BarCamp Kasoa 2013

Source: Barcamp Kasoa Facebook page

I was at BarCamp Kasoa 2013 on Saturday 27th April, 2013 at the ICGC Transformation Temple in Kasoa. Although that was my first time of going to Kasoa I got a very simple direction from Elorm Billy-Awittor. I experienced some jerky traffic jam on the way. I thought it was going to be serious as people used to say about the Kasoa road. I spend about some few minutes in the traffic jam. Finally alighted at the last stop since I took a trotro. Looked for the traffic light to my right, took a taxi and told the driver immediately that I will be alighting at the MTN office as directed. Within 10 minutes I found my way to ICGC Transformation Temple. The theme for BarCamp Kasoa 2013 was "Making an enterprising environment for an emerging market".

All started as it used to be at BarCamps I've attended previously,  I had two speed mentoring sessions, first  with Emmanuel Okeyere of Hatua Solutions and Hutspace, where I learnt more about some programming languages and the way they are growing in the global village.

Going to @eokyere for my speed mentoring #BCKasoa
— Enock Seth Nyamador (@Enock4seth) April 27, 2013

 then with Dr. Naa Mills, Medical Superintendent of Kasoa Polyclinic, where I learnt more about the risks associated with skipping breakfast. If you are used to skipping breakfast like I've been doing you better stop because it's so dangerous. I also learnt about self discipline, this is relating things we do. We all know that we have to do some physical exercise but we lack the discipline to wake up at dawn and have some jogging.

After the speed mentoring comes the panel of discussion involving Mr. Jerry Smith, Mrs. Heleen Hagan,  Dr. Naa Asunkwa Mills (Medical Superintendent of Kasoa Polyclinic,)  and Adams Nuhu (MCE, Kasoa Awutu Senya East Municipal). A lot was said about the development and way forward for Kasoa.

It was time for lunch and had some "waakye", while lunch was in progress there was a presentation from Daniel Arthur-Baidoo about how he turned what is commonly known in Ghana as "pure water"  sachets into a centre table and the image of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. You can visit his blog for more about his works.

Picture by  Komla the Ɔdadeɛ

Picture by Philip Adzanoukpe

Breakout sessions: there were five breakout sessions at Barcamp Kasoa 2013,

Five break out sessions on going now after which #bacampkasoa will official come to end #bckasoa
— Barcamp Kasoa (@BarcampKasoa) April 27, 2013

But I only joined one which which was led by Sandister Tei and Myself.

Breakout Sessions @ #BCKasoa: @sandistertei & @enock4seth leading a session on getting more information about Kasoa on Wikipedia.
— SɛY FrƐdDy (@ahiabor) April 27, 2013

Which was about getting Ghanaian contents on Wikipedia, the Kasoa article on Wikipedia was also edited during the session. We had two elderly persons from the community whose presence counted in editing the article. Some other members of this session were Walter E. ADAMAH, Ato Ulzen-Appiah and  Barima Kwadwo Berchie Achamfour.
You can visit Planning Wikimedia Ghana's Meta page, like on Facebook and follow on Twitter. Let's help provide more Ghanaian contents on Wikipedia.

BarCamp Kasoa 2013 got interesting when Lawrencia introduced a game.

Survival of the fittest presentation by Lawerncia Ofori #bckasoa
— Barcamp Kasoa (@BarcampKasoa) April 27, 2013

Its getting interesting and lively as participants interact in respect to Lawrencia's game
— Barcamp Kasoa (@BarcampKasoa) April 27, 2013

The rules of the game were, to survive you must have three different candies, while everyone was given two candies of the same type but in all there were three different brands of candies.  I gave out mine since everyone can't survive. If you were there how will you survive?

BarCamp Kasoa ended with the Ghana National Anthem. You can read more about BarCamp Kasoa by searching for #BCKasoa on Twitter

Had much fun on my way back with Walter E. ADAMAH and Sandister Tei.

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

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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.