Maureen Agena – Uganda

Quick Bio – View my blog here

	dignityinpoverty.blogspot… www.citizenjournalismafri…
Country representing	Uganda
Gender	Female
Age	16
Languages	English
University education	St. Mary’s University, Halifax. Nova Scotia. Canada Uganda Martyrs University-Nkozi
I am	Activist Blogger Change Agent Potential employer Student
Areas of interest	Health Leadership Media

I am passionate about

I have been working in ICT field as well as Rural Community Development for the last three years and specifically on the social-economic empowerment of women and youth . I am a trained Citizen Journalist, new media enthusiast and trainer. Also a graduate With a Bsc (Honors) in Information Technology & I am currently pursuing an MSc in Information Systems. My passion for new media and community development earned me an opportunity to work as a Remote intern for the ICT and Innovation programme at The technical centre of Agriculture and rural cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), Netherlands. Am so passionate about using new media, for development. (ICT4D). I was one of the East Africa Regional winner in the ARDYIS Youth Essay Contest and a recipient of the Canadian Commonwealth scholarship for my MSc course at St. Mary\’s University in Halifax, Canada My main areas of interest are both mobile and electronic applications for Agriculture, Health, Education and Entrepreneurship. For my Msc. Final graduation project, I intend to design a mobile application that will help a group of farmers in Northern Uganda access accurate and timely market information for their products.

My Projects

In Uganda today, 55% of the County’s population of approximately 32million is youth [http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/18145.html, and in Africa, Uganda comes second after Niger with the biggest number of citizens being youth. Many a times the youth are ignored in Government plans and at policy level yet they form majority of the population Therefore as a youth I am dedicating my time to work that aims building the capacity of young people. Since 2008, I have worked as a content developer in carrying out the campaigns for the 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence. I have also facilitated at the Gender and ICT youth camps.[ http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=2559881&id=133443013569] as well as trained on how to become a Citizen Journalist and compile, write and disseminate news online[http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=125175&id=133443013569] .My next plan is to build a telecentre in Northern Uganda and build the capacity of youth as well as employ them. I have joined global platform to discuss world challenges like the GLOBAL PULSE http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/509/58/ and Raising voices http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/files/2008/01/blogging-positively.pdf . In addition, I have been a key resource person in organizing WOUGNET campaigns on the 16 days of activism against Gender based violence that take place from 15th Nov to 10th Dec annually. I was responsible for the SMS content development and daily summaries of the responses that are/were uploaded on the website http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/blogsection/20/216/ I have also used my skill to help create a “facebook Causes” page for the organization I currently work for http://www.causes.com/causes/524210. I was contracted to tweet and blog during the 3rd East African Internet governance forum http://dignityinpoverty.blogspot.com/2010/08/contracted-to-tweet-and-blog-at-3rd.html. Because of my passion for technology and new media especially Web 2.0 for Dev, I got an opportunity to work as a remote intern for CTA in their program of ICT and Innovations http://dignityinpoverty.blogspot.com/2010/07/maureen-agena-first-cta-remote-intern.html. I was privileged to be among the top ten in a photo competition on e-learning http://dignityinpoverty.blogspot.com/2010/07/proud-to-take-6th-place-in-e-learning.html. I must say that one thing I believe is that technology is very powerful and can be used to change the lives of people in Communities if only it’s linked to development. We need to be people centerd and understand the needs of the communities. Therefore Sharing of information should be voluntary.