AfricaHackTrip. Tales from the Road. 9 hackers, 5 weeks, 4 countries - a true roadtrip story of how to hack across Africa. After reading an article about the African tech-hub boom, a group of European designers and developers decided it’s about time to connect our communities beyond the continents and start a continuous exchange as we know it with most of the other parts of the world. We ended up to spend 5 weeks in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, meeting hundreds of local creatives, 8 hubs, doing 8 events, making a lot of friends and kicking off a handful of projects that we know keep working on. In this session, we want to share our impressions, future plans and also introduce one of the projects came to live after our visit: eurohacktrip.org.

2. We are a group of
developers & designers
from Europe, curious
about the emerging
African tech hubs.

3. …so we decided to
just f*** go there!

4. Weeks
Countries
Hackers
5
9
4

5. Alex
Runs a web dev company
Runs co.up (coworking
space, host of countless
community activities)
Active in the Ruby
community
Berlin

6. Martin
JavaScript apps freelancer
BerlinJS community
Organizer and coach at
OpenTechSchool
Berlin

7. Vicy
Knows a serious lot
about Africa and
people
Organisational
designer
Blogs for eufrika.org
Is not a hacker
Berlin

8. Jan
Open-source designer
Data privacy activist
Creator of JavaScript user
groups
Munich

9. Basti
Co-founder of 5apps (HTML5 app deployment)
Open-source,
web platform,
bitcoin enthusiast
Ruby community
nomad

10. Tobi
Software developer
Backend, mobile,
languages…
iOS/Mac dev community
Berlin

11. Emi
UX and graphic designer
Co-founder of web dev
company
#WomenInTech
@WebMuses
Krakow

12. Bumi
Runs web dev company
Runs coworking space
Ruby and coworking
community
Cologne

13. Gregor
Not a designer, not a
developer, JavaScript and
web enthusiast
Creates… #hoodie,
#aht13, #nobackend…
Zurich

14. not a business trip
not a support action
not a holiday

15. All to meet, connect and share with
tech community, bring together hacking culture,
and kick off continuous exchange.

16. exchange, get to know each other, to learn from
each other
connect communities
share our experiences with the the world
…to travel, to learn, to have fun…
GOALS

17. there are no like-minded hackers
to be misunderstood
(as people that want to help)
(as tourists)
(as people with business interest)
(Malaria)
Fears

18. What did we do?

20. Ok, and what did we _really_ do?
> Two full-day events in each city
• Barcamp to get to know each other
• Hack-a-thon to hack with each other
• About 50 participants each event
> Visit hubs, labs, spaces
> Interview people
> Party Machen!
#webapps #ux #mobile #html5 #opensource #design
#communities #firefoxos #openhardware

23. How did we do that, we are just a bunch of hackers?

32. “YOU CAN” JFDI
Connection needs physical meeting
Do not rush!
Come with an open mind – and when you leave,
FOLLOW UP!
Learnings

33. ..and then what?!

34. SPREAD
THE
WORD
!!!

37. Hack-X-Change

38. Code Schools

40. #AHT15?

41. africahacktrip.org
@africahacktrip #aht13
AfricaHackTrip
groups/africahacktrip
africahacktrip.tumblr.com