Are you preparing for BarCamp Nigeria?

With 33 days left until the first ever BarCamp Nigeria, we can’t help being excited to see this finally approaching. So while you’re packing your bags getting ready to come for the event, we thought we’ll let you in on some of the latest updates.

First and foremost, one of our readers hinted us about the date the event has been scheduled to hold as being one of those environmental sanitation days - the implication being that we would not be able to start early in the morning. Hence, we’ve had to restructure the program and condense it as much as we can so that we don’t end up going home late at night. To that effect, we’re planning on having no more than two or three keynote speakers at the event. I must say, it was a difficult decision to take since we had already postponed the date of the event before and didn’t want to start messing with the schedules of our participants again. We’ll most likely be cutting down on a number of other possible things we could have done but we still promise to make it a memorable day.

Lots of really good news in the house. We’ve sealed deals to get souvenirs that will be made available during the event: T-shirts, stationery and so on. Also we’ve gotten a number of interests for keynote speeches and we’re still brainstorming on the last one of two keynote speakers. Like was mentioned in our earlier post, Justin Hartman of Afrigator has been confirmed as one of our keynote speakers for the event.

We’ve secured the venue we’ll be using for the event and it’s the Tom Associates Management Development Centre located at 5/7, Alade Lawal Street, Opposite Anthony Police Station, Lagos, Nigeria. It’s got six conference, lecture and meeting rooms and will be perfect for holding a BarCamp. In order to make it easy for you to locate the venue, you’ll find a map below of the area. From Maryland, (which is where you can see OAS Helicopters and Planet One) you can easily trace the location. A more descriptive text on how to locate the venue will be posted soon.

Map directions for Tom Associates Management Development Centre

We’ve been getting a lot of support from individuals and companies alike and not too surprising, one of the most commonest questions we’ve been asked is “I want to volunteer, how can I help?” So we’re working on some sort of FAQ on this so you know precisely how you can help. Watch this space for a post on that soon.

We’re calling on all Nigerians and lovers of Nigerians to help promote this event through their blogs, tweets and other social media. Help get the word out. We might not be able to accomodate everyone, but everyone will be able to at the very least, participate online. Our Facebook events page is buzzing with activity; lots of people signing up to attend and giving encouraging comments. We believe this event is going to make a huge impact in the Nigerian IT industry and we are really excited just thinking about it. You have a role to play in making this a huge success. We enjoin you to ask questions, make comments and we’ll be glad to respond to all of them.