Hello again from Swaziland.  I wanted to clarify a bit about my previous posts....I am the founder of YouthAssets, and organization dedicated to connecting orphans, particularly those of child-headed households to the information and resources that they need.  We are exploring the use of mobile phones to provide access to support systems and information that is valuable to them.

I just attended a 3-day conference with southern African leaders working to support orphans and vulnerable children - the conference was to develop sustainable strategies to help with the orphan crisis here.  Although no mention was made specifically of ICT tools used currently, the delegates defined a GREAT need for collaboration, information sharing, data collection, and instant communication.

Jennifer Sly is the Founder of YouthAssets, a Featured Project at the NetSquared Conference.

Well, I made it Swaziland. After a short ride on a SMALL place - they take ALL of your luggage, purses, and bags because there is no room for anything in your seat! It was a quick ride - only 40 minutes - and I was sitting to a very nice gentleman who was travelling to Swaziland for the first time from Senegal. He was attending a trade conference at the same location as my OSISA conference so maybe I will see him again.

Note from NetSquared: Jennifer Sly is the Founder of YouthAssets, a Featured Project at the NetSquared Conference.

Well, I made to Johannesburg! It was a looooong flight - around 15.5 hours, not including the hour we sat on the tarmac. Has anyone travelled to Dulles lately? I forgot about the StarWars like "mobile lounges" they use to transport passengers to and from terminals, gates, and DIRECTLY TO THE PLANE. They packed everyone in it reminded me of New York subways!

One Laptop Per Child will be featured on 60 minutes tonight.  See the preview video on

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

YouthAssets now has a project champion - Wendy Harmon from the Red Cross!  Thank you to Wendy, the Netsquared team and Beth Kantor for the new connection!

We have the Advisory Board all lined up for our meeting tomorrow and our Skype conference call tested today.  We will be using one of our advisory board member''s apartment - thank you to Chi.  We had one of those start-up moments finding out today that there might be "a little" construction downstairs during the call.  Luckily, we have a backup apartment around the corner.  So if you see a group of people running down 5th Avenue, Brooklyn tomorrow with laptops and speakers, it means we made it to Plan B!

Hi everyone,

First, I want to thank everyone from the netsquared community for all of their support.  We are very excited and appreciative of this opportunity and have been thinking, writing, brainstorming, discussing, informational-interviewing, and working hard in preparation.  As we enter the two weeks before the conference, I wanted to share with you all that we are doing to prepare for conference and to get your feedback and ideas!