►
Description
Presented by Konrad Djimeli, GitHub Campus Expert.
This talk is mainly about the Silicon Mountain community which is know to be Cameroon's largest growing tech community. Silicon Mountain is located in Buea, in the South-West region of Cameroon just at the foot of the Mount Fako. This community is still very new and has gone through some refinement to get to where it is now. This talk provides some insight on how technology is being used to solve problems in this part of the world, the problems we are facing and how we are overcoming them against all odds. The community hopes to have a huge impact in technology within Africa and also in the world.
BY:
About GitHub Universe:
GitHub Universe is a two-day conference dedicated to the creativity and curiosity of the largest software community in the world. Sessions cover topics from team culture to open source software across industries and technologies.
For more information on GitHub Universe, check the website:
https://githubuniverse.com
A
Hello,
everybody,
my
name
is
Konrad
Gemelli
I
am
a
third-year
computer
science
student
at
the
University
of
Boyer
in
Cameroon
I'm.
Actually,
a
community
organizer
for
the
Google
developers,
group
boya
and
I'm,
a
github
campus
expert
I'll
be
talking
on
building
a
tech
community
within
an
Afghan
society,
and
our
community
of
focus
would
be
the
silicon
mountain
community
in
Africa.
It
actually
feels
great
to
be
here
and
I
was
excited
to
learn
that
my
talk
was
selected
by
github.
A
It's
represented
at
this
conference
and
I
was
being
flown
all
the
way
from
Africa
to
actually
talk
at
this
conference.
So
what
is
the
silicon
mountain
community?
The
silicon
Mountain
community
is
a
community
in
Boyer
in
Cameroon,
and
it's
actually
located
at
the
foot
of
Mount
Falco,
which
is
one
of
the
tallest
mountains
in
Africa.
The
sukkah
Mountain
community
actually
coined
the
name
silicon
Mountain
in
an
effort
to
emulate
the
success
of
the
Silicon
Valley.
So,
while
the
silicon
Mountain,
what
can
we
learn
from
this
community?
Actually,
the
second
mountain
is
an
under
presented
community.
A
We
can
learn
about
what
we
have
achieved
in
the
community.
We
can
learn
about
where
we
hope
to
be
in
the
future.
We
would
learn
about
the
difficulties
facing
developers
in
this
part
of
the
world
and
how
we
have
been
overcoming
these
difficulties,
and
we
would
also
learn
about
how
github
has
contributed
to
the
good
of
such
an
underrepresented
community.
So
we
talk
about
our
struggles,
which
are
the
difficulties
we
face
our
successes.
A
What
we've
achieved
our
efforts,
which
are
the
things
we
are
doing
to
grow
the
community
and
our
vision,
which
is
where
we
hope
to
be
in
the
future.
So
our
struggles,
we
actually
struggle
from
lack
of
resources,
and
some
of
these
resources
include
finance
and
we
are,
we
lacked
finance
to
actually
grow
and
actually
create
startups.
We
like
finance
to
promote
technology
within
the
community
to
organise
events,
and
we
also
like
finance,
we're
actually
survivors
developers
in
Africa.
A
In
Cameroon,
we
lack
reliable
and
affordable
Internet
it's
hard
to
get
internet
which
is
fast
enough
and
internet
which
is
not
going
to
disappoint
you
when
you
actually
need
it
the
most,
and
even
if
you
find
such
internet
connection,
it's
probably
hard
for
you
to
afford
and
I've
actually
had
very
poor
experiences
with
the
internet
connection.
For
example,
the
time
I
was
doing
an
interview
and
just
when
the
interviewer
said,
could
you
please
tell
me
more
about
yourself?
The
connection
was
disconnected.
I
tried
writing
back
to
the
interviewer
and
whatever
happened
happened.
A
I
did
not
get
a
second
chance,
so
we
also
have
a
frequent
power
failure.
It's
difficult
for
developers
to
deliver
on
projects
when
they
cannot
guarantee
the
availability
of
power
and
I
have
still
had
very
poor
experiences
with
these,
for
example,
there's
a
time
when
I
had
an
interview
which,
and
the
interview
was
based
in
California
and
I-
was
in
Cameroon,
so
he
was
already
night
by
the
time
we're
doing
the
interview,
and
there
was
no
power.
A
Also.
We
have
for
educational
standards,
and
so
we
are
just.
We
are
getting
you
into
computer
science.
We
are
actually
learning
how
to
like
change
our
communities
with
computer
science
and
programming,
for
example,
in
my
university
I'm,
one
of
the
first,
the
first
students
to
start
the
compliance
program,
the
university
of
Boyer.
