The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

This year, we shall have our 5th  +Barcamp Cape Coast . It's been great to see what has emerged out of Barcamps in Cape Coast these 5 years. There are startups like  +Ahonya.com  which now has the  +Ahonyabid  product. There's the inspiration for  +Tech Needs Girls Gh  by  +regina agyare . But I especially love the growth of people like  +kofi yeboah   +Kobe Subramaniam   +William Osilaja Boampong  and  +francis kumadoh . The first two are joined by +Rachel Hormeku  (also from #Bccapecoast),  +Senam Aseye Bridget  and  +Leonard Hagan  to lead the  +Barcamp Ghana  program in Ghana. With this next theme around 'Equipping the Youth to plan their future today', we at the  +GhanaThink Foundation  are on course to do more. Barcamp Cape Coast 2015 is on September 12th at the University of Cape Coast. The organizing team is made up of  +Papa Baffoe Aikins   +Mantey Joshu...

I've blogged about National Volunteer Day (NVDay) a number of times. It all started with promoting the very first one . People (including some +Barcamp Kumasi  members) joined me for an activity at the King Jesus Charity in Kumasi. For International Volunteer Day (IVD) in 2013, +GhanaThink Foundation   launched the +Ghana Volunteer Program . I encouraged my avid readers to participate in  #NVDay14 . We used IVD last year to share what had happened during NVDay all around Ghana. I was on TV3 earlier today talking about NVDay with +Andrew Tetteh , we were hosted by Benny Blanco. There was this attempt to keep posted on volunteer activities in Ghana through a calendar that hasn't panned out well. Will try revive again during this National Volunteer Day period. #NVDay15 is here. 19th, 2th, 21st Septemeber. Aren't you excited? Looking for inspiration on what to do? Read my own story . Read the press release below. Or skip it, and go to volunteeringh.org . The ...

Many a times people have told me that I am very friendly and helpful. It lends well to a lot of the work that I do with the  +GhanaThink Foundation  etc. Someone said I have the heart of a mother. If I do, you might imagine how great my mother is. She is :-) Her greatness lends itself well to hosting people . She's hosted many people in our house growing up. And for the last few years, she has a guest house where she hosts more people. If you're looking for a place to stay in Kumasi , a guest house for one, two, three nights, a week, two weeks - look no further than Higgins Memorial Lodge . It's affectionately called Higgins Homes . You can book your stay there by contacting me -  @Abocco or on gmail as well with the same username. Higgins is a great place to stay. You can ask  +kofi yeboah  who stayed there for more than a week.  +Yayra Tay  stayed there with a couple of friends for some time. My brother  +Kofi Ulzen-Appiah  can also ...

Tigo's Shelter for Education initiative seeks to improve on infrastructure for basic education in rural Ghana. As part of this project, 6 Ghanaian communities have been beneficiaries of fully furnished six unit classroom blocks with Headmaster’s office and Teacher’s Common room. The pupils each received two school uniforms, exercise books and Tigo branded souvenirs as well. The project has also been documented as a television series. Shot as video documentaries, they are currently showing in Ghana They are also on YouTube. You can learn more about the  #Shelter4Education  initiative in this other blog post . The television series airs every Sunday on TV3 at 4pm, and at 6:30pm on both Metro TV & ETV . A repeat shows on UTV at 7pm. Viasat1 shows Tigo Shelter For Education every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. You have only two weekends to catch this so make it a point to watch the show this coming weekend. The St Joseph School in Obuasi, Ashanti Region was renovat...

A lot has been said about the quality of education in Ghana, especially in public schools. It's very important to create a nice environment for learning as bad conditions greatly affect the performance of students. "Schools under trees" is a popular topic when public school education is discussed in Ghana. These points lend more credence to the importance of Tigo's Shelter for Education initiative in Ghana which seeks to improve on infrastructure for basic education in rural Ghana. Tigo is the reigning Ghana Telecom Awards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Company of the Year . This is quite a big deal, given the constant competition amongst telecommunication companies in Ghana. Tigo launched its new CSR programme, Shelter 4 Education recently. Tigo has put up 6 six unit classroom blocks with Headmaster’s office, Staff common room and a KVIP for some selected schools in makeshift structures or in need of renovation across the country. The initiative wa...

Last year after  Barcamp Takoradi  2014, some of the participants went out partying. We ended up at a new joint called Tilly's where we had a jolly good time. One thing that caught our attention was the number of young people there who were very likely in their early twenties who had no idea there was a Barcamp in town that weekend. We had struggled to get a good number of people to Takoradi Poly that day with the many of the attendees being T-Poly students and some other young people based outside the Twin Cities of Takoradi and Sekondi. We realised that entertainment was something that brought Takoradi and Sekondi together. The social and entertainment spots are areas where many youth congregate. It also is home to many top artistes like Paapa Yankson , Gyedu Blay Ambulley and the Fanti Rap Van Damme , +pappy Kojo . so for this year's Barcamp Takoradi , the theme centers on Development through Entertainment and Entrepreneurship . Exciting, innit? This Barcamp is comin...

Living in the USA for 10 years, I became quite used to paying for many goods and services online. I’ve been living in Ghana for 4 years now and I’ve become used to not doing so. Spending cash has become part and parcel of my lifestyle that I’ve become numb to the conveniences of online transactions, in Ghana. I’ve not had as many opportunities to transact online, fair enough. I’m not as worried about online payment security because I believe I can spot an insecure transaction if I saw one. Many others can’t and trust in online payments bedevils the e-commerce industry here. It will take time, but Canaan couldn’t reach here faster. There’ve been many local innovations around the online transaction problem but I’ve found most of them too cumbersome. At Rancard , I worked on our payment gateway- PayApp , and one of our biggest features was to ensure quick steps to completing payment. In this current environment, many people forget passwords so giving them a familiar way to log in is...