Report on Wikipedia Breakout Session @ BarCamp Takoradi 2015

BarCamp Takoradi 2015 took place at the SSNIT Hall on August 23, 2015 in Takoradi. Participants were youths from the working class to students from  tertiary institutions.

During this event there was speed mentoring; where participants meet mentors for say 5 minutes something like speed dating. I've been to more that 5 BarCamps in the past and organised breakout sessions on my own and some supported by the Wikimedia Foundation through TPS.

Great minds think alike. Glad to have met @Enock4seth today @ #Bctdi. Had a very successful meeting. pic.twitter.com/r3fgoeuxoq

— #W4Charity (@RGBekoe) August 22, 2015

I co-hosted a breakout session with Reuben; a volunteer cyclist who cycled across Ghana to raise funds for The Cleft Foundation.

The session saw had 5 participants. Since Wikipedians are Volunteers, we first started by talking about what volunteering means. As a volunteer myself, volunteering means a lot to me. This world can be made better only through volunteerism. If you use an open source software, of which am a great advocate for, then know some volunteer developer somewhere is commiting time to make life easier for you. Am very much sure you're reading this with Firefox; one great example. Same is Wikipedia. 10000+ of volunteers like you and I dedicate their time to make it a better one every second.

Almost everyone present at my breakout session knows and have used Wikipedia, and one of them was a beginner contributor. But as usual the Wikimedia and Wikipedia confusion with people who don't know about is normal. Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world. And Wikipedia is one of Wikimedia's projects. I took the time to explain this to participants. Well if you don't get the differences then visit this page for all you need to know. I also talked about other Wikimedia Foundation projects that can be contributed to, read more about all Wikimedia Foundation's projects here.

Reuben Bekoe, cyclist & Enock Nyamador, Wikipedian, led session on volunteering. #bctdi #volunteeringh Cc @asiedu123 pic.twitter.com/G2EfIpOPd2

— Barcamp Takoradi (@BarCampTakoradi) August 23, 2015

There was nothing practical. I was able to display Wikipedia and some of the stuffs that goes on behind scene such as; Wiki Mark up, recent chages, and discussions on talk pages. Takoradi is noted for entertainment, but was very shameful to see no information on it's Wikipedia article. So at the end of the session we decided to work together to improve the coverage of entertainment including but not limited to notable musicians from takoradi. (Of which am still working on..)

There is one thing I will like to share from this breakout session and previous sessions I've organised in such away to sell Wikimedia Foundation's projects to volunteers. Most of the people I've met were students and youths, students espeically knows how to copy Wikipedia but not how to add to it. Most people are looking for some quick fix or let me say magic to grasp how everyting on Wikipedia within very short period of time in order to give back, which is not feasible to me. Looking at the interest of students bringing Wikipedia Ghanaian classrooms especially in the tertiary institutions through Wikipedia Education Program could be a great success. One thing am still looking at at myself but not now.

Thanks for reading.

PS: I've been in touch with few of them and hope to retain them.  Though this post is very late. I must, as part of Wikimedia Grants I applied for, and also be eligible to apply for future grants.
                        

Wikipedia Breakout Session At BarCamp Kumasi 2014

Barcamp Kumasi 2014 was a free networking forum bringing people together for a day of discussion, demos and dialogue on Kumasi, Ghana and beyond. It took place on November 1, 2014 at the College of Science of Auditorium, KNUST. The theme was "Youth Entrepreneurship: Celebrating Our Heroes".

It gave youths the opportunity to meet other youths in their fields of interest for mentorship which is called Speed mentoring,

Speed mentoring in progress

There were mentors from fields such as; Technology, Entrepreneurship, Sanitation, Medicine and others.

I was at BarCamp Kumasi as a bar-camper and a Wikipedian. I had a breakout session on introduction to Wikipedia and what it takes to become a contributor to Wikipedia, first of all anyone, yes YOU can also contribute to Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopaedia.

