The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

It's been an even better year for Barcamps in Ghana in 2012. After 5 events in 2011, 2012 will see 8. Barcamp Accra will happen this Saturday at the Methodist University College campus in Dansoman. This is a burgeoning private university with a star student in Raindolf Owusu. It also has great young people like Jeffery Abas who is part of the Barcamp Accra organizing team. The press release for the event is below. You might be interested in the impressive line-up of mentors Barcamp Accra will have. Gasmilla , the Azonto King, and singer of Aboodatoi is coming. And we'll be having Auntie Muni Waakye for lunch! Auntie Muni herself will be there to share her story. Yea, these Barcamps are getting better and better and more interesting. Oh, the currrent Miss Ghana might not be there, but the former Miss Ghana who organized this year's event will be - Inna Patty . The theme is "Removing the fear of failure as a start of success". This idea was first meeted b...

I shared some quick thoughts on why John Mahama even after campaigning for a few months beat out Nana Akufo Addo who campaigned for 2+ years on my Facebook profile and a friend encouraged me to write a blog post. I wanted to share my analysis of why Johnny Digital Mahama won. Some of the points are serious and some aren't so serious. Cos Why So Serious? If you followed my blog from the start, you'd know I named my blog "Why So Serious". Yeap, picked it from the Batman movie. It's clear many people voted for John Mahama the person vrs Nana Akufo-Addo rather than the NDC versus the NPP. Nana Akufo Addo is not liked very much in Ghana for his "arrogance and elitism". Ask around. I'll allow my namesake to share a quick Nana story ( (8th paragraph ) on the arrogance  bit.  He might have gone around the country 3 times but I bet Ghanaians could see through him as they met him. The NPP with its property-owning democracy and Republican-ish ness makes it...

Given that I have met many African musicians in my lifetime, it's interesting that I have never really met Sarkodie before. The first time I did hear about him, I was listening to Dr. Duncan's Kasahare level on Adom FM. This radio show featured rap battles with serious punchlines thrown. Sarkodie wasn't the only one making a name in the underground rap scene. Yaa Pono, Kofi Korea and Burbon Fly also featured. And then Sarkodie struck commercial gold with Babe featuring Mugeez. The rest has been achievement after achievement. On 10.11.12, which is tomorrow, Sarkodie and his fans will be celebrating how far we have come together in  a #Youknowwhattimeitis concert at Pentagon on the Legon campus in Accra. I'll be there! Sarkodie released freestyle after mixtape after freestyle in 2009. His Politics track, circa the elections of 2008, was an underground hit. His debut album, dubbed Makye, seemed to say his "success" was a long time coming. We heard news of...

The very first  Ghana National Youth Achievers Awards (NYAA)  were held under the auspices of President John Dramani Mahama on October 25 this year. Congratulations to all the winners, some of which I am proud to know personally. I already reacted to the whole NYAA, but let's dig into the winners proper. Because just giving you the list is boring. If you wanna learn some more, say #morevim! Sarkodie and Becca won for Music. BET Award wins, Channel O nominations, Museke Awards wins, they deserved it. Jackie Appiah won for Performing Arts, she's not the fairest Ghanaian, so she must be doing very well as an actress because of her acting skills :-p. She's still cute too, those IPMC billboards do her some good justice. Jackie's best ever casting was in The Perfect Picture , arguably one of Ghana's best ever movies. The director of that movie, Shirley Frimpong-Manso won for film.  The Fashion winner is surprising as it is refreshing, Fred Deegbe's Heel the...

The manner in which I first heard about the Ghana National Youth Achievers Awards (NYAA) were  some interesting circumstances. First, they was the notion that some of the organizers behind it should not have been behind it or should have been supporting something else that I support. And then my mother also called me about it saying my aunt was encouraging me to apply. The Awards were held recently and many deserving people that I know of won but I never ended up applying. But the latter part is not the point, the former - celebrating Ghanaian youth achievement is the point of this blog post. But I still have to tell you why I didn't apply. First, I wasn't excited by the involvement of CharterHouse (which organizes entertainment type awards shows, what would that mean for these awards?) and RLG (who as a tech company is not exactly supporting innovation in Ghana like it should, yeah I said it). And then you have the government angle, endorsed by the sitting president, Joh...

