A Kingdom In The Mountains: (Part 1) by Dr. Strive Masiyiwa

Lesotho is a remarkable country:
It is a small African country nestled in the majestic Drakensburg Mountains of Southern Africa. Uniquely, it is one of only three countries in the world, completely surrounded by another country; South Africa. And yet it is a fiercely independent and proud country, with its own constitutional king, who is greatly loved by his people. The moment, I arrived there for the first time, I fell in love with the people, and I said to my companion: "I could live here for ever."

In 2000, the then government of Lesotho, hired Price Waterhouse, the global financial advisory firm, and asked them to sell their public telephone company, known as Telecom Lesotho,

What Do You See? Part 2 by Dr. Strive Masiyiwa.

The two weeks prior to the submission of the tender bid for Botswana, are probably the hardest I have ever worked in my life, even to this day!
We produced a 900 page bid document, using a team of 35 people. Sometimes we went for two or three days without much sleep.
There were 21 bidders who had collected documents. They were mostly big multinational companies from all over the world, including operators like Vodacom, MTN, Bharti, France Telecom.

The Botswana government had hired international consultants from Sweden to run the process for them.

Although we were facing such fierce competition, and we were unknown, I had deep faith, that we would win. I did not care who we were up against, we had to beat them!

Making Sound Financial Decisions (Part 3) by Dr. Strive Masiyiwa.

There is a story told, about a young entrepreneur, who had been working on an amazing new idea. After sealing a major contract, he and his friends decided to go and celebrate at a local restaurant. They ate and drank until very late. Finally when it was time to close, they called for the bill; it was a shocking amount, and much more than they could afford!

Ever the entrepreneur, the young man asked to see the owner, and told him about his business venture, and how he believed that it would one day, make him billions. So he offered the old man, some shares, for the large bill he had ran up that evening. The old man, who owned the business, refused completely, and demanded payment. Humiliated, the young man pledged his car, and went off to find the money.

Many years later, the young man, returned to the restaurant driving, a gleaming Ferrari. He asked to see the owner of the business, who immediately remembered him. He told

Partnerships. (Part 5): We must always, always respect agreements, and contracts.....

In the book of Joshua, there is a story about a group of people, called the Gibeonites, who managed to secure an agreement with Joshua and his leadership team, by false pretences. When the leadership of the Israelites, discovered what had happened, they were furious. The intriguing thing, is what happened next:

Joshua 9:18-20 (Living Bible, The - TLB)
18 ...... The people of Israel were angry with their leaders because of the peace treaty.
19 But the leaders replied,"We have sworn before the Lord God of Israel that we will not touch them, and we won't.
20 We must let them live, for if we break our oath, the wrath of Jehovah will be upon us."

7 reasons why programming is fun...

1. The fun of creativity 
Programmers are creative folks. The programmer constructs a bunch of things in an imaginary universe, and then sets them all in motion, challenging laws and principles in the process. The programmer's mind is his creative ability!

2. The fun of learning
Some people enjoy taking things apart and figuring out how they work. Programming takes this to another level--not only do you figure out how things work, but