Transforming our communities in Ho with New Attractions, New Culture, New Champions

+Barcamp Ho 2013 was organized on October 26 at the +Ho Polytechnic SRC auditorium on the +Ho Poly Campus. This was the third Barcamp Ho event and it was themed "Transforming our Communities: New Attractions, New Culture, New Champions". +Gameli Adzaho, who came up with the theme, was actually thinking of "New Champions" as the youth feeling empowered to lead change in VR and then promote the attractions the region has to offer. Focus was to be on the work and transformation going on on the ground. The theme generated a lot of charter, a lot of which was local and very relevant to Ho and the Volta region. This made it a special event.

The event started with a discussion around the theme, Ho and the Volta region itself. It was led by King David Suitor who runs the Wake Up Volta magazine. I led an ice-breaker conversation about sitting in front. I asked attendees for good reasons why they sat in the back of the room instead of the front at events. They were a lot of submissions and discussions on this. For me, leaders sit in the front. For the first time at a +Barcamp Ghana event, there were breakout sessions on the event's theme. 7 groups were formed due to seating arrangements at the Barcamp and they separately dissected and discussed the theme. See a Storify about Barcamp Ho.

The event continued with the speed mentoring session. The speed mentors (resource personnel) had 1-on-1 mentoring sessions with attendees for 10 minutes at a time. The mentors included King David Suitor (of Wake Up Volta Magazine), +Dzidudu Darkey-Mensah (Playwright), Philip Lartey (Volta Premier FM), Asiwome Dzineku (Stanbic Bank), +Yayra Tay (Brand consultant), +Akua Akyaa Nkrumah (of +Green Ghanaian), +David Nikoi (Ecobank), +Seyram Freddy Ahiabor (Rancard), +Donald Ward (of +GBG Ghana & +Irokko Concepts) and Leila Djansi (Movie Director & Producer), and yours truly, amongst others.

There were various user-generated breakout sessions. +kofi yeboah from the +Barcamp Cape Coast team led one on blogging and social media. +Enock Seth Nyamador of +Planning WIKIMEDIA GHANA  led another one on putting Ghanaian content on Wikipedia. There was a session on tourism, especially as the Volta Region has become a great desitnation for tourists in Ghana, with several attractions. This was led by Julius of Ho Poly SIFE and +eli aidam who also talked about the upcoming premiere of the "A Weekend in Volta" movie in Ho. King Norbert & Philip of Volta Premier also led a breakout session on radio & journalism at Barcamp Ho. Jerry of Ho Poly, also a teacher & motivational speaker led a session on human capital and resources. See a Storify with updates from the breakout sessions.

Barcamp Ho 2013 was the 25th +Barcamp Ghana event. The organizing team was made up of +Courage Christson Tetteh +Eric Tackie Tawiah Ankrah +Gameli Adzaho +Ousman Saidy +Shika Brown +Mark - Hero K. +Elvis Bomasah. 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, Kofi, David, Donald +Ali Bukari Maiga +Rachel Hormeku and others. Check out #bcho on Google+ and Twitter. There were various action items noted, paramount of which would be to revive the blog and social media presence created for +Miawoe Zor at the 2011 event.