globalista !!

alive and kicking !

i will finish work with GTZ next week. only to start again with them in October. transition from the microfinance to the social protection department. absolutely friggin' exciting!!! :)
and in the meantime I'll have to write my master thesis and pass some odd exams. not sure this works out ... but I'll make it sure.

During the last three weeks, we lost 2 of our crew here in the house, but gained 3 new mates. Welcome, Lena, Gaute and Anne!

I shifted to a new room and now enjoy birds, trees and an almost-perfect view on the Marburg Castle when staring out of my window ... instead of a traffic-light, a shady bar and lots of cars, trucks and buses, which I had to watch from my old room.

Too bad that this room will be my home only for the next 4-5 months or so. Seems I always have to leave once I've found a nice place. It was the same in Cologne, where I got to enjoy my terrace and spacious studio only for a month before moving to Frankfurt in summer 2005.

Anyways, expect more updates soon. Something big and great is on its way.

With all the Yada-Yada about Web 2.0, people tend to overlook much more drastic technology paradigm shifts: The ubiquity of mobile phones, mobile data and voice networks and (soon) mobile internet access even in lowest-cost phones is one of them.
Tim Berners-Lee rightly understands this as one key driver to the future of the internet and to reaching the "other 5 billion" people who are not yet (regular) users of the internet because they plain simply cannot afford it.
Want to know how the revolution will (maybe) look like? Well, then have a look at Voxiva. I have seen ramshackle hospitals in rural India ... and the mobile phones in each doctor's pocket.

India swings between hubris and the need and ambition for changing the fundamentals of this wonderful country. Converting Delhi into a "world-class city" with high-rise buildings and "arterial roads" is key to sustaining the economic development needed to lift millions out of poverty ... and at the same time, I think, it is a plan that can end in catastrophe, especially if these millions will lose homes without being able to afford the new ones.
New Delhi's vertical ambition aims to ease overcrowding

For the first time in my life, I have become a proper landlord. I signed the contract for this appartment of five bedrooms, one kitchen, one bathroom yesterday. And, of course, I occupy the nicest room: Wooden floor, balcony to the garden, etc. yadayada. So, all set for finishing my thesis.

... and it looks very good. Click ... and scroll to Chapter 5.4.

The success of the Grameen lending model and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Price to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank is a proof of the fact that capitalism can deliver good. Interest rates of 20+%, very strict due diligence and the requirement to invest the credit into productivity gains may seem exaggerated and maybe even unfair, but they have proven successful and sustainable since the 1970s. For Muhammad Yunus, the title "banker to the poor" is an honor ... and in fact the title of his autobiography.

This awesome event of today is another proof that capitalism works, also for and with the poor.

I have just finished watching An Inconvenient Truth. I am going to mail a CD with this movie to the first two people who email me at thomas@nomadlife.org and confirm that they have no other means for obtaining or watching it. No matter where you are on this planet.

I get a chance to work with some very impressive people, most of them female, by coincidence. (I am sure there are as impressive male careers, but most of my colleagues happen to be women.)

Impressive, like this one:
Female, in her early forties, speaks three languages fluently, 5 years in Bolivia and 2 years in Thailand managing major development projects in financial systems development (microfinance NGOs, central banks, ministry of finance, ...), now a mother of two kids (four and six years) and works from home when she's not travelling: 3 weeks Ethiopia last month, one week China next week, then directly to Mozambique, one week South Africa next month, and so on and on.

Or my boss, telling me about how she travelled to a "forbidden island" in China as a student in the early 80s. She and her friend managed to remain undiscovered for weeks, even survived a heavy thunderstorm in a "hut" and then were caught by the police on the way from the island. Got a lecture in "how to behave like a good tourist" and off they were. Several years later, she spent a year in Colombia for her PhD, going from vilage to village by horse to collect the data for her thesis.

And now picture how I want to spend the rest of my life :).