@Enock4seth leading a breakout session on wikipedia. #bcksi pic.twitter.com/lEmpj7R3xX
— Rachel hormeku (@rachelhormeku) November 1, 2014

Wikipedia session in progress......

The breakout session's main purpose was to present how the Wikipedia community works. I was glad I could answer a lot of questions from participants, making it very interactive.

One thing that came up was Kejetia Market and Kumasi Central Market was taken as one market on Wikipedia whiles in reality it's not. And it was an interesting argument...

Thanks Sean, for the mention:

You are in Kumasi. You are the right person to correct articles about Kumasi. @Enock4seth and @AfroKwabena #bcksi
— Sean Boots (@sboots2) November 1, 2014

Not to forget, some people (Wikipedia readers) are scared of hitting the [Edit] button on Wikipedia. They're not the first though, I was too :). But it's fun and interesting when you know.

At the end of I session distributed some Wikipedia swags; tags, pens, markers and stickers sent by Rexford. Thanks for sending them Rex.

Participants posing for a group photo with their Wiki swags :)

Everyone was willing to share their knowledge with the whole world through Wikipedia. I was glad when all decided to sign up and join the Wikimedia Ghana UG community, and have followed up already.

Cheers and thanks for passing.

Peace Corps Ghana #HackMalaria Hackathon!

Hiey Guys,

Is been a long time. :D

Two weeks ago I was at Mobile Web Ghana in Madina, for Peace Corps Ghana's #hackmalaria hackathon.. The hackathon was in collaboration with Mobile Web Ghana and Coders4Africa.

Malaria still remains the number one killer in Ghana.

#Ghana has around 3.5 million reported clinical cases of #malaria with nearly one million of those being children under 5 #hackmalaria
— Dieu-Donné Gameli (@donnaeo) July 12, 2014

Some participants. Photo by Matt

The Goal of this hackathon was to develop apps that will raise more awareness about malaria.

Jeopardy malaria app presentation. #hackmalaria #pcvghana #peacecorps pic.twitter.com/XpflKfziB0
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) July 13, 2014

Final presentation is Malaria Quiz, team -: @banyba @delastepz check it out at http://t.co/m7wDvQNOQ7 it's still worked upon #hackmalaria
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) July 13, 2014

As a newbie developer (Always a newbie huh! :-D). I was very glad meeting advanced and newbies like myself at this hackathon.

During the hackathon we were also joined by Patrick Choquette and Matthew McAllister of Peace Corps’ Department for Innovation in DC via Skype-in during lunch to show their support.

I was glad to say hi to Patrick via Skype too :-) thanks to Peace Corps Mapdown and other OpenStreetMap related projects; such 2014 West Africa Ebola Response :-). If you want to help create a free digital map of Ghana and the world then let's talk, so I can help you get started!

Meeting new people is no exception to hackathons, I was glad to see some good old friends and meet new ones too.

Thanks to Lynda you can read all about this hackathon here

It was great and fun!

Thanks to PCV Ghana, Joshua Kim, Selorm, MWG, SWAT and everyone who made this a success!

Ho - Aflao #trotro Experience

Trotro mini buses
Source: Wikimedia Commons

If you are not in Ghana and reading this am 100% sure you've never heard of the word trotro.

mate used here is the name of the one who helps the trotro driver, collecting lorry fare from passengers and others.

Trotro I will say is a major means of transport. I love taking trotro's a lot. I was thinking I name this post Aflao - Ho, Ho - Aflao #trotro experience since, the experience from Aflao to Ho to was funny and interesting too.

Aflao to Ho...

Leaving Aflao for BarCamp Ho in October,  At 5 AM, getting out of my house and the shouting Ho! Ho!! that morning the driver of the trotro just applied the break and I jumped inside happily thinking it was full of people going to Ho. Not knowing all of them were going to Dzodze. After Dzodze, the driver and mate's eyes became hot since they were not getting passengers as we move.

