With the second edition of BarCamp held in Nigeria on 22nd May 2010, it appears signed & sealed that the event has come to focus on tech; and not just tech, but dot-coms. Themed “Creating Local Content for Nigerian Web Market”, the event attracted dot-com players and wanna-bes from all over Nigeria. It was held at the Centre for Information Technology and Systems within the Yaba campus of the University of Lagos.
A cross-section of the male-dominated participants at BarCamp Nigeria 2010
The two keynote speakers received rapt attention and loud ovation as they shared their knowledge and experience about web technology and web/mobile content development. Simdul Shagaya is a Co-Founder of E-Motion Advertising while Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu is a Director of a number of influential ICT and Youth/Leadership Development organisations.
In addition to the knowledge sharing, there was a lot of networking as well. I got to meet some people I had hitherto only known by name. The sessions were lively as some participants gleefully sent out updates from the event and also engaged in conversations via Twitter.
The event was streamed live in video and audio via UStream.tv while others outside the venue engaged some participants via a live web chat channel.
Participants at a break-out session at BarCamp Nigeria 2010
Encipher, an Android-based tablet & a creation of a Nigerian tech firm, was on display at the event. The device is yet to be released to the mass market.
Sheriff Shittu O. of webtrendsng.com who is also one of the organizing team seized the moment to introduce Tech Hub Nigeria. The project is modelled after Tech Hub Europe, iHub Kenya and Silicon Cape. From techhubng.com:
Tech Hub is simply a location for technologist, programmers (Mobile, Web, PC, Linux etc), technopreneurs, Investors and any one interested in technology. It’s a two way platform; online and offline. The online is to help technologist who are far from the physical hub to interact with others seamlessly! Facilities (Power, PC, Internet, Meeting room etc) at the Hub will be “free”, so you can start you startup without thinking of all the cost.
See also: BarCamp Nigeria 2010 photos.
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Interview: Ahmad Mukoshy shares the vision behind Yrn.me & Yarnable.com | Oluniyi D. Ajao from Texas, United States
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Nice review of the event, Dave. But you did’t give your take on the “local content” panel session. Did the panelists/moderator do justice to the topic? I doubt. By the way, I’m publishing a piece on “local content” soon.
I agree with you that the topic was not well treated by the panelists. Two of them were focusing on .ng I am not sure about how .ng is relevant to local content.
Perhaps the organizers should have had the likes of Ore Somolu at the event. Sure that could have inspired her legion of lady-techies at W.TEC to attend
You mention Ore’s name just like that without a 21 gunshot salute?
Nice report, i spot my self on the first thumbnail.
But you missed to mention the public beta release of http://yarnable.com
Ah. Apparently, I was not physically present when Yarnable was released. Sorry about that. I’d do a full feature on this blog focusing on Yarnable, soon.
My Goodness!! Where are all the ladies???? What have you guys done with them?? Lol..
Nice one…
Hmn. It has been my experience that ladies hardly ever attend such events. There were about 10 ladies in all, out of over 150 participants.
Well it’s a start.
It could have been worse. I’m sure in time more ladies will see the benefits and importance of the Internet and attend more programs like this. I know if I was in town I would have attended it, definitely.
Keep up the good work guys.
Thanks for the report. You are doing a great job summarizing as usual, Oluniyi!
However, after glancing through the photos, I had the same comment as Tola. Where are the Nigerian women? I think events like these need to make sure they appeal to women too. Were there any female speakers in the program for instance? Nigeria has plenty of women bloggers, was the invite disseminated to women as well?
The event was publicized generally. I agree that inviting a female speaker might have helped but it has been a trend at most of the tech events I attended that women are scarce at such events.
I forgot to add that one of the keynote speakers at BarCamp Nigeria 2009 was a woman but the attendance stats was the same ratio: very few women compared to the overwhelming number of men.
Wow totally disappointing number of women [whats this with "ladies"] me I am a woman not a lady! Ok – next time you need to actively seek out women bloggers / techies and invite them to attend. It’s not acceptable that this kind of technology / gender divide continues at such a gaping level. Good post though
Great African woman. Keep the fire burning.