The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

“Imagine you have gone to your favorite bar in Ghana with a few friends, amidst a lot of people you do not know. It is like you have camped at a bar. You would have conversations that matter to you. Now, remove the alcohol, the music, add a lot more groups of friends, add the strangers, networki ng, interaction and keep the good vibes . Then you have a Barcamp”. Ato Ulzen-Appiah , the director of the GhanaThink Foundation talks about how he and his fellow co-founders learnt about Barcamps, participated in one in the Googleplex in California ( Barcamp Africa 2008 ), organized the first one in Ghana and have now taken it personal, towards its vision of building a critical mass of young patriotic, passionate, positive, proactive, progressive and productive people in Ghana . A Barcamp, according to GhanaThink, is a free forum which is all about learning, sharing, networking and mentoring. The GhanaThink Foundation is a social enterprise that mobilizes and organizes talent for the prim...

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...

We call +Barcamp Accra the Father Christmas of Barcamps. It normally happens on the Saturday before Christmas but the festive season is not the main driver behind this choice. It is to cater for allowing Ghanaians from all over the world to meet, those in Ghana and in the Diaspora. The Borgas have been arriving and we can see it in the Accra traffic. Or in the dollar-cedi rate? For 2 years, Barcamp Accra has not happened, due to covid and other reasons. Barcamp Accra is back on Saturday, December 17, 2022 ! Join a network of change-makers, doers, and entrepreneurs at an event where you can learn, share, network, and be mentored . If you cannot join in person, join us via the #bcaccra hashtag on social media! Barcamp Accra 2022 is a free networking event to bring people together for a day of learning, sharing, networking and mentoring. It is happening on Saturday, December 17 at the Volta Hall Dining Hall, Legon, Accra. The theme is around Finance, Personal development and Innovati...