The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

I've blogged a bunch of times about Eyram Akofa Tawia and Leti Games, the first true African games company. Living an African success story - Eyram Akofa Tawia Leti Games unveils iWarrior (iPhone App) & Kijiji (J2Me) Leti Games - building computer games in Africa Here is a blog post about LEFA Soccerstar, the latest from the Leti Games stable. More info coming The Leti Games development team is an African team of game developers... currently, we focus on casual and mobile games - LEFA Soccerstar is one such game, but it's definitely not casual. The game puts you in the driving seat of 4 characters, we call 'em Avatars. Each avatar represents a role in soccer: Goalie, Defender, Midfielder, Striker Your task, as a player is to develop each avatar, try and get them into a team... You can play in a Street team, which is unofficial, dog eat dog and chocked full of goodies, or decide to go one step further, and go pro You can play LEFA Soccerstar on your web Browser or by pho...

Earlier this year, I blogged about my friend, Eyram Tawia's work on Leti Games . Together with Wesley Kirinya, from Kenya, they've launched a couple of games produced in Africa. The major one is iWarrior which is receiving a lot of buzz and is an iPhone app (game). So if you have an iPhone, pick up the app today from the Apple appstore and support African-made. I haven't been able to play the game yet but from what I hear, it's a lot of fun. What else do you want in a game? And it's an African-made too :-) I've already blogged about Eyram Tawia and his work on Leti Games. I am excited for both these guys. We had tried working on a computer game for the African Cup of Nations in Ghana in 2008. Through my working experience with them, I knew they would go on to do bigger and better things and are quite capable of competing worldwide. Eyram had already proven his mettle by winning GhanaThink's Programming Contest while a final-year student at the Kwame Nkru...

"No long thing, just blog it Ato." Want to learn about Leti Games ? read this old blog post . They've come far, I will attempt to update you all in due time. You can stay up to date through  +Nana Kwabena Owusu 's great work at .  +Leti Games  is now +Leti Arts .  But in the mean time, in between time, as  +Eyram Tawia   sits at the YFM studios being interviewed on  +Mpwr  show on 107.9 FM now, learn more about the True Ananse story which is being scripted and born. What you know about Ananse is about to be refreshed, changed and innovated (forgive my English but you know what I mean right?) Right. Right to it ----->  Thrilled to announce that you can experience the first issue of The True Ananse RIGHT NOW on Android and Java phones! The comic will soon be available on Windows, iOS, and the Nokia Ovi store. For Android phones: 1) Download the FREE  Leti   Center  app from the Google Play store 2) The  +...

I don't remember when exactly I got my first computer game. I was young and it was a Nintendo. It was the thing to have as a young boy. After school (from about class 4/4th grade till about the end of JSS/middle school), setting up shop in front of the TV playing Mario, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat was the 'joie de vivre'. The funniest part was how we'll simulate jumping if the game character was jumping; kicking, screaming, punching, you name it. Around the same time, when most of us youngsters were looking out for the thrills of puberty,focusing on passing exams, getting the newest gadgets and attending all the birthday parties, Eyram Akofa Tawia was busy learning computer programming. Visual Basic to be precise. This is 1997 and 1998 in a pre-internet cafe Ghana. There's only one way this story could end. Today, Eyram (or Wuzu as his close friends know him), has started his own computer game company called Leti Games with backing capital. Wuzu meant the ...

I have written one two many times about Eyram Akofa Tawia and  Leti Games   Since the last time I did, Eyram has added a full blown comics section to his business and Leti Comics has been born. His team has worked on an idea of African Superheroes, which will eventually churn a league of legends. The first superhero to be unleashed will be Kweku Ananse, via a game and then a comic series. I personally feel the tech industry in Ghana is crying for people to document content that exists locally and package it for modern use. This Leti Games venture is a prime example. 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." A number of Ghanaian-made businesses (and their founders) were awarded as Innovation Heroes. I think it's really awesome that m...

I've blogged about my longtime Eyram Akofa Tawia several times. You can read some of the blogs here. Living An African Success Story . Leti Games - building computer games in Africa . Leti Games named amongst Ghana's Innovation Heroes . Leti Games unveils iWarrior (iPhone App) & Kijiji (J2Me) . I helped inspire +Eyram Tawia  to write a book! Yes, a whole book! It has been published and it is being launched on Friday. Yes, this Friday. One of these blog posts is in the book. So you have to get the book :-) You'd hear Eyram and the  +Mighty African  himself on the  +Citi97.3FM  Business Edition with  +Benkoku Avle  tomorrow on the Citi Breakfast Show. You can't miss the book launch at  +Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology  on Friday @ 6pm . Eyram has touched many people, at +Barcamp Ghana  like Barcamp Ho and  +Junior Camp Ghana  events like Junior Camp Ketasco ! You can order the book via this li...

Today at the #MomoAccra end-of-year party at +233 Jazz Bar & Grill,  +Nana Fosu  directed me, the host, to talk through some major developments that happened on the tech scene in Ghana. Lovely idea. A chance to celebrate accolades chalked, accomplishments met and good news lived. I haven't been as present on the tech scene in Ghana due to work commitments at  +Rancard  but I've followed many of what has happened. I led the discussion to bring out many things that happened in Ghana's tech industry this year. There's more to come, with an eye on the over-subscribed  +Barcamp Accra  happening on December 23rd at the World Bank office , but let's recap some of what has happened in this year. The Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Ghana (WASPAG) was formed to unify the voices of players in the tech (especially mobile) industry and help shape policy and regulate the industry. It's also to support local tech innovation. Companies th...

Last week, my good friend Edward Tagoe was in the Bay Area attending the Launch conference along with other Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) graduates. I was looking for opportunities to meet him since he was going to be even busier than me and he was in San Francisco. He sent me an itinerary and I picked the perfect opportunity, The Africa Network (TAN) February 2011 Event: Showcasing Africa Software Entrepreneurs. Edward's Nandi Mobile , alongside Retail Tower and Streemio would be presenting about their business to members of the Bay Area African community and other interested folks at the Plug and Play tech center in Sunnyvale, California. I enjoyed the event and little did I know it was one highlight of a week that would end up with Nandi Mobile 's Gripeline winning best business at the Launch conference . Attending the TAN event gave me the chance to learn more about these start-ups. A lot of this info is being reproduced from my tweets. Samuel ...

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...

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 happened in my diary in May 2009? We have an idea thanks to Twitter archive :-) @retornam was at the Stanford African Business Forum. Went well - sabf.stanford.edu — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 3, 2009 This was the third Stanford African Business Forum  (SABF). I wasn't going to miss it as I was there. I do remember that I would have almost missed the start of it though if I had spent some more time with my ex. In hindsight, I probably should have. Yeah, you wanted to hear about the forum itself. I made a small mention here . Hope you clicked the first link before this one. @SolvingAfrica big question there eh. Futuristic Africa where we don't play catch-up. How about that? — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 3, 2009 We should be tired of playing catch up. Let's do something new. Like taking something personal and making it our own. @disterics yes it was o. hmm, we kinda forgot to get on that. — Ato Ulzen-Appiah (@Abocco) May 3, 2009 I hadn't gotte...