Pages

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The 'Sin' of inaction...

Are you afraid of failure? Me too -- at least until I had a sober introspection recently. I've always been reluctant to make a move,and follow up on an idea, simply because I feel I'm not 'perfect'/well prepared yet. "When at all would you be ready?",I asked myself during my reflection. Let me share a couple of my inaction with you.

In my senior year at the university, we took a course in Entrepreneurship. One of our mini projects was to write a business plan for any business of our choosing. My teammates and I targeted the transport sector, and decided to write a business plan for the cab (taxi) business. It included online booking and other such features. We FAILED to follow up on the plan and implement it -- we felt we were not ready yet (at least i thought so). Imagine the ambivalent feeling I had when I learnt of a similar idea being implemented in Nigeria now -- TaxiPark.

Another inaction of mine was not following up on an idea to develop a web/SMS-based results (grade) notification for students in my alma mater. This idea I got while doing my national service. I was not however surprised when mFriday came out with a similar app.

I can go on and on. The point I'm trying to make is that we should try even when we are not sure of the outcome. Face our fears. Inaction is devastating -- very devastating. No wonder the Confiteor (said during the Catholic Mass), has a line that goes thus, "..., in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, ..."

Join me this Saturday at the Methodist University campus in Accra, for the mother of all Barcamps in Ghana -- Barcamp Accra. Let's pledge to make efforts and thus fail so much that failure has no other choice than to let us be.

Register for Barcamp Accra here: http://barcampaccra12.eventbrite.com/

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Think Ghana...

Do we have an official language in Ghana?
Yes we do -- English.
Do we have a national language?
No we don't -- errm -- yes we do.
No because all Ghanaians do not have ONE mother tongue. We have beautiful languages though.
Yes because, we have GHANA as the national language -- ONE Ghana.
So in all you do, remember our national language Ghana. Celebrate the beauty we have in our diversity.
You. Yes You. Think Ghana.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Quando eu votei :: When I voted

In the past couple of weeks, I have been intrigued by the Portuguese language. After 21 hours of studying the basics, I've decided to share a summary of my voting experience with you -- in Portuguese. Enjoy.

Na manha do dia sete de Dezembro, dois mil e doze, eu votei. Eu fui à estaçao a cinco minutos para sete horas. Eu tive que ligar uma fila longa. Votando comercou a sete horas e onze minutos. Depois de vinte minutos, nós tivemos que formar duas filas novas, usando nossos nomes. Teve muito caos, porque pessoas estiverem nas filas desde quatro horas horas na manha, mas depois disso, todo mundo ficou calmo e votando continuou.

You can read the full report -- in English -- on the GhanaDecides website.