An Open Letter to Bill Gates

Dear Bill Gates,

President of Microsoft Corporation

After compliments,

I am a Somali citizen Yousef Ali Jama, born in the city of Aden-

Yemen and resident in it since I was born. I work as a teacher in a vocational training institute. I would like to express my deep regret over the decision of the Primary court to divide Microsoft Co. It is clear that the division of the company will severely jeopardize this scientific and technological foundation, particularly in the field of scientific research and inventions.

Therefore, I would like here to con-firm my solidarity with you in the hope that this decision will be appealed against at the Supreme Court. May God help you.

Mr. Bill

I have been trained on your program Windows, and another group of related programs like Word, Excel, Access, Internet Explorer. I was so amazed by this scientific achievement. What, however, pains me is that this program on which I was trained was designed only for Arabic.. and English. I enquired why shouldn’t there be also another program designed for Somali and English languages. These two languages use the same Latin letters. So I am considering to put before you some proposals and opinions which I hope will contribute something to support your establishment. I am summarizing these as follows:

1.     There are seventeen million Somalis spreading out in four states in the east of the African Continent. They do not know any language other than Somali. If we regard our era as the era of computers, I think that these people will be deprived of the achievements of this era. Therefore, I propose to your company that it manufactures MS Windows with its supplements of other programs in English and Somali languages. I think it will not be faced with difficulty in this as the language are written in Latin letters. in this way, your company will have helped our people to catch the era of computers, while at the same time it will provide for itself a large market for its products in the eastern part of the African continent .

2.     in 1992, the US forces were sent to Somalia in operation called “Restore  Hope”.) operation failed. Regardless of opinion about its objectives, justifications and reasons, there is a point unknown to the world. It is that our people are suffering from the world’s high illiteracy rate. Our people are unable to understand what they are seeing in this world of 2000. Among the most important reasons are the lack of any TV Station. Therefore in Somalia until now 90% of our people have not seen any TV program. So how can they understand what others do even for their benefit? The US government should have better established a Somali language satellite TV station based in London instead of sending its forces to Somalia. I hereby propose to your Excellency that your company make this station as an investment project.

3.     I heard there is a charitable society carrying your name and belongs to your company. I had wished this society include the two following programs into its charitable programs.

a)     The world of today is that of the Internet. We, Somalis are pressing that the society sets a site on the Internet with the name of natural Somalia with all its five parts, so that it becomes an archive for anything about Somalia and a forum for exchange of ideas and discussions about our situation, concerns and problems, along with a space for advertisements, etc. Your charitable society will manage and develop this site and provide the necessary funding to run it.

b)    Recently the world has begun to be swept by a new phenomena called Internet Café shops, My hope is that your charitable society would set up such cafés in the safe territories of Somalia, particularly in the northern territory which is called the Republic of Somaliland.

c)     Support of local authorities in Somaliland with groundwater exploration and devices seawater desalination for the development of coastal villages and solar cells for cheap and safe energy  addition to the testing laboratories of drinking water, lunch and medicines in order to ensure the import and use water, lunch and drugs fit for human consumption, as well as devices to locate fish to support local fishermen and finally testing laboratories and medical devices treatment for patients with kidney failure, cancer and virus hepatitis and support nursing schools and medical Colleges  newly created building institutes of vocational and technical training to find local labor is able to project implementation and finally must support our country with Mine detectors  and teams inspection of the mine to clean up our country of this dirty weapon as this weapon kills dozens in everyday of people with the end of the war as well as sheep, camels and prevent people from entering the vast areas because of the fear of this dirty mine and prevents development in this area.

Yours,

Yousuf Ali Jama

Maala - Aden

Email: jamaweyne@gmail.com