Web@2011: Fuelling the Web Revolution in Ghana

Image taken from www.profy.com

There is no doubt that the Internet is fast becoming a key part of the everyday lives of Ghanaians. Many individuals and businesses are taking advantage of the reach, convenience and speed of the web to engage their friends, clients and business partners. Web 2.0 platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter are recording huge numbers of local users. Ghanaian Facebook users have increased to 970,840 from 277,600 in November, 2009 according to facebookcheck.com. This presents the case for business web users to develop effective skills to ride smoothly and speedily on the wave of the nascent web revolution. Creative Ghanaian social web maven, Maximus Ametorgoh and popOut are out to empower Ghanaian web users with the essential skills through Web@2011.

Web@2011 is a technology event which aims at unveiling all about the World Wide Web as a platform for connecting with the world, sharing information, doing businesses, engaging customers and meeting new people. It will further touch on how to design a website, optimize it for search engine, how to create rich and captivating web content, and ways to drive traffic to a web. The new 'virtual infection' called social media, as a consumer-engagement tool, will also be discussed.

Web @ 2011 Event, AITI-KACE, Accra

The first in a series of workshops was held on 3rd June at Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence. Various stakeholders in the Ghanaian Internet space were taken through interesting and insightful topics such as

• Wealth on the World Wide Web
  
• Web Product Development
  
• Web Content Development
  
• E-mail marketing
  
• Creating a Great User Experience
  
• Online Payment
  
• The Game Business on the Web
  
• Driving Traffic to a Website
  

The speakers were a unique blend of experienced, successful technopreneurs and young, talented, game-changing web professionals/entrepreneurs. The line-up included Herman Chinery-Hesse (SoftTribe), Charles Hansen-Quao (DreamOval), Edward Tagoe (NandiMobile), Maximus Ametorgoh (popOut), Sheila Bartels-Sam (inCharge Global), Eyram Tawia (Leti Games) and Michael Darkwa (NandiMobile). Read more about the Accra event on Edward Tagoe's blog.

Kumasi and Takoradi- Get Ready for the Webvolution!

Thankfully, Web@2011 is not one of those conferences scheduled for Accra only. The web revolution fever is spreading to other parts of Ghana; workshops have been lined up for Kumasi (17th June) and Takoradi (24th June). I hope these regional events will be successful and further motivate the organizers to take the webvolution to the rest of Ghana, and beyond, as I have been advocating.

Businesses and individuals who have a serious intent to use the web as an effective communication tool need to take time to learn the core skills that will help them to be successful in their endeavour. The higher the number of skilled Ghanaian web users, the higher the quality and quantity of local web content (applications, text, images, and videos), the higher the traffic to Ghanaian sites and the higher the revenue generated from the Internet!