The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

If you scroll through Ghanaian social media on any Wednesday , you'll notice a colorful pattern emerging. Plates of waakye —Ghana's beloved rice and beans dish—flood timelines, accompanied by the hashtag #WaakyeWednesday . A few GhanaThink members started posting this - as casual food posts - led by yours truly - Ato Ulzen-Appiah . These have evolved into a weekly cultural celebration that connects Ghanaians across the world through shared plates and stories. The Wednesday Ritual Everyone Anticipates For many Ghanaians, Wednesday has become synonymous with waakye . Because they both start with the letter W. Easy does it right? I once captured the collective anticipation on social media: "It's Wednesday! You know what that means... #WaakyeWednesday. Where's your favorite spot?" My regular posts kicked off each Wednesday , inviting others to share their experiences. The responses have created a digital map of waakye appreciation across Accra and beyond: "...

  The Spark: Tweets That Lit Fire In March 2009 , a simple notification popped up on Twitter . It was a reply from me @Abocco to a fellow user, @macjordan : "hey, we starting to plan for a Barcamp Accra . wanna help? will email ya." This was not just an invitation. It was a genesis. Using less than 140-characters, this tweet was another digital brick in what would become a cathedral of community —a sprawling network of innovators, entrepreneurs, and creatives across Ghana and beyond . This marked the beginning of a journey where social media was not just for conversation, but for construction, community building and documentation. In our collective opinion at the time, Twitter & Barcamp were made for each other . Many would say that I have long been a central node in Ghana's tech ecosystem, even before I returned to Ghana to work for Google in 2011. My work in the ecosystem has been a lot, but what I like most is the fertile ground that many GhanaThink members a...