It is now official and I am happy to announce that I will leave the Solomon Islands to work for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. I have been recruited to work in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as Associate Programmer – Analyst. That will mark a new chapter in my life far from the comforts of home.

The month of June has been hectic and I have literally worked very hard at preparing all my paperwork and getting ready to make the move. I leave the Solomon Islands on the 16th of July and begin work in Geneva on the 21st of July 2010.
More »

I must admit, I was a crazy Brazilian fan and then 1998 happened. That year after gracing the world with the Ro-Ro combination of Ronaldo and Romario, Brazil went to the World Cup in France without Romario. As a fan who stayed glued to the TV 4 years earlier when Brazil won, I felt betrayed and was bitter about that. I have never forgiven Brazil for shunning Romario and turned to Europe and cheered for England instead. Come 2010 and the England team crumbled spectacularly before my eyes, again.

More »

When I first joined Our Telekom, the thought of leaving one day never crossed my mind. But today I found myself wondering what life would be like after Our Telekom. The thought has become more persistent because today is also the eve of my formal countdown to life outside of Our Telekom. Final formalities were completed today; tickets to travel have been issued and I will leave Our Telekom in 14 days.

Perhaps commitment is one of my strongest personal traits. I have been unwavering in my support for Our Telekom, its objectives and its work. Disagreements are part of life but all in all I remained firmly loyal to the company so it is quite difficult for me to envision life after Our Telekom. But I am leaving and like many before me, I have found myself wondering what life would be like after Our Telekom.

More »

The demand for internet connectivity has increased significantly in the last few years. In my opinion, this is mostly due to the influx and growth of the expatriate community who have come in the form of RAMSI advisers as well as private investors. Another is the growing local users who are mostly students, either returning from overseas studies or simply primary age students now being more exposed to these technologies.

However, it is of little comfort when Solomon Islanders cannot get reliable internet connectivity. We experience slower speeds because of the expensive bandwidth acquired via satellite as well as the latency we get on our download and upload links.
More »

I take very little comfort in reading the newspapers because too many times our dailies simply report on an issue or event. They hardly educate the public and provide information that provides valuable insight into those reports.

The latest case in point, shortage of coins. This has been reported too many times in the past and speaking with my mother in law a while back, she simply said that people are not returning coins to the bank so there is not enough coins in circulation. The truth is no one knows for sure how much coins is in circulation in the country. These kinds of alerts come because the banks say there is not enough in circulation, an assumption they make from the number of coins deposited into the bank. But is it really true?

More »

Yesterday, we walked into a hardware shop to duplicate a key. We thought it was a simple process and like every other key work, we would be out of the shop in minutes; at least I thought it was going to be very quick. I was wrong and to top it all off, after spending what seemed like more than an hour, we came away empty handed. Not exactly; we came away with a duplicate but not exactly a replacement.

What happened? Well, two things – I learned something new about keys and secondly, perhaps most importantly, keys are no longer simple; they are part of an intricately designed vehicle system that should now work in harmony. Every component relying on the other to work. Read on and share your thoughts of a ‘key’ experience that was like this one.
More »

These were the first words I was greeted with on the morning of Friday 7th April after the new Our Telekom 3G network went live. It was indeed a special moment for the company and the craze for 3G data services has already begun among the business community. More »