The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Earlier today, I was part of "A Meet-The-Leader" session with the "Oga At The Top" of OANDO, Mr. Wale Tinubu. This happened as part of events organized for Global Shapers attending SHAPE Africa and the World Economic Forum this week. Learn more about OANDO on Wikipedia . Here is a great write-up about him. Below are a few tweets I wrote while we were all picking his brain on various issues and learning and sharing. In a session with Wale Tinubu of Oando, a successful African oil and gas company from Nigeria. #shapeafrica #wefafrica — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 8, 2013 When there are pockets of excellence in Africa, it converts into powerful progress. Via Wale Tinubu of OANDO. #leadership #shapeafrica . — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 8, 2013 "Built capacity by copying what the foreign companies were doing n wouldnt sit there for them to continue doing it"- Tinubu #shapeafrica — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 8, 2013 "For my ...

Earlier, I attended a leadership panel run by Coca-Cola in conjunction with the Global Shapers Community in Cape Town. Today is also the 127th birthday of Coke! I have had maybe 3 coke cans to celebrate this. I also re-posted a blog post I wrote about Coke a number of years ago. The panel featured 3 panelists from Coca-Cola, one of which was William Egbe. There were a lot of great learnings and insights shared. I was live-tweeting some of them. And now we have a blog post :-) When you're making a decision, no matter how risky, make sure you know the potential implications and can handle them all. #wefafrica — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 8, 2013 "You can't be too special when it comes to integrity. Everyone must follow the values"- Coca-Cola leadership panel @ #WEFAfrica #shapeafrica — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 8, 2013 "Take the vision (however boring it is) & repeat it over & over again inpractical ways".- Coca-Cola leader...

Learning so much at the SHAPE Africa event happening at African Pride in Cape Town now. So I had to share some with you :-) Team best practices: Have designed & assigned responsibilities to every1 with relevant tasks (based on strengths & diversity). #shapeafrica — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 7, 2013 Team best practices: Establish & follow through with timelines for all tasks. Account for dependencies & lead time. #shapeafrica — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 7, 2013 Team best practices: Have a centralized point to store & share data & resources. Save time for looking for information. #shapeafrica . — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 7, 2013 Team best practices: Ensure constant feedback & iterations during project evolution. Use this to "Think on your feet". #shapeafrica — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 7, 2013 Team best practices: Get feedback from customers (those who support) & beneficiaries (those you support) ...

Social innovation will be very important in shaping Africa. I think we all agree we need critical thinking, creative working and entrepreneurial acting in driving progress on the continent. That must be social though, it must be done together, in groups, in organizations, in systems, in partnerships and collaboration. I am in Cape Town this week. I applied and got invited to join the World Economic Forum on Africa event this week. Before that starts on Wednesday, I am attending SHAPE Africa, which is the first gathering of Global Shapers from around the African continent. I've been in the midst of multiple awesome Africans but never have I been a group like this, on the continent itself. Interestingly, I know very few of the people attending SHAPE Africa so far. I know the Director of the Global Shapers Community, Yemi Babbington-Ashaye, from our time at MIT and also half-knew Nancy Sumari, and I later realized her husband, Luca Neghesti (of KINU) who I knew was there. Yeap. I ...

Last July, I was welcomed into the Global Shapers Hub of Accra . Interestingly, I had only heard about it a month earlier when the Accra folks were looking for additional shapers in Ghana. I wasn't too clear on what the Global Shapers were but the way I just explained it to friends of mine recently are that Global Shapers are the young people shaping their communities who are connected to the World Economic Forum . Let's pick something from the official website. " The Global Shapers Community is a network of Hubs developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, their achievement and their drive to make a contribution to their communities " Since I've been part of the Global Shapers Hub of Accra , I've gotten to share and learn from some very awesome individuals based in Accra. The curator of the hub is Nadia Zeine who runs Brand Effect (seen their signboards in Ayawaso West Wuogon?) and Other Stakeholders, amongst other thing...

After a long period of uncertainty, looking for a venue and having to change the date, Barcamp Kasoa finally came off at the ICGC Transformation Temple in Kasoa on April 27, 2013. The theme was "Making an entreprising environment for an emerging market". It was intentionally chosen as Kasoa is home to many small entreprises and businesses, has a very popular market and is emerging as a city with a fast growing population. Barcamp Kasoa was going to be the first Barcamp in Ghana this year. The Africa Works crew were there to do live streaming and will be prepared a short video about the event. There were some media reps (one from Graphic) and a media crew from Multi-TV. The event started at 10am after attendees had registered and signed-in. The numbers were not very encouraging. It couldn't be down to traffic at Kasoa since it was a Saturday morning. Most of the attendees were based in Kasoa which is great, since I personally didn't want the event to be dominate...

In line with saying "More vim" all the time, I found it prudent to learn how to say "Let's go" in many languages. #Leggo is a rallying cry for let's get things done and this is a statement that is important for groups of people everywhere. With some help from my African friends, we have a list of 23 to work with. Choose your pick! On y va! Akan: Y ɛ nk ɔ ! What you thought I wouldn't add my mother tongue? Some folks can't say what "thank you" is in their lingua francas. Such a fracas. Don't belittle this at all at all. Ga: Wote ! Many of you who know me well know I like to use the word "Chale". In local Ghanaian parlance, it's a pet name for friends. Or simply "Dude". Chalewote in Ghana also refers to slippers. So yeah, slip the slippers and say, "Chale, let's go" Ewe: Midzo ! Dzolali is also a nice thing to say. The Ketasco inspired word has a response too - "Now or Never!" Dagban...