Hello All, I have been reading NL for sometime now and felt I should signup and join the forum. In Nigeria we know our limitations but we should not be discouraged. It's only Nigeria that you achieve so much with very little.

Kudos to all the men and women of NL and to Seun for making this possible.

I will make this open to discussion and hopefully majority will carry the vote.

Should we have "Programmers' Conference" in Nigeria?
if yes why? and if no why not?

Please guys let's be constructive. expecting your valuable inputs.

Thank you

Are you a government official? Cos only one can suggest a "Programmers Conference" when we have discussion boards and chat rooms. An ICT conference will be more appropriate.

No I am not. We do not need "Govt" to do what is ideal. We only need like minds, passionate and dedicated people to for it to work. First we need people to agree and believe we can achieve it. Only then can we move forward.

I really would appreciate contribution from others here.

I'm not [yet] a programmer but the idea seems harmless.

Its a nice idea. I'm an IT specialist, but not programmer. The idea is good but you should try organizing it yourself with a few pals, raising its awareness on the internet (Nairaland, Facebook, etc) and word of mouth amongst colleagues. I bet you, a lot of programmers would be interested.

But my advice to you is to avoid seeking the cooperation of "old and stale union members or politician" in Nigerian computer societies or the society itself. Just fix an age limit of about 45 and call it a young programmers conference and that will weed them out.

It is a welcome idea,

An avenue to have people of like-minds brainstorm and think of ways in contributing to the society.

turboman:

Its a nice idea. I'm an IT specialist, but not programmer. The idea is good but you should try organizing it yourself with a few pals, raising its awareness on the internet (Nairaland, Facebook, etc) and word of mouth amongst colleagues. I bet you, a lot of programmers would be interested.

But my advice to you is to avoid seeking the cooperation of "old and stale union members or politician" in Nigerian computer societies or the society itself. Just fix an age limit of about 45 and call it a young programmers conference and that will weed them out.

yea,a good idea

yes

Thank you guys. I really appreciate this. I mailed Seun of NL seeking his opinion on this subject matter. I mailed him on seun@nairalist.com but yet to receive a reply. I guess it's only fair and natural to accord him this respect. C'mon we are using his platform to organize this. Anyway, please anybody that is close to him should extend this message to him.

Also any other person who is interested should indicate interest. Like I said, this is NOT some Nigeria Association affiliated to govt. This is purely a conference by programmers for programmers.

More ideas are welcome. I suggest we organize using NL. This means Seun will play a major role.

We can start by setting up a website, membership registration, awareness creation etc, For now we would depend on community collaboration and support to start.

Somebody might provide website, registration platform etc,

Opinions please. Do you think this will work? Should we give it a short??

and there should be a professional body too, just like accountants and doctors and lawyers and engineers do. a conference is definately a brilliant idea. it might take a while to realize it but with patience and hard work it is feasible.

then of course, you should highlight the objectives of the conference, what do you hope to achieve wit it, whats your selling point, or are pple just gonna pay big money to listen to some fancy talk and go home with files and worthless papers as 'conference materials'? how do u handle publicity? get sponsorship? who are your resource persons gonna be? so many salient points to address before registration or all that. first, get in place an organizing committee

A project like this has to start underground first. All that is needed is a message board site like NL and FB and the likes. Lets folks drop ideas and interact. NO govt crap. Then based on its success or failure after about 6 or 9 months, we may proceed or discontinue.
You cannot start investing when you don't know the scale of the project.
P.S: Seun doesn't have join if he's not interested.

A project like this has to start underground first. All that is needed is a message board site like NL and FB and the likes. Lets folks drop ideas and interact. NO govt crap. Then based on its success or failure after about 6 or 9 months, we may proceed or discontinue.
You cannot start investing when you don't know the scale of the project.
P.S: Seun doesn't have join if he's not interested.

then of course, you should highlight the objectives of the conference, what do you hope to achieve wit it, whats your selling point, or are pple just gonna pay big money to listen to some fancy talk and go home with files and worthless papers as 'conference materials'? how do u handle publicity? get sponsorship? who are your resource persons gonna be? so many salient points to address before registration or all that. first, get in place an organizing committee

Just to clear things up a bit. This is NOT "MY" project but "OURS". It will be what "WE" want it to be. I am NOT patenting anything or is it an ulterior motive for cheap publicity or some sort.

