See videos from the BarCamp Africa Silicon Valley panel discussions on the Google.org YouTube Channel. Thank you Google!
And thank you, BarCamp Africa community, for your great recaps on BarCamp Africa.
From Google.org's blog:
Topics discussed during the day’s event included emerging technologies, mobile phone growth and opportunities, social innovation and entrepreneurship. Highlights included: the need to focus on supporting entrepreneurship and business growth, the importance of investing in local talent, the opportunity to promote innovation as the key driver of industry growth and job creation...
From the South Africa Project:
The energy and atmosphere at BarCamp Africa were capturing. There was a common understanding that we are on the verge of a big trend: Africa WILL be taking some giant steps in the right direction in the very near future. Some of that is already happening but has not caught the attention of the broad public yet.
From Project Diaspora:
The only criticism I have of this event was that it should have been longer. I needed another day. There were so many people I did not get a chance to meet. There were so many people I met that I did not get to talk to long enough. There were so many conversations that I wanted to carry on longer. I wanted to just soak in the knowledge and passion of the people around me.
From Appfrica:
Kelele was announced to a room of well over two hundred people at BarCamp Africa a few days ago. It’s big news as it’s the first time anyone has attempted to organize a pan-African conference aimed at web 2.0, mobile, and new media...Kelele is an annual African bloggers’ conference held in a different African city each year and run by an organizing committee in that city.
From White African:
Kelele, the African Bloggers Conference, was announced today at Barcamp Africa. That event has an incredible amount of energy and enthusiasm behind it, and it makes the perfect segue to the next big African community event: Kelele!
From Tim Harris's Twitter:
Still honing Scribwib™ - a simple, web-based platform which allows two people in different locations to read together...Jim Sowers and I design a platform to improve world literacy.
Note: Tim and Jim came up with the idea for Scribwib at BarCamp Africa.
From Katrinah's blog:
...some of the top insights mentioned by BarCampAfrica attendees: To build Africa, the key is to build businesses; empowering people through education and business opportunities is the solution to poverty; individual ownership is the most sustainable model; mobile is the future of Africa...
From Adaptive Path:
The day started off with an interesting panel of knowledgeable folks who have direct experience with the issues Africa is currently grappling with, namely education, governance, economics and health...All the panelists agreed that building a vibrant middle class is critical for these fledgling democracies to succeed and flourish. Building a vibrant middle class will require support on many fronts, but many of the panelists and speakers throughout the day felt that building business and enabling economic empowerment was a natural place to start.
From the Google Africa Blog:
As participants set the agenda for the day, a clear consensus emerged that digital technology has a major role to play in addressing Africa's interconnected business and social challenges. Throughout the day, discussions of laptop distribution models were followed by conversations on the state of democracy on the continent, and talk of the future of mobile payments was followed by insights on mobile solutions for human rights monitoring.
From Usahidi's blog:
Ken Banks, of FrontlineSMS, and David Kobia, of Ushahidi, meetup at Barcamp Africa on Saturday in sunny California at the Googleplex. We are baking in FrontlineSMS as one of the options for local SMS messaging into the new Ushahidi Engine.
From Chris Abraham:
I hope that this conference will lead to a plethora of Barcamps that focus on the positive stories of Africa - the incredible ingenuity, the creativity, the technical proficiency and the entrepreneurial spirit. I believe that Africa has entered into a new phase and the emergent economies of Africa will help tell the true story of what this wonderful continent has to offer the world.
The Africa-related BarCamp excitement continues. The first BarCamp Ghana will take place on December 22nd in Accra at the Kofi Annan ICT Centre (AITI). BarCamp Ghana 2008's primary focus is to bring together Ghanaians to build connections between people and fuel Ghana's technology and business renaissance. It's being sponsored by GhanaThink.org. Henry Barnor of GhanaThink was at BarCamp Africa Silicon Valley, and he is committed to spreading the BarCamp vibe in Ghana.
At MobileActive '08 in Johannesburg on Oct. 13th-15th, which connected people interested in mobile technology for social change, there were many African tech developers and NGO's interested in BarCamp Africa, including some folks from Swaziland interested in doing the first BarCamp there - stay tuned for more exciting news. We want to continue to showcase BarCamps and other tech happenings around Africa, so let us know of African events related to technology or social innovation.
