Remembering Guido Sohne: RIP

Kabissa staff are sorry to hear about the sudden death of Guido Sohne in Nairobi last week. 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. The following obituaries were written by his sister on Facebook last week

I am sorry to have to inform all of you of Guido's sudden passing in Nairobi. We know he died at home between Friday night and Monday morning. We do not know the cause or time of death. However, no foul play is suspected. You'll all agree with me that he was an amazing human being who had so much to give the world and who was working to make the world a slightly better place. At this time, we have not made any funeral arrangements. My parents are planning to travel to Kenya to take care of many details.

If you have remembrances of Guido that you would like to share, please do so. I would like to create a tribute in his memory and share this with family and friends. You can reach me by e-mail at sisohne AT colby.edu. Thank you for being his friends and providing a support network for him.

His sister, Sandra

This comment by Claus Jacobsen on Newsvine gives you an insight into who Guido was and what Africa's techology and activist community have lost.

Sohne is another of those people that I think of as living in “the Africa nobody knows,” people who should not exist if you never read past the screaming headlines about disaster, disease and mayhem in Africa. Sohne is a big brain, one of the most important codewriters in sub-Saharan Africa, and yet he is essentially invisible, too exceptional to demand the same attention given to Africa’s routine troublemakers.