The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

When I learned that I had been nominated in the STEM category of the 2025 GhanaWeb Excellence Awards , I felt both honoured and humbled. I found out when 1 of the members of #DMVKonnect (who lives in Maryland) shared it in the Whatsapp Group . Awards are always appreciated, but this one felt particularly meaningful because of the long history and reputation of GhanaWeb. The awards ceremony was held on March 6, 2026 - Ghana’s birthday no less, which I attended with my sister, Stacey aka Panyin . I did not win, I lost out to Prof Elsie Effah Kaufmann , one of the greatest Ghanaians of her generation. When I reflected on the nomination recently, I found myself looking back through years of articles, interviews, features, and conversations that have connected my work with one of Ghana's most influential media platforms . In many ways, GhanaWeb has become an archive of my professional journey. Over the years, the platform has covered different aspects of my work as a technology advoc...

India is home to arguably the biggest per capita number of competent cost-effective software engineers and techies. In April 2005, I visited India for the very first time thanks to my involvement with the World Summit Awards (WSA) . For the 2024 cycle, in an unprecedented showing, 3 of the 40 winners globally were from Ghana. They were the Achieve Investment App by Petra, Chango by IT Consortium and Khaya AI —by the Ghana NLP Project. I leveraged this visit to confirm what I knew before, learn more about India, network with folks, etc. A lot of us have heard about Bangalore , being the main IT city in a country that houses the most techies worldwide, amongst its population of 1 billion. While at MIT , I learnt about the multiple India Institute of Technology (IIT) institutions. They are amongst the most competitive academic environments in the world. I would not call you an idiot if you have not watched the 3 Idiots movie, but if you have not, go and watch it right away! The mov...

I finally got to visit India for the first time thanks to my involvement with the World Summit Awards (WSA) . For many years, I have been recommending Ghanaian startups to be nominated for the WSA. For the 2024 cycle, I joined the online jury aside from my regular contributions in nominating Ghanaian built innovations . 3 of these ended up becoming global winners, which made me really proud. For the 2024 cycle, in an unprecedented showing, 3 of the 40 winners globally were from Ghana. They were the Achieve Investment App by Petra, Chango by IT Consortium and Khaya AI —by the Ghana NLP Project. The WSA National Expert for Ghana, Dorothy Gordon, suggested that we organize a bigger delegation to India for the WSA Global Congress (in Hyderabad, Telangana), supporting these winners. Led by Dorothy, we were able to get some sponsorships to cover our flights and accommodation. The Congress was from April 6-9, 2025 . I needed to get a visa to travel to India and the WSA team alongside Dor...