Well luckily we got one passenger on board, he was heavily drunk. He started telling driver he was over speeding. Soon another passenger, a male, also got on board. As we were going another trotro who was also looking for passengers along the Dzodze - Ho stretch came to by pass us.

My driver was like ahhhh! lol. All these passengers were not going to Ho, so the drunkard alighted first as he continues to sing his destination to the mate. Now the second guy alighted and presented GHS 50.00 to the mate. The driver nearly died. Haha! If you know the way I was laughing.
So we have to wait for him to quickly get money from a koko seller near by. And the driver was telling me, some people are not serious oo. Laughing all together.

Off we go and another drunkard again. Oops!. They will enter the vehicle before you can tell. This one wasn't having money to pay the lorry fare. But sat down quietly. Now time for him to alight. He was telling the mate, he will get the money at his destination and pay. Then the driver roared: "If you don't pay, I will drive you to Ho" can you imagine? Ho is very far from where we were at that moment. And how will he get back. He alighted and was playing nonsense, so the driver instructed the mate to remove his pair of shoes and let's go. Still laughing at the way the mate and drunkard were displaying. A woman at the roadside came to his rescue, paid for him and off we go.

The driver managed to by pass the other trotro driver before we reached called Ziope. He was telling I really wanted to reach Ziope before that driver, if not wahala for him. Still laughing.

Got to Ho safely and said bye to the driver and still laughing.

Take #Trotro sometimes and see. You will laugh aaa.. Still laughing..
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) October 26, 2013

Found my way to Ho Polytechnic and BarCamp Ho started.

Ho to Aflao...

After BarCamp met some old friends who wanted me to spend my night at their place. It was a clash.. Those in Ho Polytechnic and University of Health and Allied Sciences. I wasn't able to tweet in Ho at all since I tweet via SMS. Tigo Ghana's service in Ho and all over the Volta Region is very POOR. I was mad at Tigo.

Spent the night in Ho, Enjoyed free Wi-Fi and blah... blah.. blah.. :-D

I love FREE Wi-Fi paaa... at UHAS.
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) October 26, 2013

Now is Sunday and time to leave home (Aflao) Here the #trotro experience I never had started from.
Getting to Ho main lorry station at 6 PM, I decided to enter the first car available going to Aflao. Things didn't work normally like how you enter a trotro. Trotro always set off before you start paying to the mate. We paid before we set off. Some women were complaining.

After paying already, this driver without a mate took us to a filling station to fill his fuel tank. Instead of him doing that earlier.

Then something happened the guy at the Filling Station was seriously talking on the mobile phone, so with less attention on business the fuel poured on to the ground. The driver want him to give out GHS 2.00 for the fuel on the ground. He disagreed and was saying : "It was the fuel tank of the vehicle that was leaking."

This went on for some minutes, I was only thinking of getting home as early as possible.

Have mobile phones made us slaves? #Ho
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) October 27, 2013

Off we go. One the way I learnt something new from the women after three or four policemen signaled the driver to stop.

Eih! So GHS 1 is Vodafone and GHS 2 is MTN. #trotro
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) October 27, 2013

We were in the vehicle for about 30 minutes drive out of Ho township, then OOH! The car just started slowing down in a manner that you will know something is definitely wrong.

OMG! When will I get home. :(
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) October 27, 2013

Then Driver: We can't move on, there is something wrong with the engine belt. I was like hey! Then we all started complaining. One of the women said: "It was because the car was not in good form, that was why they were doing things secretly at the station."

Luckily for us it was just a few metres away a Police Barrier and houses were around. I felt very sad for a woman who was actually concerned about how her children are doing back home at that moment.

We were there for about 30 minutes, it was even going to rain and we were all saying if it get serious will just enter the vehicle. The driver talk to one of the drivers back at the station. Soon a vehicle arrived.

