eurial people. South Africa specifically and Africa in general are powerful harbingers of capability, and telecommunications will play a key role in the continent's economic development and success in coming years. From the shocking warmth of Soweto, to the power of modern business in the big cities, to the innova- tive strength seen inside telecom-equipped shipping containers scattered about the African countryside, this is what it's all about. As I mentioned earlier in the book, a few years ago I was asked by the World Bank to deliver a television broadcast from their studio in Wash- ington, D.C., to 50 (or so) viewers in four Sub-Saharan African countries. The topic was "The Internet and Its Use as a Business Tool." The session was highly interactive and exciting, and I answered as many questions as time allowed while online. After the fact I was contacted by a gentle- man in Kenya named Edwin N., who asked if I could offer him some assistance. He wanted to set up a Web site that would serve as a central contact nexus for information about Africa. Tourists wishing to visit the continent could come to his site to look for country-specific data about tours, safaris, hotels, restaurants, and so on. Over the course of several months I helped Edwin put together the HTML for his Web site, and as soon as it was online and working we slowly drifted apart. A year later, I received a letter in the mail (ironically, a letter, not an e-mail) from him. It is reproduced in Figure 9-1. There was a time in my life when I measured my productivity each day by how many inches I could reduce my inbox (this was back when Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Final Summary Final Summary 13 November 2000 Figure 9-1 2187 King Edward Road Letter from Nairobi, Kenya Edwin Ngorongo (Reprinted with Dear Professor Shepard: permission) Perhaps you will remem