Solving the Matchbox Puzzle: The Long Journey Testimony. By Eng. James E. M. Kilaba

Solving the Matchbox Puzzle: The Long Journey Testimony
In this book, Engineer James Mitayakingi Erasto Kilaba shows us how passion, determination, hard work
and living for a purpose rewarded a boy from Mwanza Region to become a potential problem solver,
leader and pioneer in the communications sector in Tanzania.
We see how his team management skills and spirit shaped while wielding the hand hoe at the family
farm in the village and in peer study groups at Ifunda Technical School and the then Dar es Salaam
Technical College.
These foundations were strengthened in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), where he
was member and leader of study groups, the various local committees to which he has been member
and chairman and in cooperating with villagers at Kitomondo, Coast region where he has a farm.
The author has done justice to the book by living his dream of solving the matchbox puzzle. He
summaries his involvement in most transformations in Tanzania’s communications sector. He also talks
passionately about crucial environmental and ecological systems management where he sheds light on
how this could be done in Tanzania by adopting other countries’ best practices.
Eng. Kilaba’s work will motivate readers, young and old, on how to realize even very complicated
dreams in life. It is a gift to readers who will have the opportunity to get the hands-on experience of a
highly talented ICT professional who is now the Director-General of the Tanzania Communications
Regulatory Authority (TCRA}.
The book is unique: in style, content and presentation. It mixes storytelling with deep technical analyses.
The book is also available in Kiswahili, hence serving as a two-in-one bilingual publication. I can double
as a handy English/Kiswahili dictionary of technical terms and a valuable reference manual.