The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Ever since the year 2003, I have  seen  people say I would be the president of Ghana . They must have seen something in me . Some have been saying #Ato4President  for a long time . But that's not the point of this post so we won't get into that. I would rather have people say I am (not I would be) a great leader . I don't think I am a really great leader ( which is what we need to see ) but I am trying and would love to be known as one of the best leaders of all time . The same way Alex Ferguson is one of the greatest managers of all time. Beyonce is one of the greatest singers of all time. Tim Duncan is one of the best basketball players of all time. Oprah is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. The late  Nelson Mandela is one of the greatest leaders of all time. Catch my drift? I have blogged about (my) leading into leadership at KNUST-JSS , Presec , Syracuse ,  MIT , etc. Where am I today? Let's see. One fine day in ...

It is never too early to do a curriculum vitae as a friend told me recently, even at age 13 (which is how old you have to be to have a Twitter and a Facebook account :-D. I did my first one using my experiences in Presec while I was applying to MIT for undergraduate study, in a unsuspecting way. We discussed CVs in the 10 Jobcamps that we  GhanaThink Foundation   organized in  May 2018 , one in each regional capital. May 1st is May Day and we have since crowned May as the workers' month. These networking forums were funded by  STAR-Ghana . We had several great discussions about unemployment, underemployment, gainful employment and entrepreneurship in  Accra ,   Koforidua ,  HoCity ,  Kumasi ,  Sunyani ,  Wa ,  Tamale ,  Bolgatanga ,  Cape Coast  and  Takoradi . These CV discussions have also occurred in Whatsapp groups, which have become extremely popular in Ghana and in Africa. I share some of my major th...

In May 2018, the  GhanaThink Foundation  ( of which I lead )  organized 10 forums on solving unemployment in Ghana , one in each regional capital. May 1st is May Day and we have since crowned May as the workers' month. These events were called Jobcamps and were funded by STAR-Ghana . We had several great discussions about unemployment, underemployment, gainful employment and entrepreneurship in  Accra ,   Koforidua ,  HoCity ,  Kumasi ,  Sunyani ,  Wa ,  Tamale ,  Bolgatanga ,  Cape Coast  and  Takoradi . A lot of the discussions were on certificates. Such discussions have also occurred in Whatsapp groups, which have become extremely popular in Ghana and in Africa - and where I think Google & Facebook groups should get to so far as discussions. I share some of my major thoughts below. We at  GhanaThink  have had several instances where Ghanaian youth have told us they would not come to our Barc...

We called it the GhanaThink Foundation because we thought (and would continue to think) about Ghana. It's been more than 12 years since GhanaThink was born. It's also been a while since I did a blog post, or even wrote a piece for this #mightyafrican blog . Today is a great day to break that duck. Ghana is 60 years old ! We are celebrating, marking, reminiscing, criticizing, strategizing, thinking and doing.  I love #Ghana so much. It's great to mark #Ghana60YearsOn . #Morevim 4 all that we do. #GhanaAt60 : Less talk, more action. More vim to that. pic.twitter.com/oy793QMr8X — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) March 6, 2017 To be frank, I am not as excited about Ghana, mostly because of our growth pace, development we can fell in around us and in our pockets and the politics and antics I've seen that are hurting Ghana and don't seem to be abating. However, I have always been excited about Ghana. More than 10 years ago, I decided to stop bothering and focusi...

Yesterday, I gave a talk at TEDxOsu on "Envisioning the Use of Technology for Social Change". This was my third one. I first gave a TEDxTalk at TEDxAccra 2012 about ‎"Why I do what I do and why I am so 233% passionate about Ghana and Africa". Not to worry, a blog post about this will come soon (I'm still looking for a video :-D). The next one was at TEDxKNUST where I talked about "Converting passion into opportunity and business". That was a story about Museke. This time, I talked a little more about the GhanaThink Foundation . For my talk, I decided to touch on different technology and internet trends from yesteryears to today. I started out talking about the story of the GhanaConscious MSN group - made up of mostly Ghanaian students in the US and UK who were homesick. These type social groups were nodes for people to come together via technology. This GhanaConscious group (circa 2002) featured conversations around 'where to get waakye over...

' Sinking Sands ' follows ' I Sing Of A Well ' (ISOAW), from the stable of director, Leila Djansi from Ghana. I had been really excited about this movie with the casting of Haiti's Jimmy Jean-Louis and Ama Abrebrese. After watching Sinking Sands, I had one word. Unique. It was unlike any Ghanaian movie I had ever seen. And that's the major reason why you should see it. I already wrote a movie review but in this post , I want to talk about some of the issues the movie raises. The movie also reminds me of a great blog post my friend wrote about relationships. How much of one's dreams and wants must one sacrifice to be in a serious relationship? Do we lose ourselves by becoming 'attached'? Do we have to sacrifice our own happiness and does happiness take a new meaning? Do partners take out their frustrations (whether borne from inside the home or out of it) on each other? Obviously, they share the good times as well. Does the Ghanaian society consider ...