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BarCamp Diaspora to focus on global African talent
By Noreen Bowden | July 9, 2009
Ghanaians living in the US and around the world will be taking part in an initiative called “BarCamp Diaspora” on July 25. The event, taking place in Washington, DC, will allow the African diaspora to exchange ideas on doing business in Ghana, West Africa.
A barcamp is an open, participatory workshop event where the content is provided by the participants; the first barcamp was held in 2005, and in early years were focused on technology. The content is provided by the attendees, who can choose to speak on their own interests.
BarCamp Diaspora ’09 will be focused on “Investing our talent where it counts”. Organisers say, “BarCamp Diaspora ’09 is a FREE event for anyone who is interested in using their skills, talent, and resources to benefit Africa. It will provide a great opportunity for the African Diaspora to network and collaborate on projects.”
They list several possible breakout session ideas:
- Sustaining African NGO’s in the Diaspora
- Opportunities in open source
- Mobile payments; why is Africa leading the world
- African outsourcing; opportunities and risks
- African communications infrastructure; growth, trend, opportunities
- African women and technology
- African ingenuity; building, making and selling African products
- ICT Solutions for affordable health care in Ghana
- Renewable resources, green technology, biofuels and solar energy
- Social media: Where are the Ghanaian or West African bloggers?
BarCamp Diaspora grows out of last year’s BarCamp Ghana ’08, which was held in Accra to exchange ideas on entrepreneurship, innovation and development for the developing nation.
The idea has interesting potential for Ireland – while there have been several diaspora conferences in recent years, their formal organisational structure has limited audience participation. An Irish diaspora barcamp could be an energising way of channeling the power of the grassroots in the world-wide Irish community.
Topics: Latest News | 1 Comment »
July 10th, 2009 at 12:51 am
thanks so much for this.
Registration is free at http://www.barcampghana.org/barcampdiaspora09/register