The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

When I started using the internet a lot in 2001, I kept hearing about bridging the digital divide. The internet boom and dotcom bust had happened in the US, and for us in Ghana, we were struggling with access to the internet and having to deal with the few internet cafes at their expensive costs. A decade after, we had made a lot of ground with internet access and digital participation thanks to mobile phones. Thanks to my work around GhanaThink and my work at Google, I knew and worked well several digital champions in Africa, building web and mobile apps, etc. The next frontier we had to cross was the digital divide between men and women. A lot of strides have been made, but there is a lot more that can be done. In 2013, I was a Product and Project Manager at Rancard, a major tech company in Ghana that had multinational clients and served customers all over Africa. I worked with lots of engineers on recommendation, payment, communication and content management web and mobile apps. We ...

Am I marriage counsellor? No. Hehe. The  Konnect Kouch  is a version of hot seat  in Konnect Groups for its members (run by the  GhanaThink Foundation . We normally ask a lot of questions to the kouchee, some are quite personal. I have leveraged some Q&A from being on the #GhanaThink & then #SunyaniKonnect kouches to talk about some thoughts I have about dating, marriage, etc.  Mildred Adeaba is the Barcamp Accra Resources Lead. I first got to know her through Barcamp Takoradi . She has become #ModeratorMildred . She asked the 2.33 million cedi question on Konnect Kouches : Are you single, dating or married? If you are dating or married, how did you meet your partner? What do you look for in a partner to date? Here's what I typed. I'm married to Tracy Ulzen-Appiah (nee Asare). We got married on my birthday, December 31, 2016. I met her on July 24, 2009 through my cousin Jamie somewhere in Maryland (aka Maryland). Not Virginia o (Virgin land)  I ...

I love watching African movies. Sometimes when people introduce themselves in Konnect Groups (run by GhanaThink) and say that they like movies, I ask them about their favorite Ghanaian or African movies. I saw some billboards for the PAWN movie by Lynx Entertainment and Tigon Creative Studios, and I said to myself that this movie would break my cinema going duck. 100 is more affordable than what I thought the Silverbird Cinema ticket price would be after some horror stories friends shared on WhatsApp. So 1 fine Saturday, after attending a family related funeral with my sister Stacy and her kids, I decided to head to the Accra Mall to watch PAWN. How did you read that?  🤣 Get your mind out of the gutter and read this blog post, so that I can convince you to also go and watch PAWN. I did not watch the trailer before going to watch this movie. It actually did not occur to me. So I entered the cinema after getting my ticket with no expectations. I expected great music because of Richi...

I have been working in the tech and digital ecosystem since 2008 in Ghana, thanks to the very first Barcamp in Ghana in December 2008. I yearned for fast, convenient payments in Ghana. I finally found it in 2015 through expressPay . Before this, many people in Ghana complained about Ghanaian built apps that did not work well and were buggy. expressPay came to put paid to that notion. It was not difficult to trust expressPay from day one. It was founded by some MIT Ghanaian buddies of mine including Curtis Vanderpuije , (Visa), Kodjo Hesse (Merrill Lynch) and William Tetteh . It has been awesome seeing its growth in Ghana. I marveled at the simplicity of the service. Paying has and is still simple. With only a few taps on my phone, I select my VISA card (which is tokenized for security) and I am done paying. Best of all, the service is delivered in real time. There are hardly many avenues, trusted that is which also have volumes using these services, to buy and pay online. I have u...

Volunteerism is the heart of community development. This is what GhanaThink Foundation has believed since the success of the first National Volunteer Day - NVDay in 2013. NVDay was instituted to encourage many people in Ghana to volunteer , make an impact in our communities, help solve problems in ways we could, and help people. In this last decade plus, thousands of people in Ghana have volunteered to benefit tens of thousands in Ghana. On December 5, 2013, the Ghana Volunteer Program program (GVP) was created by GhanaThink to run National Volunteer Day and match volunteers to volunteer opportunities. Kofi Larbi, currently, leads the Ghana Volunteer Program. He stated: “ National Volunteer Day has been set aside by GhanaThink on September 21 , since 2013 for volunteer activities throughout the country through our networks”. These volunteer activities have included painting school initiatives, sending teachers to teach particular skills in schools, clean up campaigns, blood donati...

In line with listening to more gospel music in general in 2024, I tuned in to Trace Gospel on Sunday, September 15, 2024. They played a long list of Joe Mettle songs. Great stuff. Great gospel music. Inspirational inside. Positivity. It made me think about gospel songs that especially have positive vibes, and vim. Just like the other #MusicWeDeyFeel   Starting Eleven , I have formed another team. This time, let's play the common winning formation, 4-3-3.  Lean On Me (1998) Kirk Franklin (USA) Goalkeeper, Number 1 I am here. You don't have to worry. I can see. I can see your tears. Your tears. I'll be there in a hurry when you call. Yes I will. Friends are there to catch you when you fall. Here's my shoulder. Here's my shoulder, you can lean on me We need a very reliable goalkeeper to lean on. I really love the  movie of the same name . Yes, the one with Morgan Freeman. The man many says is God in the movies. I had seen this movie on TV in Ghana. Miraculous saves....

In December 2023, I started blogging about some of my favorite musicians. I created a tournament squad of 23 musicians . There are some songs I really like, some of which are not by these 23. They are positive songs. Songs that drive me, make me feel good, ambitious, proactive, productive, in my element, etc. I present to you - this eleven songs that can take any football field and win any game!  We are playing a 4-4-2 formation. I am old school but a millenial. I am not Gen Z. The second striker is the maestro like Abedi Pele.  The Man Aloe Blacc (USA) Goalkeeper, Number 1 Stand up now and face the sun Won't hide my tail or turn and run It's time to do what must be done Be a king when kingdom comes Well you can tell everybody Yeah you can tell everybody Go ahead and tell everybody I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man Yes I am, yes I am, yes I am Aloe Blacc. I had to google his name to see what it means. His birth name is Nathaniel. He calls himself Aloe because h...