Circumspecte

So Ghana's Ministry of Trade and Industry and Google Ghana recently launched a new initiative called Innovation Ghana. Innovation Ghana is meant "to celebrate our homegrown innovators and discuss what is needed to bring Ghana to the fore of innovation and entrepreneurship." Today, the first batch of heroes were awarded: Ghana Decides (woopie - now I can update my capstone paper accordingly!), Ganyobi Naa , Dream Oval Ghana Limited , and LetiGames . I came across some videos of the awardees and was too inspired not to share. If ever someone tells you that Ghana or Africa has no hope, kindly refer them to this post. To our heroes, you do us proud. More vim!

Over the past couple of weeks my mind has been on Ghana. Not just because I miss eating waakye, and the sun is finally popping up in these parts, but because in about three days, Ghana is gonna mark it's 55th year of independence. Sure, there might be nothing especially groundbreaking about it, and unlike Ghana @ 50, it seems to be relatively quiet this time around, but I think the time is ripe for us to assess ourselves, both individually and collectively, with regards to Ghana and our future. Simply put, what legacy are we creating (if any) and how do we hope to impact future generations of Ghanaians? I share my thoughts through this two-part video blog, and invite you to share yours as well in the lead up to Ghana @ 55 and beyond. Happy (early) Independence Day!

Finally, the first interview of the Visionnaire Series with Deborah Ahenkorah of the Golden Baobab Prize is all set! Stay tuned for the full showcase right here on Circumspect! In the meantime, here's a small teaser/preview, what I call the "Visionnaire Development Minute", on Debbie's thoughts on, well, development in Africa. Agree, disagree, have something to add? Please do share! Enjoy! Circumspect: How do you think the advent of e-reading will influence Africa’s literary landscape? Deborah Ahenkorah: I think the discourse around e-reading everywhere in the world is so fascinating, because without a doubt, e-reading is the future. No matter how you spin it, it is the future. But what’s interesting about it is how is it going to become the future? What is the process and what path is it going to take for it to get to the future? The western world is far, far ahead of us in that discourse, or in that journey of e-reading from a concept to the reality, like the ...

Finally, finally, finally. I brought my notepad home with all the juicy info from an event I went to a couple of weeks ago: "Media as a Global Diplomat II: New Findings on the Science of Media and Conflict". It was organized by the US Institute of Peace, and boy, was it a blockbuster event! Great and inspiring people like Al-Jazeerah's Riz Khan (formerly of the BBC) and Jordan's Queen Noor were present, as were a whole bunch of amazing individuals. I really enjoyed the event cos I'm all about policy and media, and at one point in my life I figured I'd be a psychologist (until I had to take psych 100 at 8am and chickened out.) So anyways. Details. Essentially, some researchers from MIT (Rebecca Saxe, a neuroscientist), Harvard (Dean Jay Winsten) as well as media personnel like Riz Khan (Al-Jazeerah) and Michael Medavoy (a Hollywood film maker) spoke about how media influences global diplomacy and conflict. The researchers presented their findings on the ...