Thank God another vehicle is here at last. Hmmm... #Akwetey #Ho
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) October 27, 2013

We got inside quickly as it started raining and got home safely.

Am back home safely.. #Aflao
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) October 27, 2013

Nature of Aflao's Road

Today I have decided to take a stroll along the Aflao road. This road stretches from Denu junction to the main border between Ghana and Togo. This is the main road that links Ghana to the capital city of Togo,Lomé.
This road has been left in a very bad condition for the previous years resulting in serious air pollution in the community due to it's dusty nature.

The images above and below shows the nature of the bigger portion of the road leading to the Aflao border.  

This road should have been constructed long time ago, but due to the uncertainty of the people of Aflao to whether a dual carriage or single lane should be constructed. This uncertainty has led to a lot of problems which I will be posting in a blog post soon. 

Currently, the road is in construction but haven't reached anywhere yet. 

 Work on some parts of the road.

 

 

#BlogCamp13....Experience

#BlogCamp13 took place at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence on 23rd March, 2013 from 9am to 6pm. This was my first time of attending BlogCamp since it started in 2012. #BlogCamp13 was organised by BloggingGhana under the theme “Content is King” 

The Journey

Since I stay at Aflao in the Volta Region I woke up as early as 3 am on 23rd March, 2013 so that I can be able to reach Accra as early as possible. I went out and at exactly 3:35 I got into a vehicle. God willing I arrived at Accra few minutes to 7 am.  

Since I've never been to Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence  before, I alighted at 37 and walked to station and took a trotro bus after telling the driver I was going to Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence he concluded immediately that its located somewhere at Teshie or something like that. So I joined the bus happily thinking I will be the first to arrive there. Not knowing I was going to a wrong destination. After getting out of the trotro bus I walked straight towards the entrance hoping am going to see a sign of #BlogCamp13. On reaching the entrance I asked the security personnel whether something of that kind (Blog Camp) was taking place here.After setting my eyes on this inscriptions on the wall " Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC)"   I concluded to myself. I then asked the security to give me the right direction. He also told me where I was going is located close to the new old parliament house. On reaching the old parliament house which is currently used as the office of CHRAJ Ghana. I entered and asked of where I was going, the men I met were also telling me to go to where I was previously, on hearing "Kofi Annan". May be that was the only place most people knew to be called by the name of the former UN Secretary General. Am I getting lost? I asked myself. I quickly called a friend I met on twitter whom I've never seen before @Vilejah. He also gave me a direction which I was not satisfied with. But thanks to him. Well, I called another friend Eldad Nutakor ,who then gave me the right direction. Finally I've arrived at #BlogCamp very early late I thought myself. All the same the program have not started yet. Immediately I went and registered, took the program line-up, went for my tag and bought a #BlogCamp13 T-Shirt.

In the Conference Room

 

 

All started well in the conference room with a welcome address from Kajsa Hallberg Adu. Some other things about how Blogging Ghana started. It was good when three free Wi-fi connections were available which everyone was using but my laptop was finding it very difficult to connect to neither of them. So I have decided to use the rest of data I purchased from Vodafone with my USB modem. There was a presentation on Social Media and the law by Nana Yaw Asiedu . Also Ghana's first Internet Freedom Fellow 2013 Mac-JordaN gave a presentation on how things went  on in Geneva.
#233moments was also introduced by Edward Tagoe . Meaning tweets should be sent out by everyone present with the hash tag #233moments at 2:33 pm simply meaning Ghana (+233) moments.

We also witnessed behind the scenes of the Ghana Decides project which covered Ghana's 2012 Elections via Social Media.

Lunch

As I've learnt from my Senior High School friends "Chodda be man" meaning food is man. It was time for launch when we had a tasty meal with some fruit juice.

