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 ...

In the recent beautiful Ghana Weekly Tech Roundup sent recently by +Claude Ayitey , he added that the  WAZIUP Internet of Things Project Launches In Accra .  +iSpace Foundation  is part of a number of organizations working on this cool WAZIUP "Internet of Things (IoT)" project, centered around agriculture.  He also added that  Vodafone M2M Is Now Vodafone Internet of Thing s , but you know of that because I blogged about that already. So I started wondering, how are Ghanaian organizations using IoT? Yes, we are. #Morevim to us! Photo by Kwamena Bolton I've known about Herman Chinery-Hesse , the Bill Gates of Africa , for a long time. I love how he and his team at SoftTribe , arguably the largest software development company in Ghana, focuses on developing tropically tolerant solutions for this environment.  Kwamena Bolton , the technical director of SoftTribe said that they have over the last few yea...

Thanks to technology services, there is a lot of data about users and uses cases, which allow organizations to be smarter and technology to work even better. In addition to this value in data explosion, there is enormous growth in intelligent use of the data. Platforms must orchestrate the data in hand to deliver value. They have to help users shift out the requisite information out of the chaff they see. The attention span of users and subscribers for that matter is very minimal, and so they need to be served with relevant information and data they need quickly and conveniently. We celebrate our mobile phone penetration in Ghana (35 million subscriptions for a nation of 25 million people), We have multiple devices connecting us for communication, but there is a wide range of other connected devices. By 2025, there would be 9 billion connected devices. Ghanaians must be part and parcel of those numbers with a lot of IOT use.  There has been very small uptake with mobile applic...

Photo from http://tblocks.com/ The internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, vehicles and buildings and other items embedded with electronics, software, network connectivity, etc - that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. That's what Wikipedia says. With IoT, internet connectivity is extended beyond computers, tablets and phones to a whole wide of range of devices and use cases that will really blow your mind. The 4th Industrial Revolution is here ! That means we need great #internet4all as well. Various companies around the world use Internet Of Things to manage fleet while monitoring mileage and even engine health. IoT is useful in monitoring parking spaces availability in city congested areas. Even Diageo is joining fun whereby messages are sent out when a Johnny Walker bottle is opened! IoT can also be used in payment processing based in location or activity duration for public transport, gyms, theme parks, etc. It can be also use...

Many telecommunication companies around the world have been at the forefront of scaling innovation. Thanks to their huge subscription bases and financial muscle, they are also some of the best organizations to drive this. Due of user churn amongst other reasons, these telcos spend a lot of money on marketing as well. As companies that adopt technology and in many ways stay on top of trends, they also promote a lot of innovation in their marketplace. Vodafone Ghana is priming to continue this in Ghana and be a market leader.  It is in this light, that they are promoting the internet of things (IoT). Vodafone Ghana organized a workshop recently at the Labadi Beach Hotel on June 27, 2016 to educate Ghanaians more on IoT. In attendance were many Ghanaian content and web developers. What is IoT ? It is seen as an amalgation of IT & OT. IT is about people talking to people, while OT is about machines talking to machines.   IoT is about machines and objects talking to machi...

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. ...

So, I found out a way to find my very early early tweets :-) I started tweeting in October 2008. I wanted to share some selected tweets from 2008 with you. In a blog post. We need a new leadership for Ghana to do smtn it has not done b4. We need smtn different. — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) October 29, 2008 I've been tweeting messages like from very early on. Always would use platform to carry messages like this. Especially if they can get retweeted :-) Yes, we can. But we are not done yet. Congratulations, President Barack Obama — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) November 5, 2008 I was quite obsessed with Barack Obama before. Can you blame me? He reminded me of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Why were we not done yet? Can you sit there and say we're done now? 5 years later? Okay. so my team won Stanford's Trivia Afrique, feels good to win something at least, am pretty good with ze African trivia — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) November 8, 2008 I took to Twitter to celebra...

Yesterday, my friend  @EdemT alerted me about this tweet. The 7 Most Important Moments in Twitter History http://t.co/OSmZgfUrJs --> look @Abocco , seems like #barcamp was the 1st hashtag used — Edem Oyinkansola T (@EdemT) November 7, 2013 She was talking about this tweet. how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]? — Chris Messina™ (@chrismessina) August 23, 2007 What do you know? The first use of a hashtag was #barcamp. No, I wasn't by me (as you can see above). If you've bothered to check, you'd realise we didn't start Barcamps. They were running around the world before we started barcampghana and eventually took it personal. Interestingly, I started actively using Twitter at the very first Barcamp I attended - Barcamp Africa at the Googleplex in Mountain View on October 11, 2008. Yeap. Barcamp Africa remains one of top three conferences I've attended. I even tweeted in reference to this in November 2008. I rea...

