Goes live at 9 am Tommorrow Saturday 7th of November Stay tuned

Press Release 28/10/2009

Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, CEO of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation and Ghana's former Minister of Communications to present at BarCampAfrica UK 2009

We are excited to announce the first of its kind, BarCampAfrica UK on the 7th November, which will see Dr EkwowSpio-Garbrah along with speakers from Vodafone Cactel Communications and a host of other companies present, debate and discuss technology in the context of African Development and how effective innovation can bring about development in its truest form.

BarCamp Africa, was first conceived by Ellen Petry Leanse and Kaushal Jhalla, two Bay Area residents with deep roots in Africa, BarCamp Africa provided the unique opportunity to bring together Africa-focused professionals from Silicon Valley with people from, and doing important work in, Africa

The London event is expected to attract a large number of technologically inspired Africans from diverse fields who have a common passion to bring about further development in Africa. Participants will include talented entrepreneurs, technologist, charities, engineers, designers, bloggers, students and artists.

The event aims to identify specific actionable challenges that are central to the growth and development of Africa, from a UK /Europe perspective, and to identify critical areas of development that the BarCamp community can support, promote and actively play a significant role.

This launch event will esentially shift the conversation to positive development on Africa and seeks to leverage our influence as mobile technologist, bloggers, techies and social media gurus to help bring a fair balance to the conversation.

For interviews, commentary and general enquiries, please contact Tony Burkson on 07545054135 orTony.Burkson@vbtpartners.com

Notes to Editors

BarCamp Africa UK aims to:

*Create a central node for ongoing conversations and connections between the UK and Europe Tech Community and the extended African community to share and build on resources leading up to the event and thereafter.

* Showcase success stories by individuals and organizations in the UK and allowing them to share and further their visions for working in Africa.

* BarCamp Africa UK encourages discussion and debate from creatives; technologists; designers; writers; bloggers; developer; geeks; entrepreneurs; academic researchers; journalists or investors with a passion for African Development.

In addition to our un-conference theme BarCampAfrica UK will have 2 Keynote speakers

We are happy to confirm our first a keynote speaker Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah,

Chief Executive Officer, of Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation(CTO)

The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) is an international development partnership between Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth governments, business and civil society organisations. It provides the international community with effective means to help bridge the digital divide and achieve social and economic development, by delivering to developing countries unique knowledge-sharing programmes in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the specific areas of Telecommunications, IT, Broadcasting and the Internet.

Pamela McLean(UK Africa Connections) has kindly agreed to run Teachers Talking/Dadamac Day as a Fringe Event of BarCamp Africa UK

Teachers Talking/Dadamac Day is a yearly an online Celeberation which Discusses the Training and resoucing of ICT teachers to make a better impact on thier students.

It is a low bandwidth online party to suit the needs of people logging in from Africa - so expect lots of typing - and no fancy sound and pics for most of the time.You are welcome to simply drop in, or bring your laptop, log in, and really join in the party.

Story of Teachers Talking

Teachers Talking (TT) started in 2004 when John Dada needed someone to run an introductory course on ICT for local teachers in Nigeria - so he asked Pamela McLean (who often did brief informal introductions to computers when She was on "working holidays" in Nigeria.)

She willingly agreed to run John's course, She then realised how out of practice she was - and in need of updating. She hurriedly sent out a cry for help and set up a yahoo group for rescuers.

In less than a fortnight with more than a dozen people in the support group from four continents, She left for Nigeria, in November 2004, with an online "information cupboard" of useful resources (in the form of a wiki), and a group of online well-wishers who were interested to connect up with the TT course participants. The interest of these well-wishers influenced subsequent developments in TT and Dadamac. They enabled the friendly online exchanges that were the highlight of TT's daily practical sessions.

This years Celeberation Schedule

There are three parts to a TT course:

* The No-Computer Computer Course (NC3): providing relevant ICT related activities to do back in school

* TT-online: which includes the experience of being part of a supportive trans-national online community

* Hands-on computers: which gives enough practical experience to build teaching confidence

Great Thanks to All or Supporting Organisations

MANENO Maneno is a fast, low bandwidth, multilingual blogging and communication platform for citizen journalism in Sub-Saharan Africa

AITEC AFRICA Aitec Africa focuses on ICT publishing, event management, professional development and training in Africa utilising computing and telecommunications.

VBT PARTNERSConsultancy that advises firms on Marketing, Sales and Branding.

VIRTUALLY LINKED LONDONA company based in the UK providing services and solutions to companies and individuals in Virtual Worlds

GHANA THINK

GhanaConscious is the online community (web portal) of the GhanaThink Foundation.

GHANA IT PROFESSIONALS NETWORKGhana IT Professional Network is the home of IT professionals from Ghana both at home and in the diaspora .