A couple of very interesting things happened on the tech scene in Ghana. A lot more people made noise about stuff they were working on. A lot more techies sprung out of their hiding places to catch some fresh air and of course we caught their faces. We also had quite some interesting tech events spicing up our 2012 plus I almost got married but overslept on my wedding day. Ha!! I wouldn't have been alive to write about it.
VIM Series
Vim series is basically a weekly Thursday meeting of tech enthusiasts in Accra. The series was given birth to last year or I'd say it rather got fired up more last year. We had a few interesting meetings. Started wrestling with the electricity company for constant power supply. We of course lost the war and had to move meeting days to Wednesdays. The few successful meetings we had were productive I would say. Lots of giveaways from Google Ghana on a number of occasions. If even nothing academic was learnt, I put a few faces to names I had had several email exchanges with.
DEMO Africa
An event to showcase some apps from around the continent and provide a platform for them to launch. I happened to be a participant in this and was thrilled by both the event and the city of Nairobi. Hopefully I get to come up with something great this year that gets me into DEMO Africa 2013. I met and spent time with the great guys from MPawa and Yeboao. Guys I had been in Ghana with but had never met prior to DEMO.
Topapp Awards
Ghana's first ever app awards was received with mixed feelings (skepticism and excitement). It wasn't until it really happened that a lot of people believed it was real. This in my opinion was a great initiative by Maximus of Pop Out. It's great to have an awards ceremony to acknowledge people in technology in Ghana. I was impressed with the setup and organisation of the event except it started way past the advertised start time. Hopefully we experience a better Topapp Awards this year.
MPower Payments
This was one service I was really looking forward to all year round. A payment platform pulled off by Alfred Rowe of ncodeDev Labs and SMSGH. Developer friendly, sweet UI, works as expected. Now developersinghana have a way to monetize their apps. If by end of 2013 you meet any broke developer that dude is just plain not smart.
GDC Hell aka Iron sharpening iron
Haha!! This was my favorite part of 2012. GDC is the short for Ghana Developers Community for those of you who didn't know and is a Google Groups group where we as developers in Ghana share stuff. We share stuff that are permissible. Last year saw some serious activity in the group. Emails were flying in on a very regular basis from left right center. A few developers had their fair share of peer review, sharpening and scolding - blasting for short. Others had their share of encouragement and help while others still had their mouths shut. Another year gone and they still said nothing. It was great seeing all that action because in a way it helped us amplify our need for professionalism. Every app that made its way into the forum got very well scrutinised and advice constructively given.
I have really run out of memory in my head and cannot recollect anything later than a few months back. On the whole it was a great 2012. Looking forward to a greater 2013. MEST48 is already kickstarting the year with their "2nd MEST48 Product Development Challenge". Get busy and be proud of something you achieved come December 31, 2013 when you look back.