Break-Out Sessions

There were break-out sessions on:

1. Blogging and Social Media 101
2. Tips and Tricks for bloggers
3. Social Media for Organisations

I joined the Blogging and Social Media 101 session which was headed by Nana Yaw Sarpong and a Nigerian whose name I've forgotten about in the conference room. This session introduced newbies and people with a little blogging experience to what a blog actually meanand how get the best out of it . A lot was learnt from this session.

Still in the conference room another session began that was Photography headed by Nana Kofi Acquah. This session really opened my mind to what photography is. Photography should really be fun as Nana Kofi Acquah said. 

Back to the Conference room

All break-out sessions were over and everyone have moved back to the conference room for the final part of the day. Something interesting happened here. It came to point that we were all asked to type and tweet some words that will be projected. The conditions for this competition was the first three people  to correctly tweet the sentence will qualify for the final to win a brand new BlackBerry Curve mobile phone from TigoGhana. Come and see fingers at work. The first three people to correctly tweet this were Frank Bruce, Roxanne L. Scott and myself (Enock Seth Nyamador). I was very hot when the final sentence to tweet was projected, in fact I was running out of data so I was praying hard that I tweet this before it gets finished. At the end of every competition there is only one champion and that should have been Roxanne L. Scott but she made a typo mistake, that was "@tigoGhna" instead of "@TigoGhana" so the brand new BlackBerry Curve went to Frank Bruce.

There was a poem from Nana Asaase which I really enjoyed. I will be glad to listen it once more as I write now.
There was also an art and rhyming from "Sony" involving the Ghanaian song "ABC for love, 123 for the story......" and a guy. The guy drawing drew a man and woman upside down. Everyone got to know what he was drawing when the drawing board was turned the other way round.

Social Media Awards

Here comes the time most people were waiting for, the social media wards.
The US Embassador to Ghana gave remarks about the event and also made know to everyone the winner of the Best Blog Award at the end of his remark. Here are the various winners:

Best Blog adventuresfrom
Best Business & Commerce Blog estockanalysisblog
Best Original Content poetrysoundbites
Best Technology Blog techy-africa
Best Photo Blog africaphotographer
Best Creative, Literary Short Stories, Poetry Blog ganyobinaa
Best Showbiz and Entertainment Blog ameyawdebrah
Best Citizen Journalism Blog circumspecte
Best Lifestyle Blog ganyobinaa
Best Organizational Blog accradotalttours
Personality with Best Social Media Presence
Mutombo Percy the Poet @MutomboDaPoet
Best Activist Blog adventuresfrom
Organisation with Best Social Media Presence Vodafone Ghana
Honorary Award for Exemplary Social Media Activism Ghana Decides Project

Sponsors

#BlogCamp13 was sponsored by @TigoGhana, Nandimobile, Intel, Samsung, Africa.com, Born Again, Voltic, Joy FM, Citi FM, The BE BOLD show, Ghanyobi.com, dust, TV Africa, US Embassy Ghana, Hatua Solutions and Nii Odzenma.

 

Eldad(right) and Enock(myself)

 

#BlogCamp13 was a great experience I had. Especially meeting new people that I only know on twitter and others. 

If you missed #BlogCamp13 just wait for #BlogCamp14.

Junior Camp Ketasco

­­­­­­­­­­­

Junior Camp Ketasco which was organized by the Keta Senior High Technical School, (Ketasco) SRC in collaboration with Ghana Think Foundation, took place on Wednesday 30^th January, 2013 at the assembly ground of  Keta Senior High Technical School, (Ketasco) in Keta, Volta Region .
The Theme for Junior Camp Ketasco was " Living Tomorrow's Career Today.". During the event students dressed up in attires of their various future careers. The interesting part was when I saw most of the girls dressed up as engineers with their helmet neatly placed on their heads and putting on Wellington boots.

Jennifer(left) and her friends

Eyram and Mary

This was the first kind of Junior Camp (BarCamp) to be organized in a Senior High School since BarCamp started in Ghana in 2008. 

