Over the weekend, the 11th BarCamp of the year was held in Kasoa – BarCamp Kasoa 2025- the ‘city of cities’. It would be crazy to think of any organisation out there organising 11 events in one year, across the country! The interesting part is that there are two more BarCamps to go before the year ends. So mark these dates on your calendar: 8th November in Kumasi and the last one will be in Accra on 20th December.
BarCamp
GhanaThink is an Africa-focused social enterprise that mobilizes and organises primary talent for the benefit of Ghana and Africa, and the world at large. This is to build a critical mass of young patriotic, passionate, positive, proactive,progressive, and productive Ghanaians through BarCamps, etc.
BarCamp Kasoa 2025 was held at the West End University Campus where students, businesses, and people from other regions showed up. BarCamp is a location based event which focuses on 10 regional capitals all over Ghana, etc. It is interesting how Kasoa caught the attention of the Ghana Think Foundation.
“We’ve been organising BarCamps in Kasoa since 2013, and this one has been a good diverse group of people. It’s gone well and the most exciting part of this BarCamp is we’ve gotten a lot more partners. As part of impacting the youths in Kasoa and beyond, it is great you have a lot of local partners.
When we decided to have the first BarCamp in Kasoa in 2013, it was because Kasoa at the time was one of the fastest rising cities, not just in Ghana but in the whole of West Africa. Personally, I don’t think we’ve grown with what we are doing in Kasoa as I would have loved to see, but we continue to work on it” Mr. Ato Ulzen-Appiah is the Director of the GhanaThink Foundation.
Mr. Abdul Muiz Abass, manager of Ghanaian hit singer, Patapaa – who is a die-hard campaigner for the good of Kasoa was excited about the numbers at BarCamp Kasoa: “I think the Kasoa number has grown and people openly wanted to share”.
He served as a mentor during the speed mentoring session on ‘addiction and mental health’: “I have encountered a lot of people in handling talents and musicians across the globe and I have come to realise that people have their own problems. I see the backend of social media and now is the best time to push mental health”.
See you again at #Bckasoa! pic.twitter.com/r4Xq4Q2gdO
— Benjamin Adadevoh (@benadadevoh) October 19, 2025
Speed Mentoring
Speed Mentoring is a one-on-one mentor-mentee session where mentors are seated with tags indicating the topics or subjects they have knowledge about and people just go to them to have a quick conversation in 8 minutes. Apart from Mentors who are restricted, participants get the chance to rotate and talk to other mentors until the whole session ends for about an hour or two.
Harriet Bayel, Executive Director of Global Open Initiative Foundation (GOIF): “This is my first time at a BarCamp and it’s been great. I like the fact that we are really conscientising the youth. This is something we are already doing (at GOIF) but to see it on a larger scale and all the partners here involved, both young and old is just great. And the Speed Mentoring, this is my first time and it was great that it happened here. BarCamp has actually been a nice experience so far”.
“Yes, this is my first time and it’s been great and I have learned a lot, especially with the speed mentoring and break out session, the break out session especially. I learned so much about Wills: writing a will, and protecting any kind of property that you have. It’s really been good” said Taiba Hilla, a teacher from El Mamer Professional Kids Centre who was at her first BarCamp.
Speed mentoring session at #bckasoa pic.twitter.com/HDlutXM8qC
— Benjamin Adadevoh (@benadadevoh) October 18, 2025
Christable Adepa, who is a web developer and a student at Design and Technology Institute, was impressed with the Speed Mentoring session “I spoke to a mentor on personal finance during the speed mentoring session. It was very educative and insightful as well. I have gone for programs like this but I don’t get the one-on-one session. It is mostly panel discussions. So when I came and I saw the one-on-one discussions I was really impressed”
“I loved the sessions and seeing all the mentors speaking profoundly from their heart and meeting the needs of the moment. In my case I was able to get stories and people asking me about getting jobs. I had to share with them the way out of it: for the 21st Century world of work skill is very important but beyond having a skill you should excel in that. I had to also charge them to look beyond where they are today.
Because 10 years ago the jobs that exist today weren’t exiting, so how about 10 years from now; what is the assurance of the jobs and the security of it. This has been an enlightening time and these are few thoughts to share” Mr. Samuel Elijah Boateng, a Human Capital Consultant who volunteered as a Mentor, was at Barcamp Kasoa 2025 “to learn, inspire, and become better”.
Konnect Kouch
The Konnect Kouch is a panel session where experts or leaders in certain industries meet and share personal experiences and knowledge to motivate the youth and businesses to master their craft in any field they find themselves.
“The first thing that comes to mind is the Konnect Kouch, because we had Abdul Muiz Abass who was on the #Konnectkouch. He is someone who has done a lot in Kasoa, so far as business is concerned, so far as living here knowing about Kasoa etc. And then we had one of our partners from GOIF (Global Open Initiative Foundation) represented by Harriet and it was good to know that she also grew up in Kasoa.
So for me the highlight was how our panelists were able to talk about how Kasoa has improved over the years and some of the great things happening here, and what more we could do to be great for ourselves for our communities, our centres, our circles, our cities – as in Kasoa” speaking in an interview, Mr. Ato Ulzen-Appiah is the Director of the GhanaThink Foundation.
Breakout Sessions
The Breakout session is a special place where mentors and mentees, etc get to join a group and discuss a predetermined subject, which is mostly sponsored by businesses; the businesses are often local businesses in the region or area. The business – partner may talk about their products and services. Sometimes, the partners may bring up a case study which can help them educate people about the importance of certain services or products in a particular industry.
Breakout sessions are currently underway at #BCKDUA. pic.twitter.com/CgZYzRtfbT
— Benjamin Adadevoh (@benadadevoh) October 11, 2025
“It is a wonderful experience, you get to hear and get knowledge from experienced business people. Learn more about how to start a business and how to manage a business. You get to know about new companies you’ve not heard about before. Like today is the first time I got to know about Express Gas, and Petra that is into investments. I enjoyed the breakout session where I learn about how to start a business” Alfred, a Level 300 IT student at the West End University College
BarCamp is one of the biggest social networking platforms around for youth and businesses. This platform may not be as big as Facebook, X, Tik tok, Instagram etc, but BarCamp provides something those platforms don’t give you: meeting like-minded people in person, shaking hands, having hearty conversations with random people, meeting an old friend you have not seen in ages, and even meeting that business partner you thought was never possible.
So mark these dates on your calendar: 8th November in Kumasi and the last one will be in Accra on 20th December.
