I recently started a new job in a
company called ThoughtWorks inc. If you visited our website, you will
learn that ThoughtWorks is a company that builds custom software for
companies and it also has a very strong social impact program.
While they were trying to recruit me, I
had a meeting with the chairman and founder and he broke down for me
what this social impact program is about. I left that meeting feeling
radicalised and since then, I have been behaving like a member of a
cult. I have tried to recruit everyone that is at a loose end and now
I have moved on to those with ongoing careers. A pal who wanted
me to join him at Microsoft has now retreated after I turned the guns
on him and tried to recruit him for ThoughtWorks.
Many of you are probably not surprised
that techies (read geeks) can be cult like. But your lack of insight
is not the half of it. We are fighting digital colonialism
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsKcQsfCDg8)
perpetrated by the likes of Google, Microsoft and Oracle. Led by our
fearless leader, Neville Roy Singham (google him), ThoughtWorks
intends to empower Africans to take their destiny into their own
hands.
So now, I am going after my friends
running the rat race in the diaspora. It is time to stop careering
and start contributing. But be informed that there will be no soft
landing. You will come and you will jump out of a helicopter taking
heavy machine gun fire from Alshabab militias. The government closing
down media houses, Besigye getting beaten on the streets and civil
servants stealing all our money is what you have to live through
everyday. The pot holes, the dust, and the boda bodas will be your
every day experience as opposed to your 7 days experience may be once
or twice a year.
I know some of you will think that
Uganda is better off with you over there sending serious hard
currency; especially now that diaspora remittances are almost
rivalling coffee as a major earner. But the truth is, most of that
money gets stollen in taxes and or used in consumption. What we want
is your brains. You have the ideas that will transform this economy
and make the lives of your brothers and sisters better for
generations to come.
Only you can effect the real
fundamental change. Join us...