As it used to be for all BarCamps, Junior Camp Ketasco commenced with a speech from the guest speaker Mrs. Eunice Ogbugo C.E.O of Eugo Terrano.

She talked about how she made it to the top. And advised students on how to eliminate the fear for certain subjects. She said as a Science student during her Senior Secondary school days, she used to have problems with certain subjects especially Elective Mathematics, Physics and Biology. She also talked about the need to choose the right program to offer in the university, by saying, no one should force students to pursue courses which is not of their interest.
Even though she had some problems with Mathematics and Physics in her early Secondary School days she was able to make it to Civil Engineering, even when the mother was wondering if she can. But through self-determination she was able to make it.

Speed mentoring and Breakout sessions.

Due to the large number of the students Speed Mentoring was merged into Breakout Sessions where the mentors took a number of students at ago. There were breakout sessions for Fashion, Game and Software Development, Public speaking, Entrepreneurship and others. Some of the mentors present at Junior camp Ketasco were Eyram Tawia of Leti Games, Ato Ulzen Appiah, Nehemiah Attigah, Mr. Joel Degue, Yayra Tay, Donald Wards, Makafui Nyamadi CEO of GCOM Pre-University College, and others.

I was with Eyram Tawia of Leti Games in the Ketasco Computer laboratory for the breakout session on Game and Software Development. Due to large number of students who were willing to join this session, we divided the students in to two groups. Eyram told the students about how started his career. He was born and bred on KNUST, campus as young boy. His determination then was to design super heroes. Long ago before one of his brothers introduced him to how to program. Students also asked interesting questions while they were given the various tips involved in getting started. Eyram introduced students to a word which they must always add to their queries when using search engines especially Google for informations as beginners. That's “Dummies”.
 

Launch.

It was some few minutes past 12 noon, when we had jollof rice for launch. Well not bad.

Breakout Sessions Resume.

After launch, the breakout sessions resumed. But for this time it was solely meant for questions and answers. Some of the previous sessions were merged to form a session due to things they had in common.

For this time I joined Gameli Adjaho for the session on Digital Literacy once again in the computer laboratory.
Gameli answered series of questions from the students and introduced them to websites such as Khanacademy, and some Google search tips: E.g. how compute simple mathematics using Google, this then led to  the display of the embedded calculator that Google has. This is simply done by typing a mathematical expression into Google's search box. E.g. 5+6, he also introduced students to a powerful search engine known as Wolframalpha which I have never heard of. He continued by encouraging students to be abreast with digital literacy.

Closing.

Cross-section of mentors and volunteers at JuniorCamp Ketasco

The second breakout (Q&A) sessions were over and everyone was once gathered at the assembly ground. Students were given the opportunity to share what they have learnt in their various breakout sessions with their friends who joined other sessions as well. All that they shared were very interesting. What I learnt from those who went to the Fashion Breakout session was, make ups are not for students (girls).  I also learnt that actors do apply make ups when the need arises. This makes them look  some how better on stage.

As BarCamps normally end with patriotic songs. Junior Camp Ketasco ended with the School's Anthem (Once to everyman and Nation), God Bless Our Homeland Ghana, and Miadenyigba lonlonla.

BarCamp Accra 2012 (More Than Expected)

I guess most of you might be thinking of the “Bar” well if you are baffled by the word check out this interesting post by Nutakor Eldad about BarCampHo on skouleye.

Bar Camp is actually a free networking program for the youth organized by the Ghana Think Foundation.

Who is a BarCamper?

BarCamper is simply someone who goes for BarCamps. Contribute and get the best out of the BarCamps and makes it a success.

What Happens at BarCamps?

As a normal routine for BarCamps, there is always a talk from someone(mentor), followed by Speed Mentoring and Breakout sessions.

BarCamp Accra 2012.

