How I created and launched a website from the Internet café in Zimbabwe

http://munyukim.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/how-i-created-and-launched-a-website-from-the-internet-cafe-in-zimbabweafrica/

by munyukim • 14 years ago

190 46 14 years ago

munyukim.wordpress.com

aen• 14 years ago

Congrats buddy! Shows that nothing can stop someone from creating good things. I'm not into hiphop but the site looks pretty well-made.

jgw• 14 years ago

Very cool, Munyuki. Maybe it needs a "Translate to Shona" feature :)

I lived in Harare from 1986-90, long before I'd heard the term "Internet". It's really great to see Zimbabweans making their mark on the net.

Best wishes and luck, mate!

eaurouge• 14 years ago

Congrats! I've been told Zimbabwe has a pretty good education system despite its economic woes. Have to wonder how much talent is being wasted while Bob is in power.

keithpeter• 14 years ago

I have a number of students from Zimbabwe who over here in the UK for 'political reasons' in my classes. I think once the country is back on an even keel, we will have to watch out.

munyukim7• 14 years ago

Zimbabwe indeed has got one the most affordable education system ,no matter where you live there is a school easily accessible.Also education is the biggest employer .However its really hard a tertiary level to get the most out of your education because of the economic situation.

bdotwaller• 14 years ago

Munyukim, I've had an idea similar to this in my head for some time. Your story is impressive, I'd like to speak more with you offline if possible. Can you send me your info? b@bdotwaller.com

flannell• 14 years ago

How spooky, I was in Harare just two weeks ago for a friends wedding. The electrical grid only seemed to work for a few hours, however with a backup generator the Internet seemed reliable!

kylebrown• 14 years ago

> If you find yourself in a position like me ,don’t lost hope instead start a project and tell people about it ,it doesn’t have to perfect and use all the resources you can get.

Inspiring story!

I'm curious about the tech stack for mixdem. Was it forked from an example link aggregator, written from scratch, php or ...?

jurre• 14 years ago

If you take a look you'll see it's php from the URL's.

mahmud• 14 years ago

Fix your About page; ideally, it should say something about you.

mischa_u• 14 years ago

Also link to your blog from your site.

Tichy• 14 years ago

Impressive story. Is it "the internet cafe around your corner" or "THE (one) internet cafe in Zimbabwe"? :-)

brainless• 14 years ago

Very inspiring story.

intenex• 14 years ago

This is fantastic. I was in Tanzania last year and met a very cool kid without a lot of options. Orphan, no money, etc, but had a fantastic grasp of English and could definitely hustle. Tried to convince him to pick up programming as it seemed like the most accessible monetizable skillset available to him. Now I'll have something to give him to show it's actually possible. Thanks for sharing!

boskonovitch• 14 years ago

programming is definitely a skill which doesn't require a lot of resources, with a pc and decent internet connection, one can become very powerful.

nekojima2• 14 years ago

"with a pc and decent internet connection"

Unfortunately, for many people in the world this, and as mentioned in the posting a reliable supply of electricity, is something that not everyone can afford or easily acquire.

There are many hundreds of bright young people (and older too) that I've met on my travels through small towns and villages in Asia and Africa. I far too often have thought that I wish I could give them a computer, internet, electricity, something to help them break out of their lives of unemployment, underemployment & poverty and engage in the wider world to make money to support themselves and their family. Even the seemingly basic solutions have far too many hurdles and levels of corruption to avoid.

jackds• 14 years ago

I was hoping the blog will have some links from times past, talking about how it was going.

rabbitfang• 14 years ago

>Zimbabwe, Africa

Off-topic, but it really shouldn't be necessary to provide a continent when naming a country e.g. Japan, Asia.

zackzackzack• 14 years ago

Good job so far getting it up and running. Apply some kickstrap[0] and you will have a much cleaner looking website overnight. If you can get some better design going, your traffic should increase more.

[0]http://ajkochanowicz.github.com/Kickstrap/themes.html

munyukim7• 14 years ago

Thank you everyone ,i really appreciate all the positive responses .i never imagined my story would be on hacker news frontpage.

kylec• 14 years ago

The space comes after, not before, punctuation like commas and periods. Just FYI.

ngokevin• 14 years ago

FYI: "for your information".

ten7• 14 years ago

Right. An example using your own words. You wrote:

"Thank you everyone ,i really appreciate all the positive responses .i never imagined my story would be on hacker news frontpage."

It would be better had you written:

"Thank you everyone, I really appreciate all the positive responses. I never imagined my story would be on hacker news frontpage."

