The first ever BarCamp in Nigeria took place in Lagos at the Tom Associates Training Center on April 25, 2009. The main goal of the event was to create a central node for ongoing conversations and connections on the most important technological initiatives in Nigeria.

With 70 – 80 delegates in attendance we witnessed the first ever face-to-face meeting of Nigerians involved in web & mobile industries coming together to form a community. Unlike the usual un-conference format BarCamp Nigeria actually had keynote speakers. Justin Hartman, MD and co-founder of Afrigator – Africa’s largest social media aggregator and blog directory launched a micro-blogging service: Gatorpeeps (slidehsow below), Social Media Trends in Africa and shared his start-up experiences.

Microsoft Nigeria’s PR and events Manager, N’dee Victoria Uwadoka, presented an interesting and a bit outdated slideshow about web 2.0 but her actual message had the desired effect

There were also a host of breakout sessions held on the following topics:

• Long Tail
• Open Source
• E-learning
• Technology Derivatives
• Getting Nigeria online
• Web development
• RapidSMS
• Social Networking
• Internet-based Radio
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

With the BarCamp ethos of collaboration and cooperation in mind I’ll now point you to some of the attendees thoughts on BarCamp Nigeria 2009:

• David Ajaou
• Segebee
• Possicon

Finally, a thank you to the BarCamp Nigeria organizers Tim Akinbo, Ayodeji Adewunmi and the sponsors for an amazing event. I saw the trip to Lagos as a fact-finding mission about Nigerian Internet users.

Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians

Two days in a country is not nearly enough to learn about an internet population and I was pleased to learn about the Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians survey which aims to explore what Nigerians (who are currently resident in Nigeria) are doing to get (and/or stay) online, what internet services they use and other important questions. If you are a Nigerian Resident, reading this, please complete the Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians survey (takes 7 minutes).

I believe that there will always be a relatively small, and relatively very privileged, community of web users in Africa who will be able to use the services which the web enables from devices such as laptops, PCs and iPhones. These are the people who will blog, post youtubes, tweets, flickrs and who “get” the web the way it is being used in North America, Western Europe, and the wealthier parts of the East.There is a much larger part of Africa that is unlikely to ever be able to meet the energy requirements for running desktop (or laptop) computers that are capable of providing full, broad-band consuming, graphically intense user experiences to the consumer. And what’s more – it is my contention that this part of Africa will never need, nor want this service.

Why ? Because of “cultural” differences ? Because of “too low” standards of education ? No – absolutely not. The reason is that Africa will find new, and different uses for the web – for the services that are enabled on the internet – because Africa has different needs. The devices that Africans use to access the web will not be the devices that immediately comes to our minds (us being technologists, geeks, hackers, bloggers, twitterati and the like). It will NOT be iPhones, Blackberries, Macbooks, Dells nor Sonys. I doubt that netbooks are going to feature in any significant way. Africa is going to be mobile.

Africa is going to use mobile devices, with very low energy requirements. Durable, portable devices. Devices that provide utility, not bling. Devices that are hand-cranked, and that can eat sunlight. Africa will use the internet to create a web of relationships. Africans will stay in contact, and foster community using the web their (our) way.

It is up to us – the technologists and evangelists – to facilitate what Africa needs. Let’s take a step back and see the web as an immensely versatile protocol and philosophy that can be adapted to a great many needs. The web is about linking – and we do not need Flash to do that. WAP will do.