Sunday, June 22, 2008

Barcamp experience


It was my first Barcamp, can’t explain why I missed it last year, but I made it this time.
It was nice listening to people, the applications and the innovations they are developing. It’s sad that people think Kenya does not have solutions for some of the problems.

For instance, one guy from Moi University explained how they developed certain applications for the university, yet the university ignored them and invited multi million bids for the work they could do.
The students went a step further and simulated the university’s lighting system and showed how it could be controlled from one computer.

What did the university say? We are not interested.

Somehow the students lost faith and started doing other things.

But Kiania Dee wondered whether the students had proved a business case, arguing that there is need to teach entrepreneurship skills to engineering students. Others thought poverty and hunger for employment had killed innovation.

It was argued that most engineering students are snapped by companies like Pricewaterhousecoopers immediately after university and family responsibilities force them to abandon their dreams.

It was very enlightening.