The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Tigo's Shelter for Education initiative seeks to improve on infrastructure for basic education in rural Ghana. As part of this project, 6 Ghanaian communities have been beneficiaries of fully furnished six unit classroom blocks with Headmaster’s office and Teacher’s Common room. The pupils each received two school uniforms, exercise books and Tigo branded souvenirs as well. The project has also been documented as a television series. Shot as video documentaries, they are currently showing in Ghana They are also on YouTube. You can learn more about the  #Shelter4Education  initiative in this other blog post . The television series airs every Sunday on TV3 at 4pm, and at 6:30pm on both Metro TV & ETV . A repeat shows on UTV at 7pm. Viasat1 shows Tigo Shelter For Education every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. You have only two weekends to catch this so make it a point to watch the show this coming weekend. The St Joseph School in Obuasi, Ashanti Region was renovat...

A lot has been said about the quality of education in Ghana, especially in public schools. It's very important to create a nice environment for learning as bad conditions greatly affect the performance of students. "Schools under trees" is a popular topic when public school education is discussed in Ghana. These points lend more credence to the importance of Tigo's Shelter for Education initiative in Ghana which seeks to improve on infrastructure for basic education in rural Ghana. Tigo is the reigning Ghana Telecom Awards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Company of the Year . This is quite a big deal, given the constant competition amongst telecommunication companies in Ghana. Tigo launched its new CSR programme, Shelter 4 Education recently. Tigo has put up 6 six unit classroom blocks with Headmaster’s office, Staff common room and a KVIP for some selected schools in makeshift structures or in need of renovation across the country. The initiative wa...

Last year after  Barcamp Takoradi  2014, some of the participants went out partying. We ended up at a new joint called Tilly's where we had a jolly good time. One thing that caught our attention was the number of young people there who were very likely in their early twenties who had no idea there was a Barcamp in town that weekend. We had struggled to get a good number of people to Takoradi Poly that day with the many of the attendees being T-Poly students and some other young people based outside the Twin Cities of Takoradi and Sekondi. We realised that entertainment was something that brought Takoradi and Sekondi together. The social and entertainment spots are areas where many youth congregate. It also is home to many top artistes like Paapa Yankson , Gyedu Blay Ambulley and the Fanti Rap Van Damme , +pappy Kojo . so for this year's Barcamp Takoradi , the theme centers on Development through Entertainment and Entrepreneurship . Exciting, innit? This Barcamp is comin...

Living in the USA for 10 years, I became quite used to paying for many goods and services online. I’ve been living in Ghana for 4 years now and I’ve become used to not doing so. Spending cash has become part and parcel of my lifestyle that I’ve become numb to the conveniences of online transactions, in Ghana. I’ve not had as many opportunities to transact online, fair enough. I’m not as worried about online payment security because I believe I can spot an insecure transaction if I saw one. Many others can’t and trust in online payments bedevils the e-commerce industry here. It will take time, but Canaan couldn’t reach here faster. There’ve been many local innovations around the online transaction problem but I’ve found most of them too cumbersome. At Rancard , I worked on our payment gateway- PayApp , and one of our biggest features was to ensure quick steps to completing payment. In this current environment, many people forget passwords so giving them a familiar way to log in is...

The very first time I visited Tamale was when we had the first  +Barcamp Tamale  in 2011. We drove in a convoy of 2 cars, it was such a great journey. I went with my brother  +Kofi Ulzen-Appiah ,  +Mac-Jordan Degadjor ,  +Jojoo Imbeah ,  +Ali Bukari Maiga ,  +Carl Nutsugah ,  +Allswell Abbey  and  +Fiifi Baidoo . The then version of  +Google Developer Groups  in Tamale was instrumental in organizing the event. Awesome people like  +Ken Kubuga   +Stephen Agbenyo  and co were involved. This Saturday, the 5th Barcamp Tamale happens. Over the years, I've seen the tech and entrepreneurial community in Tamale grow and various people within it take on bigger responsibilities and projects and thrive. And this community is so networked and supportive of each other. Our  +GhanaThink Foundation  impact in Tamale has been great. I'm proud of what we've done. I will not be at Barcamp Tamale 2015 as I have to...

Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at the National Science and Maths quiz  competition. This year, as part of the contests, Primetime, which organizes the  National Science and Mathz quiz  on TV, introduced a section where various people speak before the contests to motivate the Ghanaian senior high schools students as well as others present.  +Bubune Adih  who was part of the victorious Mfantsipim squad of 1999, spoke.  +Nana Awere Damoah  also spoke. The quizmistress  +Elsie Effah Kaufmann , who is a lecturer of the University of Ghana Legon, also took out some time to speak about her experiences. I was the last person in the series of speakers, speaking just before the semi-finals happened on July 2, 2015. Interestingly, Presec, my alma mater, competed in the first semi-final. I was there at the R.S. Amegashie auditorium to watch  Presec   compete . Unfortunately, we lost to Adisadel that day , who in turn lost out on th...

A friend +Nathan Kwadade  shared an  article  about the Top 15 National Science and Maths Quiz contestants with me earlier after this year's  National Science and Maths Quiz  (NSMQ) had ended. I  posted  it on Facebook and it generated a whole lot of chatter. Many people posted comments talking about other favorite contestants. Some came to share their credentials too. The comments on this Facebook  post actually drove me to write this blog post. Because you can find this blog post better than my Facebook post when you google the info you are looking for. There. You're welcome :-) Hisham Idris started us off with " Where is Bubune Adih of Mfsantsipim? He's arguably the most prominent contestant the show has seen. " It's hard to argue with him.  +Bubune Adih  actually participated in the NSMQ this year, not as a contestant, but as a speaker. He also donated GHC2000 to the best contestant for this year. Not doing badly at ...