Barcamp Kumasi 2012

Still on first times, last saturday i was a part of barcamp kumasi 2012 for the first time and i cannot help writing about my experience. To say the least it was an exciting event, i mean a hall filled with so many young vibrant and creative thinkers and doers, it doesn't get much better than that. The hall was packed with so much energy you could almost feel an electric charge in the atmosphere, literally. This was an event like no other i've attended for several reasons. There were really no keynote speakers. Everybody had equal opportunity to address the conference about their ideas. There was a speed mentoring session which i found very interesting. Here, participants had an opportunity to chat with individuals who were introduced as mentors for a couple of minutes at a time after which they would switch in order that everyone had as much as possible, equal access to all the mentors. The session i particularly loved was the breakout session where different individuals could organize sessions around particular topics of interest and then the whole conference would break up into smaller groups to to discuss the various topics. Each group would then have a representative present to the entire conference a summary of the resolutions reached.

 

Yup! that's me right there in the middle of the picture in a speed mentoring session with Chris Scott a very interesting interaction i had with him. I found the name of his blog very interesting because at face value you would think he's just some white man who's really mad about being in Ghana but it turns out he is  more Ghanaian than i am. He's been in this country since before i was born and he's actually "making a difference in Ghana" which is actually the meaning of MADinGhana. Check out his blog at http://madinghana.wordpress.com

The first breakout session was led by Prince Boadu who's the Executive Director for Ecolv Africa, a non profit which i think he founded. We discussed ways of creating a sustainable learning environment for the kids of Kumasi by refurbishing the seemingly abandoned Kumasi Children's park at Amakon, a suburb of Kumasi. Naturally, you can count four Architects, including myself amongst the group making a up a majority. Not suprising at all if you ask me.