Rab’s World

Guido Sohne

I learned some few weeks ago that my friend passed away in Nairobi. I wanted to post; especially after reading fellow NewsVine posts. But I had to wait until the funeral date was set before I posted my tribute. I couldn’t believe it! But it all makes sense now. On May 8th; I e-mailed him @ his private address to ask if he was coming back home [Accra] for the African Technology Conference in Accra Ghana on July 15-18 2008. Usually he’s quick on the response + Microsoft is a big sponsor of this conference. sadly; I did not get a response. I now know why.
The sad part is that I have not seen him personally in 3 years. When I was in Accra in Feb 2008; I tried to look him up. I went to his family’s residence in East Legon. Of course he e-mailed me and told me he was still in Kenya. It was because of him we pioneered Ghanaian rap artists having full-blown websites in 1997 hosted on his Webstar server neatly tucked at NCS in Accra. Very pioneering! Working at Webstar with Nii & Deep. I even stared in amazement at his setting up of Ghanaclassifieds.com back in ‘98. He even convinced me to join the open source community by loading Linux on a PC and begging me to try out the GIMP instead of Photoshop back in ‘98.

Guido was a “free software hacker” and leading proponent of open source software in Africa. Guido was based in Accra, Ghana and was well known in the online media and blogosphere.

He was part of Africa’s very first FOSS Task Force. The Task Force which later became what we have today as the Free Software and Open Source Foundation of Africa – FOSSFA. Guido gave service to the Foundation as a Council member. He chiseled at the rough rock called FOSSFA, engraving his name in to what has become an African FOSS foundation.

Guido died on the evening of May 2, 2008 of cardiac arrest at his apartment in Nairobi, Kenya. His death was swift and he did not suffer. He did not have an existing illness or prior heart problems. He was simply unlucky that his heart failed him.

Guido was currently in management at a large software company (MS), handling the company’s Open Source and Linux strategy for 52 countries in Africa. He coded in over 20 computer languages and has previously been one of the founding members of the Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa, on the editorial board of the largest peer-reviewed journal on the Internet, FirstMonday, was responsible for the first Open Source project in West Africa (and possibly in sub-Saharan Africa as well) and won awards for creating two of Africa’s top fifty websites. He has made minor contributions to OSS projects like the Linux Cross Reference tool, RedHat’s Interchange e-commerce system, Ruby’s Rannotate and JavaScript and Ruby implementations of a 2D barcode system, DataMatrix aka Semacode.

In his modesty he underplayed his role as a leading advocate of Open Source in Africa. He loved the Ruby on Rails framework.

Born in 1973, he attended Princeton University, USA and returned to Ghana to work in computing through NCS. For some years, he was a fixture in Busyinternet, the Accra web cafe/business resource hub founded by the Welsh entrepreneur Mark Davies & Estelle Akofio-Sowah. Guido long promoted open-source software as a way of Africans gaining a stronger position in information technology, and his move to Microsoft was a large shift for him. His belief in the potential of a single smart African to change the world remains a source of hope for me and others who knew him. He was a singular person in the region and he will be missed.

He was my first contact on LinkedIn. He introduced me to it in 2003. He also encouraged me to join NewsVine, but being an Apple person; I despised anything connected with Micro$oft.

He was able to work with Java, Perl, Python, C, C++, PHP, Scheme and shell scripts to varying degrees of effectiveness. Working almost exclusively with free software, he had a broad knowledge of projects techniques and code bases that aided integration of disparate technologies.
The best part was hangin’ out with him late at night in Accra. Two geeks with a love for Hip Hop. There was no stoppin’ us. Rest in peace until we join ya bro’ **Rab the International.

Guido’s Funeral Arrangements on Friday, June 6 are as follows:

Pre-Burial Service - 8:30am followed by File Past, Tributes,
Life History and Burial Mass at the Christ The King Catholic Church, Cantonments, Accra.

Burial: Osu Cemetery, Accra, GH.

Final Funeral Rites/Reception: Christ The King Parish Hall, Cantonments, Accra GHANA.

No wreaths.

On behalf of the Sohne Family, I would like to thank you for your continued support.

You can contact Sandra to leave messages for the tribute sisohne@colby.edu