Growing a connected and attractive entreprising market in Tamale and beyond

+Barcamp Tamale 2013, the third +Barcamp Ghana event in Tamale, came off at the Tamale Sports Stadium on August 17. A day before it, a couple of pre-Barcamp events were organized in conjunction with a +Google Africa sponsorship - a Google Developer tools workshop led by +GDG Ghana and a Google Business Networking event led by +GBG Ghana in Tamale. The main event was themed - "Growing a connected and attractive entreprising market". The focus was on ensuring that people in Tamale and the Northern Region at large were more connected and that the area was more attractive to local and outside entrepreneurs.

+GhanaThink Foundation's "Less Talk, More Action" Polo T-shirts were premiered at this event and were received very favourably. This motto has since become popular and is becoming a bedfellow to "More vim". The emcees +Ato Ulzen-Appiah & +Donald Ward led a short discussion on Tamale and what's synonymous with it, and one major talking point was shea and shea products. About 40 students of Tamale Secondary School (Tamasco) attended the event as well. There were about 180 attendees for Barcamp Tamale in total.

The speed mentoring session was next. The mentors included Sidney Rockson (Plus Distributions), Rafiatu Lawal (Entrepreneur), +Stephen Agbenyo (of +Savana Signatures), +Jemila Abdulai (of +Circumspect), +Doris Anson-Yevu (of +Kafuiday Photography), +Peter Awin (Afrilead Institute), +Abdul-Nasser Alidu (of +Tigo Ghana),  +Karen Sagoe (Doctor), Abdul-Aziz Ibn Shiraz (Marriage Counselor) and +maccarthy lomotey (of Hopin academy). They had 1-on-1 mentoring sessions with attendees for 10 minutes at a time. While this was going on, two female attendees who was a Tamasco alum, gathered the female Tamasco students and started mentoring them. Another attendee followed their lead as he gathered the male Tamasco students as well. We'd seen something very similar at +Barcamp Tema 2012 and it's always beautiful to see these things happen.

Jake Morrison represented one of the main sponsors, DKT International, at the event. He did a small session on sexual health and protection and unlike Barcamp Tema a week before, he had props to use and more T-shirts to give away. +Kobe Subramaniam talked about various Google tools as he represented the other key sponsor +Google Africa. After lunch, a panel discussion ensued and was moderated by Ato. The panelists were +Mohammed-Sani Abdulai (of the University of Professional Studies & Adminstration), Abdul-Nasser Alidu of Tigo and +Senyo Kpelly (of Sekaf Ghana Limited who produces Tama products). They talked about the theme and touched on the importance of connecting and networking as well as grabbing opportunities in the Northern region, being entreprising and building businesses out of them.

Breakout sessions at Barcamp Tamale happened as usual with the topics being around cleanliness and waste management, the election petition, finding resources to run businesses amongst many others. The event ended with some of the attendees singing "Tingban nyela ti ba tingban" which is the Dagbani version of the popular patriotic song "Yen ara asaase ni". Watch the video here

This was the 22nd Barcamp in Ghana. You can read what is captured about the event in realtime via this Storify story. The organizing team was made up of Peter, Jemila, +Yakubu H.Yakubu +Mohammed Muntasir Nashiru +cecilia amoafowaa sefa +Kwaching Jessica +Naomi Selorm & +Ibn Shiraz+Kwabena Akuamoah-Boateng was also present handling photos and social media for the event. Many other thanks and kudos to the various +GhanaThink Foundation members who played great roles to make the event successful. Check out #bctamale on Google+ and Twitter

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