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BarCamp 2014 Mombasa - Thank you

Posted April 3, 2014

Category Events

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Earlier on we had done publicity for the BarCamp Mombasa 2014. We would love to thank the sponsors and the community for its huge success. A special thank you to our crew. BarCamp 2014 would not have impressed our supporters, including Intel Kenya, the iHub - Nairobi’s Innovation Hub, and Angani had it not been for our dedictated efforts.

Special thanks goes to Intel, iHub and Angani for their high level support and event sponsorship.

And a special thank you to our crew: Said Fuad Said, Alifya Ganijee, Murad Swaleh, Swaleh Abubakar Ahmed, Brighton Mwasaru, Musa Jeffer Alfan, Joan Nabusoba, Phil Kioko, Aisha A Abubakar, Jamila Mbarak Bassadiq, Ruth Kaveke, Derrick James, Joel Mwas.

Coffee with Mozilla Mombasa

Posted March 25, 2014

Category Mozilla

mozcoffeemsa mozillamombasa

On Saturday the 22^ndof March 2014, the Mozilla Mombasa community organized a meet-up dubbed “Coffee with MozMombasa” a meet up with Student Reps, Firefox Student Ambassadors, the Regional Marketing Ambassador and fellow Mozillians to reflect on the success of the Mozilla events that have been covered on the 1^st quarter of 2014 and the challenges that have been faced in carrying out some of events. Also in attendance was Alex Wafula, Mozilla Rep from Nairobi who also joined in to take into account challenges from the Mozilla Mombasa and see to it how we could all solve them.

Mozilla Women's Webmaker Day

Posted March 21, 2014

Category Mozilla

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On Saturday, 15th March 2014, WoMoz Mombasa, a sub-chapter within the Mozilla Mombasa community focused on Women and Mozilla organized its second event called Women's Webmaker Day under the theme: "Learn by making"

The event was packed by 42 attendants out of which 8 were boys which implies that 81% of the attendants were female! Congratulations to all the ladies who made it!

Javascript Meet-Up

Posted March 21, 2014

Category General

firebase javascript mobileapps msatech webapps

Firebase – A big deal! - A Blog post compiled by Harris Mwashalo

On Wednesday, 19^th March 2014, a group of Mombasa Tech Community members met with Mr. Connor Leech to have a discussion on the latest developments regarding the ever evolving Web Applications. We started off by recapping the well-known programming languages used by today’s web developers. These being HTML, JavaScript, CSS for the front-end (Client-side languages) and PHP, Python and Node.js for the back-end (Server-side Languages).

BarCamp 2014 Mombasa

Posted March 18, 2014

Category Events

2014 angani barcamp barcamp 2014 ihub intel kenya mombasa

BarCamp is an intense event packed with intellectual discussions on technology and other fun, random interesting topics.

BarCamp is an "unconference" - The structure and agenda is completely informal - attendees decide how the event is run, and vote on which topics and speakers get to present !
It is a completely open event, attended by techies, bloggers, entrepreneurs, key stakeholders and other clever people within the Mombasa technology scene who come to share and learn.

BarCamp Mombasa 2014 is hosted by the Mombasa Tech Community, and generously sponsored by Intel as the key sponsor
Other sponsors include the iHub and Angani.co

Intel CodeFest 2014

Posted March 18, 2014

Category Events

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Intel Codefest to be held at TUM, training is technical, for developers. They will be trained on how to build Android apps, and will be expected to have working prototypes by the end of the session.

Register to attend!!

Women Techmakers: Mombasa

Posted March 11, 2014

Category Google

#gdgmombasa #gdgwomen #gdgwomenmsa #womentechmakers #wtmmombasa

"The fastest way to change society is to mobilize the women of the world" - Charles Malik

In conjunction with International Women’s Day on March 8th, Google launched a series of global Women Techmakers events geared towards increasing visibility, community and resources for technical women in our industry. GDG Women Mombasa was honored to host an event named "Women Techmakers: Mombasa" under the theme "Engineering the future"

Our 2nd Anniversary Special

Posted March 11, 2014

Category Reports

anniversary kenya mombasa mombasa tech reports technology

Its been 2 years, of hard work, patience, and community service.

Let us talk a abit about the story of a long journey that is breathtaking. Just 2 years ago, 3 fellows came together to chart the begining of what can be named “The Mombasa Tech Community”, completely transforming the technology landscape in Mombasa. Those 3 individuals were: Ahmed Maawy, Alifya Ganijee and Said Fuad.

Google Gives Alifya Ganijee a feature on their Doodle

Posted March 7, 2014

Category Press

alifya alifya ganijee doodle google kenya mombasa womens day womensday womensday2014

Just a day before World Women's Day, Google has featured our very own Alifya Ganijee in a Doodle for World Women's Day.

According to Google "Women have historically been underrepresented in almost all fields: science, school curricula, business, politics—and, sadly, doodles. In addition to our continued effort for doodle diversity and inclusion (see progress on http://google.com/doodles), today's truly International Women's Day doodle features a host of inspiring women from around the world, including the President of Lithuania, a brave Pakistani education activist, an ever-curious explorer, and dozens more. Find the full list of participants: http://goo.gl/cAvkcb"

This goes a long way to talk about our support for initiatives geared towards developing and empowering Women in the region, especially in technology.

