenomenon but all of them are sharing the same pride of being infected by this virus

One of the issues we had during the past meetups is the fact of discovering often a gap between the « veterans » (bloggers attending often the meetups) and the newbies. This time, after trying as usual to make a formal « who is who », infinity came and the meeting became a mess but it was a good mess because, following the example of Adib who was jumping from a seat to another, a new anarchy started again and opened the way for P2P (peer to peer) discussions. And that's how I enjoyed the talks with many interesting persons who were so kind to tell me in few minutes what they are doing in life, why and how they are blogging, and very quickly we became friends (being my friend in the blogosphere means adding his RSS feed to my reader)

Thank you all and as Subzeroblue said : can't wait to meet you next time ..... maybe next sunday ?

On november, just after the WSIS, I decided to have a rest by going on a trip to the south of Tunisia I've never visited with two friends Andy (for the states) and Tom (from Australia). The trip wasn't planned at all, but Andy had in mind to make the Star Wars tourism and to write about it an article to share the experience we had. I'll not tell more, I invite you to read the article published on the Associated Press website.

PS: On the article, Andy is right. I'm more a Star Trek fan.

After few weeks of discussion and preparation, our friend Karim took us finally to his famous conference about the blogging phenomenon (well, I'm kidding of course) on the new campus of Zaghouan.

The departure from Tunis was scheduled at 7pm (emm, yes I was wondering when the conference would take place !). Karim came with his friend Moez after 8pm and hopefully, and hopefully we had the great idea, TomZ, Subzero and me, to have dinner while waiting in front of « Champion's » Mall. During the trip, while Subzero was harassing my laptop to find the letters on the keyboard, I was wondering about the audience we were going to find there at 9pm waiting for us to attend the conference.

Arrived finally to the campus, we went directly to the « girls dormitory » where we found two persons waiting for us to show us the way to the conference room full of girls. Personally I was surprised to see that number of girl interested in topics such as blogs or even Information Technology since I know that they are all studying biology and chemistry.

After a fast introduction, we started the presentations from the definition and the history of the blogs done by Subzeroblue until a practical howto to create a new blog with Karim. It obvious that the topic was boaring somehow for many persons, but I think we did our best to spread the blogging « virus » we all have in blood.

At the end, I think we did a good work and all these girl at least knew a new word that is entering in the every day's life ... yes, even in Tunisia.

After missing the 8th meetup which took place about a month ago, I decided to not miss the next one by being the first to suggest the date and the time (clever no ?). I think that next Sunday, December 25th will be the best because we may make a small celebration while discovering the results of the Tunisian Blog Awards 2005 through some of the board members. We may even invite all the nominees if they are in Tunisia and make a show like the Grammies or the Oscars (we may organize that really).

Well, my suggestion is:

• Date: Sunday, December 25th 2005
• Time: 4pm Tunis Time
• Venue: Café 112; end of Av. Palestine Tunis Downtown (almost in Place Pasteur)

The date is suitable for those who will be in Tunisia for Christmas holidays and I know the venue very well since I did a lot of meetings there (I may ask if we can use their projector and sound system if we need it).

Suggestions for topics:

• - A Drako’s new question
• - Report from our representatives in London’s Summit 
• - Tunisian Blog Awards 2005 results
• - Wishes for 2006

Welcome to any comments or suggestions or early confirmations (I have Tom’s one and I don’t need to ask Karim’s one)

A quick post about an interesting thing (at least for me) I did yesterday which is the 1st unofficial FLOSS community meetup organized in hurry through the - unofficial too – mailinglist Tun_LL. The meetup took place in the Café Etoile du Nord which is private cultural space downtown I’ve visited few years ago and, I have to confess, I never liked it because it overcrowded of people not caring of non-smoking people and thinking that attending this place is enough to prove they are “artists” or linked to art. Well, even after yesterday I have the same feeling but meeting old friends there and speaking about our “boring” “geek” topics gave me hope that I may back soon. I’m happy because we had a very good discussion about new topics – compared to our usual bloggers meetups – like FLOSS movement (and competition) in Tunisia or the future of ATU2L (the first FLOSS NGO in Tunisia) and it’s impact on the academic and the decision making process levels in IT field and even some extra topics like “Hardoussmania” (Hard rock mania) in Tunisia and Stallman’s behaviour during the WSIS. I hope attending more this king of meetings especially in case that we agree of someone’s suggestion of having it every month on a same day.

Few days ago I’ve received on my snail mail inbox a certificate I was expecting for 2 months. As it is written on it, “this certificate is to certify that I’ve successfully completed the following course on Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme”. It’s an online course organized by the DiploFoundation which is based on the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta. You can find all the details about the course which is related the framework of the WSIS Internet Governance debate in this link. What is great is that I started this 4 months course when I was in Mali and I’ve been able to make only the exam in Tunisia (at home hopefully because I cannot imagine myself doing it on a cybercafé there). During these 4 months, I had a weekly homework of reading and commenting texts and online colleagues’ comments related to the different aspects of Internet Governance. I was used to the technical aspects in my engineering studies but discovering the new aspects (called baskets on the course) like legal, economic or development ones was really interesting for me. Especially since I became an ICT4D addicted since the WSIS in Geneva. A research project was also required and a final exam consisting of answering to 2 of 3 questions related not only to the course but also to the discussions we had periodically. Personally I’m very proud of this certificate you can see it here even if I’m not sure that it has a value here in Tunisia since 4 months online course has no equivalent in our academic system.

I think that my blog is very upset. I forgot to feed it for a long period. Exactly since I came back from Mali. As I explained during the two last Tunisian bloggers meetups, I felt myself not able to write posts. There in Mali, I was able to write only at work, and it wasn’t easy for me to use their very low bandwidth dialup connection to blog. And the fast of not having al the time a laptop computer at home made the situation harder. The few times I was able to do it were when one of my housemates was able to bring a laptop to be able to watch some Malian fake DVDs (because it’s commonly called DVD but in fact it was a VCD). And when I came back to Tunis, having a permanent ADSL connection at home was not enough to solve my problem. I must also confess that I was missing also the time to do it since I’ve been very busy with a lot of projects and activities and I had a lot to write but each time I feel tired and I postpone it to the day after … and I lose after the wish to do it.

Since I promised my friends bloggers to “keep blogging” (if not they will not accept me anymore in the bloggers meetups if I’m not a blogger ) , I’ll try to maintain at least the rhythm of one post per week if it’s not more.