The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

  The Spark: Tweets That Lit Fire In March 2009 , a simple notification popped up on Twitter . It was a reply from me @Abocco to a fellow user, @macjordan : "hey, we starting to plan for a Barcamp Accra . wanna help? will email ya." This was not just an invitation. It was a genesis. Using less than 140-characters, this tweet was another digital brick in what would become a cathedral of community —a sprawling network of innovators, entrepreneurs, and creatives across Ghana and beyond . This marked the beginning of a journey where social media was not just for conversation, but for construction, community building and documentation. In our collective opinion at the time, Twitter & Barcamp were made for each other . Many would say that I have long been a central node in Ghana's tech ecosystem, even before I returned to Ghana to work for Google in 2011. My work in the ecosystem has been a lot, but what I like most is the fertile ground that many GhanaThink members a...

I started liking Kizomba on Thursdays after I regularly went for the Kizomba nights at Afrikiko in Accra, Ghana . Since I liked using social media (especially Twitter) and hashtags in general, I started to use #KizombaThursday as a hashtag more often. I was going to say religiously, but Kizomba is not a religion. Or wait, is it? People consistently dancing and listening to Kizomba on Thursday is something that can be termed as being done religiously? Okay. Across social media, particularly through these enthusiastic posts, Thursday nights in Accra has continued to be synonymous with the smooth, sensual rhythms of Kizomba dancing—a weekly tradition that did more than teach dance steps. It has engendered a community as well. Cultural Fusion on the Dance Floor Kizomba , originating from Angola , has found an unexpected home in Ghana through these Thursday nights, etc. Kizomba is a national heritage of Angola and means "party" in Kimbundu . This dance, its attendant classes/...