A Day in Tech – Developing Africa through games

“A day in Tech,” was held at the Mobile Web Ghana Lab on the 27th of April 2012, at 7pm. There were about 12 participants. The guest speaker for the event, Eyram Akofa Tawiah, one of Africa’s first gaming entrepreneurs, gave a presentation on the topic “Developing Africa through games.”

“A day in Tech”, is a technology event organized by Origgin Limited in partnership with Mobile web Ghana. The event is held on the last Saturday of every month. Its aim is to introduce Ghanaian’s to technology and the various ways it can be used to improve lives.

Eyram opened the event by sharing how He developed interest in gaming. He illustrated the process of developing a game by comparing it to the book of Genesis, where God created the world first, then created humans to live in it. Game development does make one feel like a god, it allows anyone to create a virtual world from nothing. Eyram has also built a game development company from scratch.

Truston Aliende was the second person to give a presentation; Truston is a Nigerian currently studying game development in Ghana. He manages a gaming blog where he writes about and features his HTML5 games. “I want to build games that will develop our children’s minds,” Truston passionately said, citing his little niece as a typical user of his creations. He shared a 5 year plan that he hopes will change the “game” of gaming in Africa.

Finally the floor was given to Nathaniel Padi, Mobile Web Ghana’s youngest entrepreneur. Nathaniel shared the story of how Eyram inspired him to be creative. Aside from learning programming, He is also working on a comic book called “Kofi Afro”. The audience was inspired by the little but ambitious genius who certainly has a bright future.

The event successfully ended at 8:00 pm and there was some networking afterwards. More photos here