When someone comes to you with an opportunity in the developing world you better have a good reason to say no. For the last few years Nana Abana had been trying to achieve the impossible, conduct a high profile Agile event in West Africa. It’s not just the holding of the event that seemed impossible, but getting together a group of people that can really bring agility to Africa. Up until now many of the endeavours into agility in west africa have been pushed by sharlotons that are intent only in profiting from Africa and not improving development practices. Making money and not helping people. It is posible to do both, but you will need to invest up front to get there.
With events like Agile in Africa this will change as more people are exposed to the experts that make me proud to be part of the agile community. You can find all of the speakers recordings on the Agile In Africa 2016 Youtube channel. This is one of the most knowlagable and exiting groups of people that I have ever had the pleasure to work with. It was a very exiting time for me…
Many of the speakers paid their own way and gave up local work to go. And I can tell you that not only was it personally worth it for me, but every single one of the speakers signed up for this year and for all three events:
- XP Day Africa - 25th October - http://agileinafrica.com/xp-day/
- Scrum Day Africa - 26th October - http://agileinafrica.com/scrum-day/
- Agile In Africa - 27th 28th October - http://agileinafrica.com/agile-in-africa/
This event is four days of awesomeness in Accra, Ghana and I hope to be running at least one session at each of the events.
Last year there were a lot of crazy people, some I had met before, and others that brought a whole new level of crazy.
One of the highlights of the week was visiting an orphanage with Sven who brought three Kano’s for the kids. The idea behind the Kano is that because the kids build it themselves, they take more pride and ownership in the computer and thus discover more.
There was a lot of press coverage of the event, with radio interviews and even a few TV segments. All in all it was a real blast.
I am looking forward to this year’s event, have you signed up yet?