It
was
started
in
2014
and
we
are
trying
our
best
when
it
comes
to
the
charity.
Carpark
bed,
a
lot
of
things
like
open
source,
real
life
experiences
are
not
really
promoted
in
school.
A
A
They
would
prefer
to
fly
people
from
worse
than
parts
of
the
world
to
actually
come
and
work
on
projects,
and
even
if
you
get
a
chance
to
work
with
them,
though,
like
you
to
work
very
hard
and
pay
very
little,
so
a
lot
of
people
are
discouraged
into
getting
some
computer
science
or
programming
from
a
part
of
the
world.
We
also
have
political
issues
we
have
been
recently.
A
We
have
recently
be
experiencing
a
lot
of
political
issues
which
have
caused
some
instability
and
insecurity
in
the
community
and
it
also
lent
led
to
internet
shut
down
the
community,
for
example.
At
this
point
in
time,
I
can't
even
easily
reach
my
mom
because,
where
she
lives
in
the
English
part
of
the
country
and
social
media
has
been
shut
down.
So
no
Twitter,
no
Facebook,
no
what's
up,
and
she
actually
doesn't
know
how
to
use
VPN.
So
we
also
have
our
successes,
which
are
the
things
we
have.
We
have.
We
have
achieved
so
far.
A
I
must
start
by
talking
about
the
google
Summer
of
Code
ego.
Summer
of
Code
is
a
program
where
students
have
been
selected
to
work
on
specific
open-source
projects
and
they
get
paid
a
stipend
by
Google,
and
you
also
get
the
opportunity
to
interview
for
a
job
at
Google,
and
then
you
get
a
COO
certificate,
so
the
google
Summer
of
Code
and
our
experience
with
the
google
Summer
of
Code
my
community
goes
way
back
to
2013
when
we
had
our
very
first
google
Summer
of
Code
participants
from
our
community
and
this.
A
This
Google's
local
participants
work
with
be
Eric
at
the
ballistic
research
laboratory
for
computer,
aided
design,
and
they
worked
with
researchers
at
the
US
Army
Research
Laboratory
and
after
this
program
they
had
the
opportunity
to
be
flown
to
the
Google
headquarters,
where
they
met
with
a
lot
of
interesting
people
during
the
Google
cam,
and
when
these
developers
had
finished
your
program
returning
to
Cameroon,
they
actually
shared
their
experience
and
helped
to
motivate
other
members
of
the
community
to
contribute
to
open
source
and
part
spin.
The
google
Summer
of
Code
program.
A
So
in
2013
we
had
these
two
participants
who
were
the
first
in
sub-saharan
Africa,
and
they
were
coming
from
my
university
and
in
2014
we
had
three
participants
that
were
we
had
two
female
participants
and
one
male
participant,
and
this
has
actually
helped
to
encourage
the
community
and
build
community.
Like
with
my
personal
experience
when
I
left
high
school
I
wanted
to
do
computer
programming.
A
One
of
these
google
Summer
of
Code
participants
came
into
the
class
to
talk
to
us
about
his
experience
and
when
he
told
us
about
how
he
worked
with
researchers
of
the
US
Army
Research
Laboratory
I
highly
opportunity
to
travel
to
the
US
and
also
earned
as
much
as
$5,500
I
was
very
inspired
by
that
and
when
I
learned
that
the
actually
goddess
experienced
not
actually
from
school.
But
it's
just
from
learning
at
home
and
doing
a
lot
of
research.
A
A
I
could
code
for,
like
I,
could
read
books
about
coding
and
write
code
for
about
12
to
18
hours
a
day
and
by
the
end
of
the
year,
I
was
a
little
bit
confident
with
what
I
was
able
to
do
and
what
I
knew
about
programming
so
I
enrolled
into
the
computer
science
program
in
the
University
of
where,
as
one
of
the
pioneer
batch
of
students
and
and
that
academic
year
I
successfully
participated.
The
google
Summer
of
Code
I
also
work
with
Barakat
I.
A
A
I
had
seen
what
others
had
been
able
to
help
me
achieve
by
motivating
me,
and
that
was
why
I
actually
joined
the
Google
developers
group
to
help
motivate
others,
and
over
the
years
the
number
of
Google's
of
code
participants
have
actually
grown
from
two
in
2013
to
three
in
2014,
through
12,
in
2015,
and
to
16
in
2016,
and
then
in
2017.
We
had
eight
google
Summer
of
Code
participants,
so
in
2015
and
2016
we
actually
had
the
highest
number
of
google
Summer
of
Code
participants
from
Africa
and
in
2017.
A
A
So
we
have
the
Google
code
in
similar
to
the
google
Summer
of
Code.
