The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Sometime in Q1 2025, my work colleague Richard Mawuko Duttey told me about Jobberman doing features on people around work, etc. He is a big fan of Jobberman, he pretty much got to work for Kosmos Innovation Center thanks to this African built workforce platform. I joined him one fine day to Jobberman's office, hidden somewhere in the central parts of Accra where their comms team recorded a video. I am honored to have been featured by Jobberman in their Time With The Experts series. I remember Jobberman 's early years. I was following them from the Bay Area when it was founded in August 2009 by Olalekan Olude, Ayodeji Adewunmi and Opeyemi Awoyemi in their dormitory in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife to help connect people looking for jobs with companies hiring. I was at Stanford at the time and Museke , the startup I co-founded was more than 2 years old. Many years on, Jobberman thrives and has more than 30 employees in Ghana alone. They have done well.  In this inter...

I've been an avid Google+ user for a long time now. Oh, that's an understatement. Or actually an overstatement based on you who ask. Either way, one great feature I love about Google+ is Google Hangouts . You can have a video conference for up to 10 people. You can broadcast that video conference on YouTube at the same time. Google Hangouts on Air everybody. This weekend, the  +Diaspora Camp  had one for its #AfricaDayAgric chat and it went extremely well. Its success is due to proper preparation and knowledge of the product. First, we had to create the  +Diaspora Camp  Google+ page and then link it to YouTube.  +Ali Bukari Maiga  has become a Google guru and effortlessly set this YouTube channel up. He's done so for countless  +GhanaThink Foundation  Google+ accounts now. He's also live streamed many events now - from  +Barcamp Tema  to  +Springboard Road Show Foundation  to  +Global Shapers Accra 's Accra Discourse. ...

The  +GhanaThink Foundation  was born through the activity of Ghanaians in the Diaspora. Since the  +Barcamp Ghana  movement took off in earnest in Ghana, most of GhanaThink's engagement has been in Ghana. The very second Barcamp done by our group was Barcamp Diaspora in DC in July 2009.  +Diaspora Camp  DC followed in July 2010 and that has been the last one. We're seeking to reignite Diaspora based activity. Yesterday's  +Diaspora Camp  Africa Day Google Hangout about Agriculture and Youth is a step. It proved to be quite successful too. The #AfricaDayAgric chat was organized to celebrate Africa Day which falls on May 25, the day the African Union (formerly the Organization of African Unity) was born in 1963. The theme for this AU celebration is around Agriculture as 2014 has been declared the Year of Agriculture and Food Security in Africa. This Google Hangout on Air ( broadcast on Youtube ) was the first of the new online engagement seri...

I've known Naa Oyoo Quartey for more than a year now. She's phenomenal. I remember one time, we organized a session at her church (ICGC) in Osu on social media use. We pretty much winged it but it was also a lot of fun sharing and learning about how to use social media in more productive ways. We didn't have to look far for case studies. @Ganyobinaa , as she's known on Twitter, had a good chunk of them. Last month, Ghana's  Ministry of Trade and Industry  and Google Ghana launched a new initiative called Innovation Ghana. Innovation Ghana is meant "to celebrate our homegrown innovators and discuss what is needed to bring Ghana to the fore of innovation and entrepreneurship." A number of Ghanaian-made businesses (and their founders) were awarded as Innovation Heroes. Naa's Roots By Naa was an awardee . See this great video that was made to tell her story. Naa is a favorite of Google Ghana. She embraced the "Africa, Get Your Business Online...

It's been 5 years since Miriam Zenzile Makeba aka Mama Africa died. Miriam was probably one of the most popular African musicians ever. When she passed away, I wrote a blog post for Museke. She had died singing, as her demise came shortly after she had been rushed to the hospital while doing what she does best in Italy. She was the Empress of African Song and a pioneer of African Music. She was affectionately called "Mama Africa". Google is honouring the late Miriam Makeba on her birthday with a Doodle. My friend Tumi saw it much earlier than me as she is in China at the moment. Since I've hit Monday (#MusicMonday) here in Accra, I can to. You can see it on Google.com today. Miriam Makeba was once issued a Ghanaian international passport. Her music traveled far and wide. My favorite Miriam Makeba song has to be the Click Song - Qongqothwane. The song is just so cool, informative, educative, entertaining, soulistic, younameit. The popularity of her Malaika r...

The picture above has been making the rounds in my Facebook circles. Suggestions that Google gives for a "Ghana is" search won't make Ghanaians happy. Folks have been asking me (as a resident Google guy) how this could happen. Google doesn't make this happen. People who are Googling make this happen. But why are they typing the above? And apart from why, why are so many people typing the above? Oh wait, Ghana's population and the population of those who will say great things about Ghana doesn't seem to be that big. I mean really, what does Ghana have to do? Win the World Cup? Discover the cure for AIDS? Export many pastors to many countries? Because we sure don't want to make the headlines through war and tragedy. You would have thought eliminating the US from two consecutive World Cups would do something. Yeah, I just had to go there :-) The Google search is happening because of what people perceive Ghana to be. We can help solve this problem. If yo...

