For many scholars that I have met, Somalia is a prolonged incurable cancer whose anarchy is beyond modern medicine. It stands a generational guilty to scattered pockets of knowledge and research. This massive country sitting next to an equally vast coastline is linearly judged by it's violent character when a story is told by a talented journalist in the streets of Mogadishu and still more stunning when another writer zooms his camera on the pirates-of-somalia waters.
For me, an aid worker, Somalia is no ordinary miracle; it is one of us. A unique mass of knowledge awaiting to be tackled by an eagerly waiting generation of enthusiastic young men and women of this horn of africa. For instance, when the puzzle of global warming and environmental matters will be looked from a failed state perspective, Somalia will take it's rightful place in such a discourse.
Equally, for me working in a failed state, the Open Access Week is my miracle gift to the cause and vision of the many men and women currently signed into this forum. To Somali school children that I work with everyday, I hope with such a conviction that they will thank Open Access for bridging a divide bigger than thirsty for water - a thirst for open knowledge!