The
Google
coding
is
also
a
program
where
students
actually
contribute
to
open
source,
and
but
this
program
is
breaking
down
for
students
who
are
between
the
ages
of
17
abital
age
of
17
to
13
and
you
after
the
program.
If
you're
a
grand
prize
winner,
you
get
the
chance
to
travel
to
Mountain,
View
and
meet
with
Google
developers,
and
you
can
also
take
along
any
other
person.
A
You
choose
like
one
of
your
guidance
and
in
2016
our
community
actually
produced
the
first
google
code-in
grand
prize
winner
from
africa,
and
he
also
achieved
this
at
the
time
where
our
community
had
no
internet
connection.
So
he
actually
had
to
travel
to
the
capital
of
Cameroon
where
there
was
internet
connection
in
order
to
complete
the
program
and
his
efforts
were
actually
commended
by
the
CEO
of
Google
himself.
A
We
have
the
Nestle
shirt,
the
lineage,
the
credential
valued
price,
which
is
a
competition,
was
organised
by
Nestle,
and
we
had
a
tech
startup
from
our
community,
which
is
called
Agri
hop
and
they
actually
try
to
use
technology
to
help.
Farmers
find
market
for
your
products
and
the
old
sutra
to
use
technology
to
help
from
us
improve
the
quality
of
their
pooja
products
and
at
the
end
of
the
program
they
were
awarded
a
price
of
300
thousand
Swiss
francs,
which
is
also
similar
to
200
thousand
US
dollars
during
the
forum.
A
So
we've
been
talking
about
our
struggles,
we've
talked
about.
Our
successes
would
like
to
talk
about
how
we
were
able
to
overcome
our
difficulties
in
order
to
achieve
our
successes.
Let's
start
by
the
google
Summer
of
Code
meetups,
this
google
Summer
of
Code
meetups,
was
organized
by
google.
Summer
of
Code
party
is
organized
by
groups
of
market
participants
and
Google
developers,
group
Google+
organizers,
where
we
actually
talked
to
student
about
a
google
Summer
of
Code
program.
We
talked
about
open
source,
we
talked
about
version
control,
github.
A
We
talked
about
how
to
introduce
your,
how
to
introduce
yourself
to
an
open
source
organization,
and
we
talked
about
our
experiences
and
we
motivate
other
students
to
develop
interest
and
participate
in
the
google
Summer
of
Code
program.
We
have
programming
language
meetup,
which
we
call
loop,
which
we'll
call
the
PIO
meetups,
and
this
a
collaboration
of
developers
and
startups
within
the
community,
where
we
actually
organized
meetups
for
various
programming
language
like
C,
C++,
Python,
Java
and
other
programming
languages.
A
These
meetups,
these
meetups
helps
other
developers
learn
from
the
more
experienced
developers
and
then
we
also
have
meetups
for
other
skills
like
digital
marketing.
We
have
the
Google
developers
group
where
the
Google
developers
group,
where
is
a
group
which
is
actually
promoted
by
Google,
where
we
organize
events
such
as
the
Google
I/o
extended?
Where
we
promote,
where
promote
Google
products
and
Google
developers
tools
and
how
we
can
actually
use
these
products
to
help
grow
our
community,
we
have
the
women
techmakers,
so
the
women
techmakers
Boyer
is
actually
part
of
the
Google
developers
group.
A
It's
also
sponsored
by
Google,
and
then
they
get
the
opportunity
to
organize
the
International
Women,
the
Boyar,
where
women
actually
share
their
experiences.
They
talk
about
the
project
they've
been
working
on.
They
help
to
inspire
and
motivate
other
women
to
develop
interest
in
technology
within
our
community.
A
We
these
startups
also
help
to
support
the
community
by
volunteering,
maybe
financially
and
other
means
we
also
have.
We
had
Internet
refugee
camp,
which
was
rented
by
some
startups
and
developers
during
the
time
when
we
had
no
internet,
and
this
was
located
at
the
entrance
of
a
French
part
of
the
country,
so
they
had
internet
and
you
could
travel
from
boyar,
which
were
which
was
an
English
part
of
a
compete
country
without
internet.
A
You
could
travel
every
day
to
the
Internet
refugee,
come
and
return
back
without
having
to
go
into
the
French
part
of
the
country
where
you
could
be
stuck
in
traffic
for
hours
in
this
part
in
this
web
in
television
they
also
did
not.
They
also
did
not
have
good
power
supply,
so
you
could
stay
for
up
to
two
weeks
without
power
and
the
startups
and
developers
contributed
to
actually
provide
generator
and
power
for
the
police.