The picture above has been making the rounds in my Facebook circles. Suggestions that Google gives for a "Ghana is" search won't make Ghanaians happy. Folks have been asking me (as a resident Google guy) how this could happen. Google doesn't make this happen. People who are Googling make this happen. But why are they typing the above? And apart from why, why are so many people typing the above? Oh wait, Ghana's population and the population of those who will say great things about Ghana doesn't seem to be that big. I mean really, what does Ghana have to do? Win the World Cup? Discover the cure for AIDS? Export many pastors to many countries? Because we sure don't want to make the headlines through war and tragedy. You would have thought eliminating the US from two consecutive World Cups would do something. Yeah, I just had to go there :-) The Google search is happening because of what people perceive Ghana to be. We can help solve this problem. If yo...

Over the past weekend, I attended the 2nd Barcamp Ho event. This was also the 6th Barcamp to held in Ghana this year. Yeap, the Barcamp Ghana project has been highly visible and the GhanaThink team has been tres busy. The event happened Friday, 21st September at the Ho Polytechnic SRC Junior Common Room. A major Asogli Yam Festival was happening in Ho on the Saturday, 22nd and luckily the 21st was a holiday in Ghana - Founder's Day. This was the first ever Barcamp on a holiday or Friday and it turned out to be a great decision. "We are not allowed to talk about the problems and not offer solutions, especially solutions we can implement ourselves". Before the Barcamp started, I walked upon a heated discussion on "Free senior high school education" amongst some guys who had just finished a game of football. I had just one question for them "How are you going to solve the various problems you are talking about?" As is becoming the nature of Barcamp...

What a night I had last night! I have a lot of nights like but this one was good to write home about :-) After spending the last weekend in Africa's unofficial party capital, Kampala, I was back in Accra and ready to show my sister and a couple of friends who were in Ghana for a short time a good time. Before I proceed to tell you about last night, let me tell about my last night in Kampala , Sunday September 9. I finally found a "popping club" to enter - Ange-Mystique and they (bouncers and all) wanted to charge me to enter. But I don't pay to enter clubs so I made them know it. So I left but on my way out, I saw a couple of ladies who were coming in. I asked them which other club would be lively now (and free) so I could go there. They said Ange-Mystique was the only one. After I told them I was from out of town, one of the ladies gave me a complementary pass to enter the club. The bouncers couldn't believe it. They were like "Where did you get this?...

The first time I went to Ho was last December for Barcamp Ho. Whadyaknow? Barcamp Ho is here again. I learnt a lot about the tourism potential of the Volta region. In fact, it's passed by the Central region in terms of revenue generated in terms of tourism. That's really a big deal. So last year, it was clear, the tourism potential exists and the strengths and peculiarities of the region are there for all to see.  Click this link for pictures on Google+ and Facebook . This year at Barcamp Ho, the theme is “Youth taking charge of development”. We have to take charge of realizing that tourism potential and making many cedis for ourselves and Ghana. And we need to start this by having other Ghanaians visit the region more. Maybe get 233 people within the next year to say they climbed Mount Afadjato? The press release for Barcamp Ho 2012 is below. The event is next Friday. If you have access to Ho, join us. Let's network, share and learn. Let's visit...

I will be missing Barcamp Cape Coast as I am on a work trip to Uganda but I will surely be following proceedings from #bccapecoast. It should be a great second event in the Central region with new learnings, new networks, new stories, and new partnerships. More vim! Press release below. BarCamp Cape Coast 2012 is a free networking forum to bring people together for a day of discussion, demos and dialogue on Cape Coast, Ghana and beyond. BarCamp Cape Coast 2012 will take place on September 08, 2012 at the New Lecture Theatre at the University of Cape Coast. It follows last year’s event on November 12 where the theme was “Harnessing IT education for local innovation and tourism development”. The theme for this year is “Revolutionizing Education through Arts & Technology”. This Barcamp hopes to assemble Cape Coast stakeholders to network, build a supportive enterprising community and partner to build together. The GhanaThink Foundation , an NGO based both in Ghana and the USA, has ...