Twitter went public this week . As in, they priced their IPO, at $26 a share too. A day later, it became evident that they underestimated their worth. Hey, many people underestimated Twitter too when it first came out. It took a while to grow quickly, it was helped by a couple of events, first at South by SouthWest Interactive conference . Turns out they had Twitter on screens at the conference. More on this in a later blog post. Congrats to Twitter, it has replaced Facebook as my social network of choice. Like 2.33 years ago. Twitter has mattered in many lives, especially mine, for a long time. The first time I really saw Twitter in action a lot was when I attended Barcamp Africa at the Googleplex in Mountain View on October 11, 2008. So right after the event, after seeing the power of what it could do, I created my Twitter account and tweeted this. I just had to go look for my first tweet and tweets :-) excited to join the twitter community! — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) Octobe...

It's a glaring fact that African women are not as much involved in the tech space as much as their male counterparts. In this #VimTechList , I'd like to recognize some African women who are doing a lot to drum up interest in technology locally and elsewhere on the continent. They are developers, content creators, and thought leaders. These are a few I know about. Let me say I am disappointed in myself that there's no one in this list from Lusophone Africa. I need that Angola trip. Anyway, on to the people who must be celebrated. Tech Needs Girls in Africa. And it's just because we want more women at tech events in Africa. We need to embrace & create more technological solutions on the continent. We need influential women across the board. Here are the bubbling  +Ory Okolloh s,  +Estelle Akofio-Sowah s, and  +Nnenna Nwakanma s. Doris Anson-Yevu - Ghana : I've known  +Doris Anson-Yevu  for a long time, I am not sure I remember where and how I met her. Sh...

It's been a long time since I did regular posts on things related to technology. Thanks to a recent Facebook post and some comments from friends, I am expecting to birth a series. We're calling it the "Vim Tech List". Yup, it has a hashtag too #VimTechList . You know what Vim is already from regularly reading this blog or from here. Tech is tech, list is list. For the first instalment, I want to delve into games. I'd list 5 great games you can get from the Google Play Store which are all built by Africans. Say #morevim to that. I've always used an Android phone since December 2010. Once I joined Google, I became more interested in using apps that were African. Thankfully, the Android Developer Challenge  (ADC) was concluding and many great African Android apps had been built. The Android Africa Challenge  (AAC), led by tech community leaders on the continent, also followed. When I got my recent Nexus 4, I wanted to download even more new African Android a...

Before I begin to share this excellent news, big ups to Kasahorow ! It's a project that came out of the GhanaThink Foundation that is doing big things! Earlier today, I was looking to type something in Twi on my phone so I needed ɛ and ɔ characters so I proceeded to Nyamfowa.com to copy them and use. And then it dawned on me, the Kasahorow folks were working on a keyboard to allow typing these Ghanaian characters on Android. So I emailed Henry and Paa Kwesi and Henry came back with a solution he'd worked on. I went through the instructions and now I am whatsapping away in Twi! Dɛɛdɛw! So, this is how you can enjoy what I am enjoying at the moment! Go to this link and read about the actual project on Github . Do you see Eyedol? Yup, isn't Henry an idol for making this happiness happen? Step 1. You need to install the AnySoftKeyboard app on Google Play as this Ghanaian language pack depends on it to run. It is an extension to the AnySoftKeyboard Android app. Go to...

Before 2012, a lot of Ghana's digital natives had been discussing the use of social media and technology for Ghana's election in 2012. Some came together and decided that the central message will be "Ghana Decides". Kenyadecides had happened, and Ghana Decides had a great ring to it. Ghana was going to decide a new president, parliament and government. For me, I had hoped that wasn't all we were going to decide but let's save that discussion for another day. A GhanaDecides hashtag was born. But like I said yesterday at TEDxOsu, campaigns succeed even better when there is a team driving it. Enter the GhanaDecides team. The GhanaDecides team was born out of an election project by the Blogging Association of Ghana - Blogging Ghana. They received funding from STAR-Ghana and put the money to great use, alongside the social media, organizational and other type of skills that the team had. They supported various Barcamp Ghana events in 2012 and used the platfor...

I was quite late to the Fashionista GH party. It must be because I am not so much into the fashion space. I do remember that when I asked some of my Global Shaper friends that night in Cape Town about choosing "one word" to describe me, one person called me a Fashionista. Because I always wore African shirt <- Fashion. Well, FashionistaGH is pushing African shirts and dresses and etc, and fashion. And they are leveraging the power of the internet. 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." Fashionista GH was  one of Innovation Heros awarded . Let's learn more about FashionistaGH . I've met OB Abenser and Guud Kelly a number of times since that Google+ Hub, a lot of fashion events or events that have brought out th...