Owning and building a culture of development in Kumasi and beyond

+Barcamp Kumasi 2013 was organized on September 28 at the College of Science auditorium at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. This was the fourth +Barcamp Kumasi event. The theme was "Owning and building a culture of development". You could think of it as "cultivating and maintaining a culture of development" too. The goal was to get Kumasi-based people to own Kumasi's development and build towards it.

The event started with a discussion around the theme led by Kumasi's own +Kojo Akoto Boateng. Participants discussed leadership by example and change from within. Attendees also understood that we must all be responsible for development and that it's not something we leave for others to champion and handle. Some of the comments made hearkened thoughts back to last year's +Barcamp Accra which talked about the "removing the fear of failure as a start of success". You can see a Storify story around this discussion here. People really loved the sobolo aka bissap juice served. Sobolo seems to be a feature at many events and forums in Ghana now. More vim for that. Attendees were encouraged to write on a large sheet of paper what their dreams for Ghana were. Another cool idea meted by the organizing team was for participants to share where in Ghana they were from (by region).

The speed mentoring session featured as many female mentors as male mentors, a first for all Barcamps.
The speed mentors (resource personnel) had 1-on-1 mentoring sessions with attendees for 10 minutes at a time. The Barcamp Kumasi mentors included +Kuukuwa Manful (ArchiAfrika), +Yayra Tay (Brand Consultant), Kojo Akoto Boateng (TotalShowbiz.com), +Piesie Okyere-Darko Nyamenna (Ashanti Gold), Francis Fosu (CalBank), +Mawuli Amedofu (SpringVerve), +Rasheeda Yehuza (Nasara Mobile), +Vanessa Kavi (S.A.L.T.), +Paa Kweku Woode (of +Sygil Media), Alex Faux (of Engineers Without Borders), Donnay (NOK Couture), Akyana Britwum (KNUST Physics), and +Cynthia Eyram Ofori-Dwumfuo (of Ultimate Radio). Read this Storify story capturing the speed mentoring session.

There was enough time for two sets of breakout sessions. Another first for Barcamps this year and in a long while. Read about the first set here on Storify. These included one about Kumasi at large led by +Ato Ulzen-Appiah, an ideation and business session led by +Mark Boots, a working and freelancing session led by +Odoi-Lartey Benjamin, and a Google opportunities session led by +Kobe Subramaniam. Read about the second set here on Storify. There are a lot of great notes in there that the attendees captured in realtime on Twitter that you can all learn from. These included a Blogging and Social media session run by +kofi yeboah, a volunteering session led by +Ela Asare who had led the National Volunteer Day initiative a week before, a Teach for Charity session and a showbiz and the media in Kumasi session run by +Kojo Akoto Boateng.

Barcamp Kumasi 2013 was the 24th +Barcamp Ghana event. Check out this Storify story and catch the pulse. The organizing team was made up of +Watson Bedzrah +sampson deklu +Alloysius Attah +courage ahiati Paa Kweku, Kuukuwa, Yayra and +kofi yeboah. Many other thanks and kudos to the various +GhanaThink Foundation members who played great roles to make the event successful, especially those who were present like +Seyram Freddy Ahiabor +Ela Asare +Ali Bukari Maiga +William Boampong Osilaja +Kobe Subramaniam and others. Check out #bcksi on Google+ and Twitter. Also, check out the My Kumasi project that was born out of this event on Facebook and Twitter.