Matrich Memories 2007

It is the 31st December, 2007 and I thought it wise to get into the new year by giving a round up of 2007. It is in this year that I actually made a year completely out of school though I have rejoined again for my graduate school. A lot has happened in this year on my side including winning the best award ever, releasing WordPress plugins etc.

January 2007

Unlike other years in my life where I rested for this month till I had to go to school or university, this year (2007) began with usual business trotting to work forth and back. I had finished Bachelor’s degree and just like everyone else (atleast most people) I was so excited to get started working in the corporate world which I did.

February 2007

During February, I received the good news from the MAf Coordinator, Amr that my MAf team had made it to the finals of Mtandao Afrika 2006 contest. My team had built a website entitled “Deforestation: African Resources in Decline” found at http://library2006.mtandao-afrika.net/MAF060247/. This was my second time of making it to MAf finals though this time round I had participated as a coach.

March 2007

March began with the third (3rd) Mtandao Afrika Youth Camp and Awards ceremony which was held in Cairo, Egypt under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. The youth educational camp is for outstanding students who develop websites tackling African issues in local languages. It was attended by myself, Allan Kakinda and Daniel Kakinda from Uganda and over 60 other participants from 13 African countries, namely, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

During the awards ceremony, my team won the Platinum Award in the Science and Mathematics category and we won the overall best Star Award for Mtandao Afrika 2006. Great thanks to my teammates for the great work done during the competition and at the finals where our team emerge as the overall winner.

April 2007

In April, I started a blog at the time called MatrichTech which was a technical blog of Matrich. It was one of the ways I had identified to achieve my goal of providing ict solutions at your fingertips. I started posting solutions to it problems faced by many people including myself so that it could benefit myself and possibly many of you out there. The blog was later shifted to TechBlogging.org and now it is called TechBlogging.

May 2007

TechBlogging officially went live during May and I was also able to develop and launch my first ever open source projects in form of WordPress plugins i.e. WP CPanel Email Login Plugin and WP CPanel Login. For sure, I am quite impressed about the plugins. So far WP CPanel Email Login plugin has been downloaded 356 times and WP CPanel Login Plugin has been downloaded 260 times.

I am sure a lot of people out there have been able to benefit from them. I hope to get time and be able to release more plugins and WP themes hopefully next year.

June 2007

In this period came the news that I had been successfully offered a vacancy at Graduate School at Makerere University to start my graduate studies in Masters of Science in Data Communication and Software Engineering. Also a lot of my colleagues whom I had done Bachelor’s degree had been offered vacancies however most of them have been unable to do the courses they were offered.

July 2007

I made a significant decision in my life to resign from my full-time job at Alam Group of companies and everyone thought that I was really crazy. However, I think I am normal and kinda blessed by God. I decided to move freelance since July and there are a lot of lessons learnt but I must say that God has been on my side since I am no longer dependant on my parents.

September 2007

I rejoined Makerere University as a graduate for Masters of Science in Software Engineering to be more specific. By the time we joined, the numbers of students attending used to rise and drop but now we can confirm that we are only 6 students in class. It is really a nice course and I am sure there is a lot to learn from it especially myself who is kinda self taught in the field of IT.

September also came with bad luck when I had to give up on my laptop which was very dear to me. I bought a new laptop and phone to replace it and life still had to move on.

On the good side, Mtandao Afrika received the technical recognition award from Microsoft in appreciation of the success of Mtandao Afrika as a pan African educational program focusing on the use of ICT as a tool for learning.

October 2007

Just like other Octobers, it is the month when I finally arrived on this planet (earth). In October, I made 23 years. For those who don’t know, my birth day (BD) is 14th October, 1984.

Business wise, I was able to take on many projects as a freelancer which have been able to take me throughout the second part of the year.

November 2007

November was quite busy with working on clients’ projects and reading books for my assignments, course projects, tests and final exams.

December 2007

Well, December as you read was really hectic. I had a terrible accident in amidst of doing my final exams for semester 1, Year 1. I would like to thank all those who sent me emails and also who did pray for me during this terrible times. Above all, I would like to give GLORY TO GOD who protected me with his Blood.

Also, a few days back I just launched Matrich Re-design 2008.

Till next year, I would like to wish you a prosperous new year. I am off to church where I will enter the new year from