Youth Advocacy Network: Teaching Multimedia in Cameroon

BarCamp is held throughout the year in Cameroon and all around the world. This year Buea was fortunate enough to be the first Anglophone region to host the event. Bar Camp is a the largest annual “non-confirance” of passionate individuals who are interested and involved sectors of the digital and technology societ. Those attending and presenting include: bloggers, photographers, videographers, entrepreneurs, enthusiasts,  journalists, activists, professors, field specialists and students. It’s a meeting of forward-thinking minds coming together to discuss the countless opportunities and obstacles they all face in the era of modern technology.

BarCamp is refered to as a “non-conference” because of its informal format and random/sporatic scheduling. Nevertheless and undoubtedly, quality discussions, stimulating interaction and a trade fair-like atmosphere are some of its characteristics. BarCamp is seen as a combining platform between Cameroon’s tech and civil society, geared at addressing grand issues of the day. 

A friend of mine, Al Banda, who works at ActiveSpaces (a organization that incubates local businesses) had invited me to give a presentation at this years BarCamp. He told me that it was going to be a very informal ‘non-conference’ and I would have between 15-20min to give a speech and a powerpoint presentation. Although the expected audience number of 200-300 was not met, I was still able to reach out to a good amount of people. I spoke about the founding of YAN, how it has improved and grown since 2009 and what we are doing presently. I also mentioned the need of interns! It was nice to get feedback from the audience which mostly included focusing more of the curriculum on social media while also advising YAN to work in more schools.