Also, I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa during the apartheid years. I was lucky enough to earn an internship at Honeywell in the USA during my graduate studies, and now I live and work and have a family in the USA. Keep going, keep working, keep creating! Anything and everything is possible, the code you write has the potential to set you free, to uplift your society, to uplift humanity. Just keep going!

ma2rten2• 14 years ago

Good job! I really like the domain name.

Here a some ideas for improvements:

- It might be a good idea if you'd make subsections for different hiphop genres, for example one for zimbabwean hiphop (e.g. mixdem.com/zimbabwe). People can find you on Google this way if they can search for this hip hop from zimbabwe and you might become the go to place for this specific genre.

- Think about using more hiphop (ghetto) language.

- Make a logo. It helps for people to recognize/remember your site. It would already help if you just write the name of your site in a cool type face.

- It did not see a lot of comments on your site (none actually). This is very important for a community (look at Hacker News for example). Experiment with different ways to get more comments. For example you could put a text box on every page for people to leave a comment, even if they are not logged in. If they try to post a comment you could make them log in or register to post it.

- It might be better to embed the videos in the video section directly into your page instead of linking to a page which does. This way people stay on your site, instead of going elsewhere (same of the downloads if it is possible).

- Even though it's annoying, you could also put a frame on top of the page, when people click a link to another site. In this frame people could vote up the site or go back to your site to leave a comment.

- Maybe add a share on twitter / facebook for specific news items or videos, which people want to share with their friends.

- When I am on the page for a specific item I was expecting that clicking on the title would make me go to the site. It took me a second to see that there is actually a button "go to site".

I hope you find some of those suggestions useful. It is not meant as criticism.

kaeluka4• 14 years ago

please do not use ghetto language, that'd make my puppy cry :-(

ma2rten2• 14 years ago

Maybe your puppy is not the target audience ;). I think it would help make it feel less generic and more appealing to (some) hiphop listeners. I don't mean to overdo it just something like "I feel it" instead of "upvote".

munyukim7• 14 years ago

Thank you for the feedback.This is the most valuable feedback i have received so far on how to improve the site.I will work on the points you raised.

aysar• 14 years ago

Wow, congrats! Thats a crazy struggle you have to go through- surely must pay off- just keep at it!

psteiner• 14 years ago

Munyukim, excellent start! Keep building on your initiative, we'll be cheering you on!

antihero• 14 years ago

Any chance you'd throw the code on GitHub for some critique? :)

ezegolub• 14 years ago

Hey munyukim, really good site and story, i have a question and an offer: question: What is your plans for monetization? How do you plan on making money with this? Offer: Private Message me if you need help with then programming, i'll be happy to help (been programming in php/mysql for longer than i care to remember)

blorenz• 14 years ago

This is very humbling to read. I live in America, land of opportunity -- mostly taken for granted. I take for granted the freedom to jump on the internet at almost any moment I choose. I take for granted that I have constant access to a reliable power grid. I take for granted that credit companies want to extend me the ability to utilize a credit card. I take for granted that I have free access to a banking system. I take for granted that, since I work in technology, I can pick from a multitude of job offerings. I just plainly take for granted the fact that I had the fortune and advantage to be born into this land. Does America have her woes? Yes, as does everywhere. Your situation, munyukim, has created a stark contrast to what I have been afforded. I truly do respect you for what you have achieved with such environments and obstacles that you do face. Congratulations on a job well done!!

brunohq• 14 years ago

I second that. Sometimes we just forget how fortunate we are and how we take everything for granted. Congrats and a big thank you for sharing this with us, munyukim.

munyukim7• 14 years ago

Thank you , it means a lot that you find the story inspiring

AwesomeTogether• 14 years ago

I have so many tools at my disposal but have only a fraction of your talent and perseverance...Great job!

tersiag• 14 years ago

Great job. I'm willing to help with the front-end design and development, free of charge. Just send me an email (find it on my hn profile)

Axsuul• 14 years ago

Wow no power during the day? That's awesome that you took advantage of the resources available to you. Your story was very inspiring, thanks for sharing and I wish you the best of luck

munyukim7• 14 years ago

feel free to contact me @ m.manatsa@gmail.com

netvarun• 14 years ago

Thanks for sharing your story! I know a thing or two about building web crawlers and aggregators. Drop me a note and I could help you with some of the technical matters. Stay awesome and keep rocking!

munyukim7• 14 years ago

I would like to learn about crawlers .My email is m.manatsa@gmail.com

wtvanhest• 14 years ago

Anyone know why the punctuation gets messed up from a lot of African computers? It is the best giveaway that a Cl emailer is a spammers.

How I created and launched a website from the Internet café in Zimbabwe

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