Africa Android Challenge 2014

Posted March 5, 2014

Category General

Africa Android Challenge #aac2014 is a competition that allows us to groom the next generation of successful developers and Android experts on the African continent. These developers will create innovative Android applications with a focus on #design.

A Tribute To International Women’s Day-2014

Posted March 4, 2014

Category General

08-03-2014 day international women's

Ahead of the international women’s day, I would like to make a commendation to all the women. Let me start by quoting

“In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.” (Margaret Thatcher) and “As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” (Virginia Woolf).

Open Data Day Kenya 2014 - Mombasa

Posted March 1, 2014

Category Partners

data jkuat kenya mombasa okfn open open data open data day open institute

On Saturday, the 22nd of February 2014 Mombasa Tech Community members joined in on the International Open Data Day Hackaton

Open Data Day is a gathering of citizens in cities around the world to write applications, liberate data, create visualizations and publish analyses using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption open data policies by the world's local, regional and national governments.

Open Data Day Kenya was organized by Open Institute. In Mombasa the event was done in partnership with The Mombasa Tech Community in Mombasa, Kenya.

The First Technovation Meet-up

Posted February 12, 2014

Category Google

gdgwomenmsa girlsinstem stem technovation2014 techwomen

On 11th February 2014, 17 awesome ladies met up for a brief session on Technovation Challenge, presented and moderated by the Regional Coordinator; Alifiyah Ganijee.

The meeting commenced with an introduction session where by attendants introduced themselves and briefly explained why they would like to take part in the Technovation Challenge. Alifiyah Ganijee then introduced the Challenge briefly highlighting some of the important points like; Goals, key dates, Curriculum, Benefits and Prizes. This was followed by a mind warmer - an inspiring video session on "Inspiring women in technology Samantha Quist (Task Hatch Founder)" and "Technovation 2013"

Technovation Challenge 2014

Posted February 11, 2014

Category Google

gdgwomenmsa girlsinstem stem technovation2014 techwomen

Technovation Challenge is the largest and longest-running global technology competition exclusively for girls to inspire the pursuit of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). In Technovation, girls aged 13-23 years work in teams to imagine, design and develop innovative mobile apps that solve problems in their local communities.

For the 2014 challenge, teams have to develop an app that solves a problem in their local community in one of the following categories:

Open Data - The new way to Information Resource Sharing

Posted February 10, 2014

Category Partners

2014 feb 22nd msatech community open data day

Open data simply implies freely available content which virtually anyone can use and republish without any restrictions whatsoever. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open hardware, open content, and open access. Indeed, data is making our lives evolve gradually with respect to how we communicate, work and live. This is portrayed by the move towards digitization, and companies moving their transactions from manual based to computerized and cloud storage capabilities. There is a surgence of online information exchange with the likes of e-government initiatives and so forth
So how then does open data benefit us? Having open access to data is vital for research and innovation. It decreases the monopoly on infrastructure and data held by only a few large companies today. Open data lowers barriers to market entry for new startups and allows existing businesses to cost-effectively compete. With that said, going open data is the new “green” thing of the information world.

UI/UX Workshop

Posted February 10, 2014

Category General

aac2014 msatech technovation2014 uiuxworkshop

On 8th February 2014, The Mombasa Tech Community hosted a UI/UX Workshop at JKUAT CBD. The turn-out was quite impressive with a total of over 60 attendees. Musa Alfan handled registration and the event kicked off at 9.00am. The guest speakers were Mr. Olivier Vernin and Mr. Zaheer Mamujee; both IT professionals with over 10 years’ experience. They started by talking about their life experiences, how they ended up being in the IT field and their job experiences. Such interesting, capturing and motivating stories they both told!

JKUAT Firefox Club Meet-Up

Posted February 4, 2014

Category Mozilla

firefoxclubmsa firefoxjku fsamsa

The JKUAT Firefox club scheduled a club meet up on the 23^rd of January 2014 at JKUAT Msa Campus in order to introduce the club to all students within the university, to spread the word about Mozilla, the club and invite members to contribute as well as plan for the clubs activities for 2014.

Sensitization on Google Technologies event

Posted January 27, 2014

Category Google

aiw gdgmombasa gdgwomen gdgwomenmsa

"If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, we’ve got to open doors for everyone. We need all hands on deck, and that means clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.” -- First Lady Michelle Obama, September 26, 2011

Mombasa Tech Community gets featured on Fast Company

Posted January 10, 2014

Category Press

ahmed maawy education fast company mombasa mombasa tech community technology

We are very delighted to have been featured in a Fast Company Article at the very begining of 2014.

In an article that talks about how the future of education should be like in Africa, Ahmed Maawy, one of the co-founders of the community gets featured in a Fast Company Article dubbed "Does Ikea Hold The Secret To The Future Of College?".

Moz Barcamp 2013

Posted January 4, 2014

Category Mozilla

barcampmsa hacking mozbarcamp mozilla

Moz Barcamp 2013 held on 5th December 2013 proudly facilitated by JKUAT Mombasa Campus.