GH Developers, Programmers and coders? Where you dey? Come show the world what you fit build. Hello Ghanaian developers! After the successful Hackathons in South Africa and Kenya which saw some amazing applications built, we want to continue spreading the love! A hackathon is an event when programmers meet to do collaborative computer programming. Hackathons focus on either a technology tool/product or a topic to collaboratively build programs and applications. Hackathons are typically between a few hours and multiple days. There will be a one full day Google+ API Hackathon with the support of the Google Technology User Group (GTUGs) in Accra (Ghana). If you are ready to wow us with your application, please apply for the event using this form: Accra for the event on the March 21 from 9 to 6 pm at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST). The deadline to sign-up is March 3! Remember to start today on getting those creative juices flowing! Familiarize yourself w...

What is vim? Learn about it here . Today is Ghana's Republic Day . Happy Republic Day to all Ghanaians. I took the opportunity to announce a piece of news I have been holding back a while. Besides, I've been meaning to blog (about something) but for some reason, the vim to do so hasn't been there. This blog post was coming though. July 1 is just a nice date lol. I have become a very "online" person, so it made some sense to use online media to make this announcement . Obviously, I had told my family, close friends, neighbours and others who I just had to tell the news already. So, this is how it all went down, with the following info filtering in through tweets, facebook and google buzz posts. For the past 10 years, my address has always been a US one. First Syracuse, then to Cambridge (MIT) and then to Stanford. It's time to change that . In fact, I bought a one-way to come to the US after high school in Presec with the goal of going to MIT, the "best en...

I love incubators and the many other programs out there geared towards launching small to medium scale enterprises. There are bunch in Africa, including the MEST incubator I've blogged about and the BusyLabs one I will blog about at some point. They are both in Accra. Saw info about Google launching a Tech incubator in South Africa called Umbono. Learn more about at this website . Their website says --- Have a great tech idea? The Umbono program will help transform your vision into a business. Your idea – probably web or mobile deployed – is exciting on many levels: for your future users, potential investors, and for the people on your team building it. Funding $25k to $50k seed capital, so that your team can focus on developing your idea. Space Free collaborative work space and bandwidth in Cape Town. Business 101 A full curriculum to help with business strategy and planning. You decide which sk...

Hopefully, you know this already, but Google is doing stuff in Ghana. Last year, they organized their first conference there called G-Ghana . If you missed it, not to worry, I blogged about it. Click here . I wasn't even there, but with Twitter and hashtags like #gghana , who said I needed to be? 2011's G-Ghana is coming up soon. Before I give you details, let me give you a few reasons why you should attend it. At least you know that there is www.google.com.gh . Yeap, Google's Ghana version. Tired of Ghanaweb? Try out http://news.google.com.gh . Google's Ghana homepage also offers search in Twi , Ewe , Ga and Hausa . And on March 6th, it celebrated Ghana's 54th by adorning the google.com doodle in Kente Looking for directions from Auntie Muni Waakye in Labone to Katawodieso in Osu because the former run out of waakye ? Map it in Google . I be fienipa like that, I dey love nududu . For those in Ghana who use GMAIL , you can use it to text messages to local phone ...

I received some invites from a couple of people to test out Google's Baraza earlier. Just recently, Google Baraza was launched in different places in Africa. Baraza, which means ‘taskforce’ or ‘council’ in Swahili, is a newly launched question and answer service that will also be integrated into search results on Google Search. From the earlier notice One of Google’s goals in Africa is to make the internet more locally relevant and bring more people online. One of the challenges of the internet in Africa is that there is a lack of local content online. At Google, we find that users search for information about local businesses, entertainment, health, etc but often don’t find it because the information is not yet available online. In order to help bring more local content online, Google engineers have created Baraza to allow people in countries across Africa to ask questions and post answers to questions from others. If you have any questions about Africa, go and ask it through Bara...

My friend Paa Kwesi Imbeah sent me this link just now. When I opened it and saw it, I had to blog it. It was directions on Google Maps from from: 10th Street, Accra (Buka Restaurant) to: Kotoka International Airport, Box Ka PMB 36, Kotoka International Airport, Accra (Dgaa). Awesome huh? View Larger Map See the directions themselves It gives suggested routes sef! Giffard Rd - 7.2 km 16 mins Liberation Rd and Giffard Rd - 8.2 km 16 mins Josiah Tongogari St - 7.9 km 18 mins From Buka Restaurant, 10th Street, Accra 1. Head northwest on 10th St toward 3rd St - 71 m 2. Take the 1st right onto 3rd St - 300 m 3. Turn right at Ring Rd E - 140 m 4. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto Cantoment Rd - 1.2 km 5. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Cantonments Rd - 600 m 6. Turn left at Second Circular Rd - 900 m 7. Take the 2nd right onto Giffard Rd - 1.5 km 8. Turn left - 350 m 9. Slight left toward Burma Camp Main Rd - 1.3 km 10. Slight left at Burma Camp Main Rd - 750 m To Dgaa K...

I missed the G-Ghana - Google event/conference in Ghana . Of course, I wasn't in Ghana but I also missed taking part through Twitter. Bummer. But that's why I follow some awesome people on Twitter who were going to keep me informed anyway. And because you follow my blog and happen to chance upon my blog through various means, Facebook and even Google itself, you can be a part of G-Ghana. I have some awesome tweets about G-Ghana #GGhana. Now one thing Twitter needs to do is figure out a way to show the timeline from earliest tweet down to the latest tweet. Wow, isn't that an idea? Sadly, someone is gonna come see this and make money of it. Eureka! I just had an epiphany. I should stop blogging, because people will read my thoughts, have eureka moments and go make money of it before I can even say "'the'; thetime is now". Sigh. But hey, we want to see great things happen for the betterment of mankind. I want to see things happen for the betterment of my pock...