A
A
We
have
the
opportunity
to
attend
international
conferences,
so
it's
very
valuable
for
members
of
such
an
underrepresented
community
to
attend
international
conferences,
because
when
we
attend
these
conferences,
we'll
learn
a
lot
about
how
technology
is
being
used
in
other
parts
of
the
world.
We
meet
a
lot
of
people
who
inspire
us.
We
gained
a
lot
of
motivation
and
we
learn
what
it
takes
to
actually
become
world-class
developers.
A
We
also
have
the
silicon
mountain
conference,
which
is
our
flagship
conference
in
the
second
mountain.
We
actually
invite
people
from
from
everywhere
to
come
and
learn
about
the
second
mountain
community,
and
we
also
share
our
experiences
and
we
learn
from
those
who
come
from
other
parts
of
the
world
of
the
country
we
have
github,
which
has
actually
contributed
a
lot
to
the
good
of
the
community
github
itself,
as
a
platform
has
actually
made
it
easier
for
us
to
collaborate
on
open-source
projects
with
github.
A
We
have
been
able
to
work
on
specific
open-source
projects
where
we
have
met
with
experts
and
been
more
to
be
motivated
by
the
work
they
have
been
doing.
Github
as
a
platform
also
helps
us
build
an
online
portfolio
where
we
can
actually
show
off
the
work
we
have
been
doing.
Without
just
saying
we
have
been
working
on
certain
projects.
A
We
also
have
the
github
student
developer
part
in
the
get
off
them.
They
will
pop
up.
We
have
access
to
various
services
and
resources
which
we
normally
would
not
have
been
able
to
afford.
For
example,
we
have
access
to
a
free,
one-year
free
domain,
a
personal
domain
name
from
Namecheap,
and
ever
since
I
got
this
free
domain
name
through
the
github.
A
The
Vapor
student,
PAC
I
believe
I
have
had
more
responses
to
some
of
the
opportunities
I've
applied
for
because
when
you
actually
apply
for
an
opportunity-
and
they
see
you
have
a
personal
website
issues-
you
are
more
professional
and
serious
with
what
you
are
doing.
We
have
the
github
Campus
Express
program.
I
am
actually
part
of
the
gear
up
campus
experts
program
and,
as
part
of
the
give
us
get
off
campus
Express
program.
A
A
So
how
can
you
contribute
to
the
good
of
the
good
of
this
community
by
promoting
open
source
by
promoting
open
source?
So
if
you
promote
open
source,
you
actually
give
us
a
chance
to
contribute
to
open
source.
You
give
us
a
chance
to
learn
about
real
world
software
development
and
we
programs,
like
the
google
Summer
of
Code,
the
Linux
Foundation
internship,
the
Google
coding.
You
get
the
chance
to
actually
support
yourself
while
contributing
to
open
source
programs-
and
it's
really
motivational,
for
example.
A
I,
would
also
soon
be
starting
a
Linux
Foundation
internship,
which
is
a
six
months,
part-time
internship,
where
I'll
be
working
remotely
for
a
Linux
Foundation.
These
are
opportunities
which
would
which
can
help
people
from
represented
on
represented
parts
of
the
world
to
actually
contribute
to
open
source
and
support
themselves.
Why
do
we
need?
You
can
also
support
our
events?
You
can
do
this
by
supporting
them
financially,
or
you
can
also
do
this
by
coming
to
speak
at
our
conferences.
In
order
to
motivate
members
of
the
community,
you
can
support
our
startups.
A
You
can
support
them
financially.
You
can
also
provide
them
with
free
services.
You
can
provide
scholarship
for
members
of
search
and
related
communities
to
actually
attend
international
conferences
so
that
they
can
learn
about
what
is
happening
in
other
parts
of
the
world
and
how
people
are
using
technology
to
solve
problems
they
can
get
inspired
and
they
can
bring
back
the
experience
to
help
grow
their
community.
So
I'd
like
to
cut
their
demand
by
saying
success,
isn't
just
about
what
you
accomplish
in
life.
It's
about
what
you
inspire
others
to
do.
A
Africa
has
a
lot
of
talent
and
potential
which
just
needs
to
be
properly
guided,
so
I
actually
like
to
see
more
individuals
and
more
persons
from
other
parts
of
the
world
actually
create
programs
to
help
grow
the
African
tech
community.
No
matter
what
you
do,
no
matter
how
small
you
think
it
is
you'd
actually
be
surprised
at
what
impact
your
contribution
can
have
to
the
life
of
other
people.
So
let
us
help
build
communities
that
could
thank
you
all
tango
for
this
opportunity.
You
can
find
me
on
github,
jquan,
whoo
or
my
personal
website.