The barcamp started off at half past eight with attendants slowly trickling in, they were warmly welcomed by the registration team and led through to the main event room. Without wasting time, the MC, Andrew Mwangi, welcomed the host to officially mark the event open with a few remarks. Thereafter, honorable judges were introduced and in no time, Alifiyah Ganijee took was on floor, presenting about Firefox OS App development and led the attendants through installing the necessary tools required to kickstart Firefox OS Apps Development.

Later, Said Fuad took the attendants through a "Hello World" Application and how to begin developing an app for Firefox OS. After the presentations, attendants were requested to break into teams and the brainstorming session started, thereafter, during the quick fire round, each team was given 3 minutes to present their ideas to the audience as well as convince the judges.

End of Year Mozcoffee

Posted January 4, 2014

Category Mozilla

2013 mozcoffee mozillamombasa

End of Year Mozcoffee organized on 2nd January 2014 at Dormans Cafe by Mozilla Mombasa.

The end of year Mozcoffee was held past the expected date due to some unavoidable circumstances on 2nd January 2014. Of the 12 people expected, 8 appeared at the Mozcoffee and were satisfied with the meet up.

At first, the activists discussed about the challenges facing attendants during events and ways in which we can solve these problems and thus achieve growth and ensure survival of the community. Thereafter we discussed on the events and the news of the past year, achievements made and so on after which we had some snacks and continued with a plan of events for the first quarter of 2014.

Why 2014 belongs to Mombasa

Posted January 2, 2014

Category General

2014 ahmed maawy mombasa mombasa tech community

Great things have happened in Mombasa. But, there is still more to come.

I would like to formally announce my move back to Mombasa. It is without a doubt that Mombasa to me is a dear place, I grew up in Mombasa. However, it is up to poeple like us to disrupt and bring changes to our communities and impact our lives and create empowered communities able to access opportunities and grow their networks and make best use of their talents. My major focus shall be bringing to life the technology sector in not only Mombasa, but the greater coast. I envision greater things to come through collaboration, partnerships, dedication, and last but not least, my own presence to make the change happened.

- Ahmed Maawy

Upstart Africa to Audition in Mombasa

Posted November 20, 2013

Category Partners

africa reality shows tv upstart

UpStart Africa: The Secret Recipe for Entrepreneurship

TV, it is that thing that sits in the corner of your house that gets turned on when there is a football game, but what does it really have to do with tech and young entrepreneurs? Well, when you come across a guy like Sankei Ole Kenga, who has a background in TV production and has a strong interest in youth and tech, you put all those interests in a bottle, shake vigorously and come out with an explosion that is UPSTART AFRICA.

A recipe calling for 1 part Shark Tank, 1 part Apprentice, 1 part Big Brother and the last part can only be called PURE GENIUS Imagine auditioning for 24 individuals all around Kenya, bringing them back to Nairobi to live in one mansion for 13 weeks. It will be entertaining, yes we have seen this with all reality shows over the last decade, but when the 24 people that you recruit are young Kenyan developers, creatives, entrepreneurs and marketers the result will be innovative, amazing startups that will take the African continent by storm.

NaiLab Hackerthon - Incubation Beyond Borders

Posted November 20, 2013

Category Partners

hackerthon incubation mombasa nailab

The event kicked off on 19th September at 8.00 AM at JKUAT Mombasa with over 100 attendants being welcomed and ushered in by the registration team; Khamis Suleiman, Bryan Opiyo, Magambo Gatobu and Harris Mwashalo who also provided the attendants a kit of freebies.
In no time, the MC, Andrew Mwangi gave the welcoming address and introduced the host, JKUAT Mombasa on stage to also give out a welcome address to everyone present, Dr.Fred Mugambi, Director JKUAT Mombasa CBD Campus gave out a short but captivating speech after which Mr.Collins Ondago, Head of ICT Department JKUAT Mombasa also spoke a few motivating words.

Next on stage were the co-organizers, Mombasa Tech Community who had its community leads, Alifiyah Ganijee and Said Fuad having a brief presentation about what the community is all about, the journey and brains behind it, the achievements made so far and ways to connect with the community, they ended with inspiring and encouraging all the members to create awareness of the same on social media and spread the word around.

GDG DevFest 2013

Posted November 20, 2013

Category Google

developer devfest festival gdg google kenya

Google Developer Group Mombasa hosted it's first ever DevFest event in Mombasa which was held at the Royal Court Hotel on Saturday 14th September 2013 proudly sponsored by Google. The event kicked off with a house full of 45 people, out of which 10 were females, very encouraging!

Invited guest speakers from Uganda; Nicholas Kamanzi (GDG lead Busitema who is also the GDG Champion Uganda), Hassan Nsubuga (GDG lead Mbale) and from Nairobi; Anthony Nandaa a.k.a Prof (GDG Nairobi) and Mercy Orangi (GDG Lead Kenyatta University) and Billy Owino (Qualcomm Technologies) and Anwar Ahmed (Manager at Simbanet) were all very glad and enthusiast to meet the community members who had all presented themselves well before time.

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