We have a special thanks to MyMoney for coming on board so quickly the night before the BarCamp and helping us with some issues we were having with the venue.
MyMoney also helped present a session on Mobile Money and Microfinance in Cameroon.
MOBILE MONEY CAMEROON SA (2M), created in 2006, is a Cameroonian public limited company with a capital of F CFA 1 billion. The company is an outcome of the pooling of local financial institutions and companies.
2M has the endorsement of:
2M is an electronic payment system provider and to this effect, has developed in Cameroon, an electronic payment service dubbed MyMoney. The service enables everyone carry out daily financial transactions with the use of either a phone, a smartcard, a USB key, a wrist-watch, a key-holder or the internet.
Well, Cameroon first ever BarCamp has come and gone
More than 200 people registered to attend the day-long unconference; about 250 people showed up physically at the event.
BarCamp has become the premier technology conference in Cameroon, bringing together the best minds and representation of the hottest companies in the internet, entrepreneurial, new media, and software industries, among others.
Thanks to Our Sponsors
Huge thanks has to go to all of our sponsors for their kind support.
In particular I’d like to say a personal thanks to everyone at RINGO that worked so hard with us to make this event happen.
Thanks to the Speakers
The feedback from the talks has been tremendous and there truly was something for everyone.
Thanks to You
Of course the biggest thanks has to go out to each and every attendee who made the effort - and especially those who came from far to show their support.
It wouldn’t have been much of a BarCamp without the conversations and buzz.
On a personal note, I’d like to thank everyone who got involved in organising BarCamp Cameroon and helped to spread the word and secure such a brilliant turnout. It certainly was a fantastic group effort -
A few important notes:
* All necessary documents we have created to run this BarCamp Cameroon will be made available on the google group.
* You can yet follow post-unconference discussion on the google group.
Sign up on the mailling list to be notified by email or follow us on Twitter for updates.
Join us next year for a free "un"-conference for the digital and technical community ,See you again at BarCamp Yaounde 2010!
my sincere thanks.
Jean-Francis
This goes live today, follow us live here:
You can also follow the twitter and flickr stream with the hashtag #barcampcameroon. We have a professional videographer who will be assisting us with interviews, so we hope to have some nicely edited YouTube videos in the days following the event.
Goes live at 9 am Tommorrow Saturday 7th of November Stay tuned
We’ve got lots of talent in this country. However, most of us are not willing to devote our talent into ICT projects, either commercial or charitable. Most of us prefer securing a stable job, and pray someone else innovates in our place. The same applies to the majority of our companies here. Though they may see the relevance of developing a certain form of technology, they won’t because of various limitations which they can overcome. We are experiencing all of these for a single reason. We’ve all stopped dreaming.
We no more dream of innovating, because we believe innovation does not pay in this country. It might, in certain extreme cases, lead one to jail. We don’t even dream of playing catch-up with existing technology though proven benefits have been derived in other parts of the world. We’ve stopped dreaming in the proliferation of internet connectivity and believe efforts produced by our ISPs and other volunteers are just a waste of time. We’ve stopped dreaming of getting the most out of our mobile phones, because we think there is a very high barrier to entry in the market. We’ve stopped dreaming of integrating ICT in our everyday life, because we feel we don’t have the technology and infrastructure to handle that. Some of us have not even started dreaming yet, because we are ignorant of what ICT can do.
I am hoping one of the principal outcomes of this barcamp will be to give us reasons to dream again.
To help us know that there are ‘heroes’ working on their dreams and are being successful at it.
To help us know that we too, can be pacesetters.
To help us know that we have, or will soon have, adequate infrastructure, technology prowess, and financial assistance from government, VCs, and other relevant institutions.
To help us know that we’ve got some talent. No ! That we already know. We don’t just want to make use of it.
To help us know that the whole ecosystem is already set; the only thing lacking being … us.
We’ve got lots of talent in this country. We just need reasons to believe in our digital dreams.
- A BarCamp Cameroon attendee
Hi Everyone,
The first BarCamp in Cameroon starts tomorrow - I hope you are all excited and have already planned what you are going to be presenting at BarCamp - if you haven't there is still time.
As you all know the event is fully sold out and we are operating at maximum capacity for the venue - Le Meridien Hotel in Bonanjo, Douala.
With this in mind could we please ask you all to try and arrive by 09:00 or earlier so that we can start on time. Registration will be open from 08:30 and we will aim to start our first session around 09:30.
As this is an IT event the dress code for the event is casual, jeans etc. are fine. The important thing is that you come prepared to present and to take part.
We are trying to gather a list of sessions people would like to do, so that we can get a feel for the number and type of sessions people are proposing. The wiki page is below - feel free to add your own session proposals.
http://barcamp.org/BarCampCameroon2009Topics
Sessions will be together in the morning and in the afternoon there will be three meeting rooms available for us to have more smaller sessions.
Ringo is providing Internet so you can bring your laptop and be online, but please try and bring your own power strip if you have one as we have limited sockets. If you have a camera, bring it to capture this exciting day.
Please bring along a printout of your registration from the eventbrite website (http://barcampdouala.eventbrite.com/).
If you are on the waiting list you will be welcome to come after the lunch at 13:30. Please don't try and come earlier as we really don't want to turn you away.
The maximum capacity has already reached so please don't try and attend if you aren't registered or on the waiting list - follow us online instead. There will be a live blogging of the event (details on our blog), plus you can follow on our twitter stream and see photos on flickr via the hashtag #barcampcameroon.
You can see us online on :
Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampCameroon
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BarCampCameroon (official hashtag #barcampcameroon )
Identi.ca : http://identi.ca/group/barcampcameroon
Linkedin : http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2167753/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=130832626678
Along with ,Ringo,Google and a few others – Africonline is now an official sponsor of BarCamp Cameroon !
Africonline is a newly formed African Centered design and development Group. This company is an extension of a more than 10 years old American company that has well over 50 clients to date. The partnership with certain African natives, business owners and leading IT companies have resulted in a force that believes in a world where every and all Small businesses can and should have an internet presence at a minimum. Top notch technology, high production value design and slick efficient visual communication medium are all rolled into a ready-to-go out-of-the-box affordable package at just the mere cost of regular application hosting. With custom design solutions developed for easy and fast integration into the framework, AO aims at Changing the Digital Face of Africa.
"A website for all. This is what we were born to do and this is the time, so join us."
We are pleased to have Africonline as one of sponsor of this first edition of BarCamp Cameroon.
