ABOCCO; THE MIGHTY AFRICAN

I present to you a young African full with vim and ambitions. His name is Ato Ulzen-Appiah, an entrepreneur. I met Ato for the first time back in 2012 at one of his initiatives Barcamp Tema- an event l attended with some of my mates from Ketasco under the supervision of another vim dude Gameli-at the Central University Campus, Miotso, and later on l had the privilege of meeting him again at last year’s Barcamp Ho in October. I prefer to call him by his twitter handle-Abocco- because the most impact he’s made on me has being via the social media: something he himself admitted when he referred to me as his ‘’twitter friend’’ when we met at Barcamp Ho. 

Ato Ulzen Appiah

It is with so much inspiration that l write this post and l hope you also get inspired reading it.

AtoUlzen-Appiah is a Ghanaian by birth. He hails from Elmina in the Central Region of Ghana, and grew up in ‘’an open environment’’ at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology where he stayed with his family due to his dad’s work as a lecturer. His early educational life span out at KNUST primary & secondary schools, and then later Presby Boys School, Legon. He spent ten years in the United States of America where he pursued civil engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and subsequently management at Stanford. He had a working stint with Google as a programme manager building sustainable tech communities in Africa.  

With all his credentials, Ato could have chosen to stay in the US and make a name for himself, but rather boldly, he chose to come back home to Ghana.

Ato founded GhanaThink Foundation (and currently serves in the capacity of the Director) together with a colleague in the US. GhanaThink is a Ghana-US based organisation that focuses on mobilising and organising talents for the primary benefit of Ghana. Now one would understand why he chose to come back to Ghana over staying in the US and being a google millionaire.

GhanaThink has had many initiatives since its inception. These initiatives includes: BarcampGhana, a networking event in all the regions of Ghana bringing young people of Ghana together from diverse fields of life. Barcamp Ghana has held over 30 events since its pilot programme in 2008.

In addition to Barcamp Ghana, Museke is another brainchild of GhanaThink under Ato’s co-leadership. Museke solves the problem of African music space.

Furthermore, GhanaThink gave birth to Kasahorow. Kasahorow is an African dictionary. Credit to Ato and his team you can conveniently type your  Ewe and Twi and all other African keys on your devices.

Also, GhanaThink founded and supervises the activities of JuniorCamp Ghana. JuniorCamp seeks to shape future leaders in Ghana through mentorship, networking and training.

The Ghana Volunteer Programme (GVP) is also an initiative of Ato. GVP has set out to awake patriotism in Ghanaian youths through voluntary activities that are 3-day events held all around the nation usually around 21^st September each year- Founder’s day.

Personally, Ato has spearheaded the revolution of some really cool movements on twitter. Some of which include, #233moments #SoboloSaturday #WaakyeWednesday, and I am myself a fanatic of all these three hashtags.

In furtherance, Ato is currently the product manager building new avenue services at Rancard Solution, a mobile software company he co-founded. Ato is increasingly becoming an accomplished entrepreneur as the days roll on.

Ato and team #bcho breaking bottles after #bcho 

Ato is also a member of Global Shapers Hub, Ghana, an initiative of the World Economic Forum, and just recently, Ato was one of the fifty members of Global Shapers in attendance at this year’s World Economic Forum congress in Switzerland.

Finally, Ato blogs The Mighty African and has a girlfriend.

I leave you with my collection of the top five quotes from the man Ato Ulzen-Appiah.

• ·          Iwork with countless people in Ghana who had their tertiary education in   Ghana and are as good as my MIT colleagues.
• ·       Teamwork makes dream work
• ·        The destiny of a nation at any given time depends on the opinions of its young men and women.
• ·        You can start small but do not play small
• ·        I have a passion for connecting people and building a movement of forward thinking Africans.