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Uncategorized By Lillian Nduati / June 13, 2010

Barcamp Nairobi 2010: Day 1 Wrap Up

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In the afternoon session,BarCamp Nairobi resumed right after lunch. This session kicked off with Mike Macharia, C.E.O of Seven Seas.He talked about the importance of mentorship for young entrepreneurs in businesses, illustrated the importance of business training for everyone, but especially for Techies. He highlighted the importance of merging the business aspect with the technical aspect. Directly addressing techies, he advised them to start thinking about the business point of view, and suggested that it would be great if iHub began training techies on business-Business 101 sessions.Macharia also stressed the value of partnership for all those in business, stating that those in business should strive to partner with other businesses, in order to move forward and build value in their companies.

Tonee Ndungu took to the floor again, this time round hosting the raffle session. Up for grabs was Google’s Nexus 1, “…straight from the box”. In Round 1, he asked 12 members of the audience to pick up 12 business cards and contact information that guests had earlier dropped into a raffle bag. The names on all the 12 participants’ cards that had been picked were called out, and given really cool BarCamp T-shirts.

In Round 2, three participants were picked from the 12 business cards. The three were in competition for the Google Nexus 1. Tonee asked Paul Kukubo,  Phares Kariuki and  Erik Hersman to pick three business cards out of the 12. The three had to answer questions put to them about google, and Benjamin Kilonzo from Technobrain emerged the winner after scoring the highest points for answering the most questions correctly. He walked away with a Google Nexus phone courtesy of Google.

Erik then took over the session by giving a brief talk on Ushahidi, how it started up, and what it’s all about. This session was the last for the day, and attendees then converged outside to get their T-shirts.

All in all, Day 1 of BarCamp Nairobi was a success,  Thanks to everyone who came.

Author : Lillian Nduati

Lillian runs Media and Communication for iHub and its initiatives, and is also the iHub Editor. She writes opinion and analysis on ICT issues in the region. @nananduati