Mike Jensen (internet pioneer)

"Part of my work at the Ecumenical Documentation and Information Centre for Eastern and Southern Africa was to organise training workshops in documentation techniques."

"I collaborated with a Rome based NGO, the International Documentation Centre (IDOC). Through IDOC I made contact with Interdoc, and in December 1987 a Dutch Interdoc member came to Zimbabwe and demonstrated the use of modems and email at a workshop. Subsequently we included email and modem training in all our workshops. We supplied our group with modems, and astonishingly, at least 5% managed to stay connected using long distance modem to modem connections until, by the early 1990s, they could use the far easier and cheaper Fidonet networks established through the Economic Commission for Africa, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and APC."

"What motivated me to spend the last ten years spreading access to the network is that I’ve always felt that there was not much point in having the content there if a lot of people can’t use it. We are slowly getting there.The internet is beginning to pervade, and capital cities of Africa now at least have some degree of access, but that’s not good enough yet. We still have to bring it further out so that people in rural areas have access."