Sudan: The good in the evil?

Yesterday I found out that Celtel Sudan has a hundred developers, phew!
Staggering figure if you consider the meager five we have in Nigeria. In fact, I do not know of any full software house that can boast of more than 30 developers on this side of town.

Genesis:
Ordinarily, Celtel would not hire a 100 into IT systems development and the only unit that enjoy numbers in the hundreds is customer care, makes sense huh? Celtel Nigeria is approaching 30million in subscriber base.

I understand there are sanctions by the United States government on Sudan as a result of the crisis in that region. I usually look up most of the info I pick up so I would not be spreading what could culminate in an urban legend. I googled the info and came up with a few links:

In accordance with US export controls and economic sanctions regulations, we are unable to permit the download of Google Earth in Sudan. More information about these controls and sanctions can be found here and here.
http://www.ogleearth.com/2007/04/oh_the_irony_go.html

Interesting article on difficulties being experienced by users of google earth in Sudan.

I could not get too many relevant info but for someone as naive (haha) and geeky as me, I'm willing to overlook my fears of the Dafur crisis and go work at Celtel Sudan for a little while. Sounds like a developer heaven. I could imagine interesting tools like Microsoft VSTS and I envisage lots of gusto! I wish they have a team blog I can look up and see what those guys are up to. I can't imagine the kind of co-ordination it will take to manage 100 fiercely independent humans and what it would take to harness such but it sure feels good.

My dying wish at Celtel is to visit Celtel Sudan, in fact I won't mind paying my way. I also remember my Ghanian friend Francois Bonin (MVP) did mention girls in that region are exotic, real live Cleopatras.

Bring it on guys, can't wait for that suggested exchange program to happen!