The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

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...

Over the past weekend, I attended the 2nd Barcamp Ho event. This was also the 6th Barcamp to held in Ghana this year. Yeap, the Barcamp Ghana project has been highly visible and the GhanaThink team has been tres busy. The event happened Friday, 21st September at the Ho Polytechnic SRC Junior Common Room. A major Asogli Yam Festival was happening in Ho on the Saturday, 22nd and luckily the 21st was a holiday in Ghana - Founder's Day. This was the first ever Barcamp on a holiday or Friday and it turned out to be a great decision. "We are not allowed to talk about the problems and not offer solutions, especially solutions we can implement ourselves". Before the Barcamp started, I walked upon a heated discussion on "Free senior high school education" amongst some guys who had just finished a game of football. I had just one question for them "How are you going to solve the various problems you are talking about?" As is becoming the nature of Barcamp...

What a night I had last night! I have a lot of nights like but this one was good to write home about :-) After spending the last weekend in Africa's unofficial party capital, Kampala, I was back in Accra and ready to show my sister and a couple of friends who were in Ghana for a short time a good time. Before I proceed to tell you about last night, let me tell about my last night in Kampala , Sunday September 9. I finally found a "popping club" to enter - Ange-Mystique and they (bouncers and all) wanted to charge me to enter. But I don't pay to enter clubs so I made them know it. So I left but on my way out, I saw a couple of ladies who were coming in. I asked them which other club would be lively now (and free) so I could go there. They said Ange-Mystique was the only one. After I told them I was from out of town, one of the ladies gave me a complementary pass to enter the club. The bouncers couldn't believe it. They were like "Where did you get this?...

The first time I went to Ho was last December for Barcamp Ho. Whadyaknow? Barcamp Ho is here again. I learnt a lot about the tourism potential of the Volta region. In fact, it's passed by the Central region in terms of revenue generated in terms of tourism. That's really a big deal. So last year, it was clear, the tourism potential exists and the strengths and peculiarities of the region are there for all to see.  Click this link for pictures on Google+ and Facebook . This year at Barcamp Ho, the theme is “Youth taking charge of development”. We have to take charge of realizing that tourism potential and making many cedis for ourselves and Ghana. And we need to start this by having other Ghanaians visit the region more. Maybe get 233 people within the next year to say they climbed Mount Afadjato? The press release for Barcamp Ho 2012 is below. The event is next Friday. If you have access to Ho, join us. Let's network, share and learn. Let's visit...

I will be missing Barcamp Cape Coast as I am on a work trip to Uganda but I will surely be following proceedings from #bccapecoast. It should be a great second event in the Central region with new learnings, new networks, new stories, and new partnerships. More vim! Press release below. BarCamp Cape Coast 2012 is a free networking forum to bring people together for a day of discussion, demos and dialogue on Cape Coast, Ghana and beyond. BarCamp Cape Coast 2012 will take place on September 08, 2012 at the New Lecture Theatre at the University of Cape Coast. It follows last year’s event on November 12 where the theme was “Harnessing IT education for local innovation and tourism development”. The theme for this year is “Revolutionizing Education through Arts & Technology”. This Barcamp hopes to assemble Cape Coast stakeholders to network, build a supportive enterprising community and partner to build together. The GhanaThink Foundation , an NGO based both in Ghana and the USA, has ...

Did you know every guy in Ethiopia has my name? If you didn't know, then you don't know Ethiopia as well as you think you do. Yea, so by default, my Ethiopian alter ego is called Ato. More on this in about 3 minutes. We are talking about a country that was never colonized. The country of 13 months of sunshine. The country that uses its own calendar . Yeah, forever young, you can't beat that. The country of Haile Selassie. No, I am not a Rastafarian, amegsenalo very much. But I can tell what I am. So a fter Ayooluwaato Eze from Nigeria, Richard Nshuti Mayanja from Uganda , David Ochieng Mwangi from Kenya and Hamis Ambwene Massawe from Tanzania, I introduce to you all (Ato) Girma Goitom Gemechu, my Ethiopian alter-ego.  When I was born (in the US, more on this later), I didn't cry as much as most babies do and that took the observers by surprise. It's almost as if I was saying, "I am very happy to be here and men are not supposed to cry anyway". Tha...