BarCamp Accra 2012 took place on Saturday the 22nd day of December, 2012 at the Methodist University College (MDUG), Accra, from 8:00AM to 4:00PM.

The theme for Bar Camp Accra 2012 was “Removing fear of failure as a start of success”

BarCamp Accra 2012 commenced with a talk from Mrs. Ellen M. Hagan Chief Executive of L’AINE SERVICES LIMITED, a leading HR(Human Resource)  Company in Ghana. She also Champions the publishing of the HR Focus Magazine, the first and only Human Resource magazine in Ghana. She has also written two books:  “SOFT SKILLS: What Gives One Jobseeker an Edge over Another” and “ALL ABOUT JOB INTERVIEWS"

HR FOCUS Magazine Cover

Speed Mentoring

As it used to be for all BarCamps organized by The Ghana Think Foundation, Speed Mentoring is the time that most BarCampers I guess can’t wait for. This is the time you have to interact with some mentors of your interest face-a-face. Chat, ask questions and get the right approach to them.

For Bar Camp Accra 2012 some of the mentors present were  Eyra Tawia of Leti Games (IT), Mac-Jordan (Social Media), Ayoko Korsah (Robotics), Farida (Software Engineering), Fred (Fashion), Rodney Quarcoo (Photography)  and others.

I had the chance to talk to three of these mentors; Mac-Jordan, Eyram Tawia and Farida Bedwei.

Eldad with mentor Eyram Tawia during speed mentoring

Success Sessions

Since the theme of Bar Camp Accra 2012 was “Removing the of failure as a start of success”

We had different groups with people who have been able to make it even though they encountered failures on their quest for success. They shared their success stories with us. I was in the Success session for IT which was led Mr. Herman Chinnery-Hesse, Co-founded the SOFTtribe limited, one of the leading software houses in Ghana and West Africa.

We discussed almost everything about the various major programming languages such as C++(C Plus Plus), C#(C Sharp), Python, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, Pearl, and the rest I can’t mention.

We also learned about the relationships that must exist between the Boss and the Workers not only in the IT sector. In fact in his case everyone must know some business even if you are a medical officer, software engineer or whatever.

He also added that since we are Human beings we must network(interact) with others, be honest and above all have the "I can do it" attitude. Our Ghanaian culture doesn’t encourage networking especially in terms of the ladies.

In fact we learned a lot from him and he also learned from us since BarCamp is not always learning from others  but vice versa as well.

And one thing that Mr. Herman Chinnery-Hesse  said and I rated it to five stars is “You can influence the Judge in the law court but you can't bribe the Compiler ”

IT Success session with Mr. Herman of SOFTtribe

Break Out Sessions

After the success sessions we had another Session known as the Break out Session.We had more than five breakout sessions. I was able to join three.But one took most of my time that is the Break out session on Putting Ghanaian and African contents online through wikimedia organized by Planning Wikimedia Ghana. This Break out session educated us on how to put Ghanaian articles about our culture and others for worldwide consumption and to make research easy for others. We were briefed by Sandister Tei and Co.

So when you contribute to Wikimedia then you become a ‘Wikimedian’. Some members of this breakout session were Royal Senam Aseye, Kobe Subramaniam, Dieu-Donné Gamel , Felix Nartey  and others.

Various Breakout Sessions

Chop Time No Friend

You know that the master guy of the human digestive system is food. So for lunch everyone had a nice “Wakyee” from “Auntie Munie” which arrived very early using the back door. And I enjoyed it.

BarCamp Accra 2012 ended with two patriotic songs one sang in more than five languages they were “God Bless Our Home Land Ghana” “Yen Ara asa se ni” “Miadenyigba lonlonla” led  by @gamelmag @Enock4seth @Abocco the rest I can’t tell now and “Arise Ghana Youth for Your  Country”.

Enock and Gameli. Singing Miadenyigba lonlonla

Finally I will to encourage you to be on your guards for the next BarCamp in town don’t miss it.