HACCRA!

 

HACCRA 2013

 

HACCRA
Accra hack-day & ideation seminar
Thursday - 9th May, 2013, 8am to 4pm
AITI-KACE (Kofi Annan ICT Centre)
 
Are you a coder or developer for feature phones apps and web apps?
Are you an entrepreneur interested in creating new business models on mobile?
 
Then we want to hear from you. In association with the Nike Foundation, Vodafone, AITI-KACE and the British Council, HACCRA is a one-day hack day and ideation seminar looking to find the most exciting new ideas that can be built to prototype then production.
 
The session will include:
Visual prototyping
Wire-framing
Powerful ideation techniques
Business model generation
Competitive analysis
Customer profiling
 
The session is led by Andrew Missingham, a UK-based entrepreneur and management consultant whose clients include Nike Inc. the BBC, Bacardi, the Royal Academy of Arts, UK Music and Sony.
 
The session will take place at AITI-KACE (Kofi Annan ICT Centre), starting at 8am sharp. Free entry (subject to capacity). Lunch and coffee will be provided.
 
Vodafone have generously provided prizes for all participants, and a special prize for the most entrepreneurial, innovative
Tags: 
ghana
accra
africa

Music Services & Facebook

Digital Music News recently published some promo fluff from Facebook about music services on the platform. With a teaser at the top, it is followed by some "statistics" showing how engaged Facebook is with music. Looking through these statistics, I was struck by just how "NON-statisticy" these statements/numbers are - they are essentially a list of positive benefits that music services can get by engaging with a social network that has massive amounts of traffic. They don't point to anything of substance - they don't show that Facebook is a good place to engage music fans or artists, they don't show that usage on the site is anything other than a byproduct of normal social networking. 

Only 2 lines interested me in this article:

Songza:  
- Facebook-connected users listen an average of 20% longer than non-connected Facebook users.
 
Spotify:
- After integrating with Open Graph, found that Facebook-connected users were more than twice as likely to become paying users.
 
The first - from Songza - shows that there may just be a hint of value in integrating with Facebook - perhaps users of a service will use it more if they are connected to Facebook - perhaps because music is
Tags: 
facebook
myspace
music

Elena Cleo Ross Ludwig

If you haven't heard - we had a baby! Elena Cleo Ross Ludwig was born September 25, 2012 at 9:22 pm. 

Alli & I are so proud and honored to welcome Elena!

She is the:
Great-great-grand-daughter of Lona Cleo & Arthur, Dorothy & Frank, Giuseppi & Ugolina, Margaret & George, Mildred & Arthur, Rachel & Max, Anna & Barney, Rebecca & Abraham.
Great-grand-daughter of Edith & Charles, Florence & Jules, Helen & Corwin, Gina & Milton
Grand-daughter of Ann & David, Betty & Charles
Daughter of Alli & Erich
 
Elena - a popular Greek, Spanish, Romanian and Italian version of the ancient Greek name Helen/Helene, meaning "light" and "beautiful". Also used in Bulgarian, Macedonian, Croatian, Slovene, Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, German, and Medieval Slavic cultures. The Elena variation of Helen dates back to the 12th century.
 
In these various cultures it means: the bright one, light, mercy, torchlight, sun ray, shining light...
 
Elena - Helen & Edith (and E is for all the other E names in our families)
Cleo - Helen & her mother Lona (both of their middle names), C is also for Charles & Charles, Corwin and all the other C names in our families)
 
Elena Cleo was born on Kol Nidre of
Tags: 
grateful
elena

News Press v Sports Press

 

I have been musing in the late night hours of newborn awakedness about many things.
 
As the election progressed, I kept being reminded that we have become a very insular country, and have stopped getting really good reporting from the rest of the world. We thus don't always understand what is going on elsewhere, and this lack of understanding certainly contributes to some wacky positioning by candidates vis-a-vis foreign policy. 
 
I am especially reminded of this when I visit other news sites from outside of the US (particularly the BBC & Al-Jazeera). I know that Al-Jazeera has had correspondents on the ground all over the world (including in Northern Mali throughout the rebellion up there).
 
Our large papers, radio & tv stations / wire services used to have correspondents based in other places around the globe - people who knew what was going on and had local contacts. When stories needed to be told and conveyed with depth & nuance and in a way Americans could understand - that could be done.
Tags: 
random musing

UhuruAfrika: Everything You Need Is In This House

It often takes me a bit longer than others to process things and really get to the heart of my own understanding. I often also let things "age" in my own mind - which I hope/think leads to something akin to wine or whiskey - betterment with aging. 

Such is the case now, as I return from 10 days with the Urban Bush Women at their Summer Leadership Institute in New Orleans (well - here is another symbol of that long processing - SLI was July 19-29, and I started this post 2 weeks ago). At the point of starting this post, things really started to synthesize for me around a few particular thoughts. And writing this and synthesizing that have also brought forth some really old thoughts.

 
My original example of this long processing was that at UBW SLI we had to complete the phrase "I come from. . . " for homework one night, and then the next day at the end of one session say a brief bit about how we completed that phrase.
Tags: 
house
soul deep
ubwsli2012
ubw sli
uhuruafrika
uhuru
afrika

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