Like i said, it is high time we came together to share, learn and collaborate effectively with one another. It is open to criticism, contributions, ideas etc,  and above all needs our support, dedication and "THE WILL" to make it work. If it fails means "WE HAVE FAILED" and that is not what Nigerians are made of. I do not see failure. My humble opinion anyways.

"The objectives of the conference, what do you hope to achieve wit it, whats your selling point"

, and more will be determined by the community(everybody) and not a one man affair. There are no monetary involvements for now until otherwise determined by the community(everybody).

"how do u handle publicity? get sponsorship? who are your resource persons gonna be? so many salient points to address before registration or all that. first, get in place an organizing committee"

, All these would be ironed out by the community(everybody) We CAN NOT have a committee unless PEOPLE indicate interest to become members of the committee.
Resource persons are "ALL Nigerian Programmers" including the "kid around the block",

Sponsorship, endorsements, awareness CAN NOT happen unless "WE agree" to come together to make it work.

Like I said, We would need a platform to indicate interest. May not necessarily be a registration or website.

What is the most cost effective solution or platform for people to indicate interest as we need to track, contact and keep records etc, ? via mail, NL, facebook, reg. page

What do you think?

Count me in

SHALOM

one thing, i'm not a programmer, i just wish to see this idea really get pulled off. so lets see people indicate their interest and make contributions, i hope i can contribute in watever way to midwife this. so lets go!!!

why is this on the front page

well, its seems we have people who really wants to move things forward. well, seun could be exempted if he is not interested. what we need now is a venue, a general coordinator and a board on nairaland, facebook, etc to carry people along.

Good idea, and seun does not have to be part of this. All u guys need are great mind willing to stay together and achieve your goals

I once had this idea and even pushed it on Nland, handed over to someone and d whole thing stopped! So poster, u need a good team, venues, backers and a team, Just some heads up. you can always use the nigeriawebconference.com site we didnt use,

I once had this idea and even pushed it on Nland, handed over to someone and d whole thing stopped! So poster, u need a good team, venues, backers and a team,  Just some heads up. you can always use the nigeriawebconference.com site we didnt use,

Good to read all these positive feedback from you guys. Let me also use this opportunity to thank and appreciate the person or group of people for their effort to put together a web conference and all the resources. I know and I believe we still have passionate people to make this a success.

A little fraction of our time is all this requires to be a huge success.

Thank you for letting us use the website for indication of interest,

Few things though, Do you have a list of already registered members or participants from past events?
We could take advantage of it and send them an invitation asking them reconfirm their interest or re-validate their email addresses.

Do you maintain or have someone managing the website? Do you have access to redesign it to accommodate a few collaboration tools?

I am of the opinion that the redevelopment be a community project where by other programmers can contribute to the design, code and stuff. It would be more efficient to have a real-time chat and group discussion tools. We can schedule an online meeting time and invite people to log on during that time to discuss issues moving forward.

what do you guys think?

why not,

This' an excellent idea, especially for "jobless" upcoming programmers like us, looking for mentorship. It'll make an avenue to rub minds with matured and more experienced programmers. I'm in!!

Not to be a downer here but what is this conference trying to achieve?
Knowing your goals makes you know how to go about achieving it. So whats the goal guys? Input,

Someone ways asking what the conference would achieve. When we talk about a conference like this, its definitely not meant for everybody but for those who are either interested or that is their field. People should stop being negative, it high time we stand up to Nigeria. The conference is definitely going to have an impact, like minds coming together for a great cause.

Visit www.betternigeria.org and let your voice be heard in the quest for a greater Nigeria

Great Idea, don't just limit it to programmers. As you grow, you will probably realise you need Designers, Business Analysts, Testers, PMs etc.

Having said that, you can just start with programmers for the time being and see how it goes. You don't need a big community, three or four people could start something. No harm in getting bigger, there are advantages and disadvantages of having a big group. But it is good as you are looking at exchanging ideas and bouncing off knowledge from one angle to another.

You could use tools like JAbber before setting up a community forum. Of course you have got Niaraland, as long as you get permission - which you have done from the beginning.

I think the Programmers/Developers need to wake up and do not let people foreigners take away all the jobs they should be doing from them.

not a programmers' conference but IT, beside i thing those folks at the uni level do but nothing stop u to organise one if u are credible and got something to sell. check sitepoint.com

I am happy to read that programmers in one way or the other against all odds are contributing to the society positively. I wish to say here that becoming a member of this great community is optional and by discretion, belief and disposition of the individual.

Concerning the objectives, I believe we all have different objectives we would like to see and appreciate. If you ask say 10 programmers what they would like the community to address, you probably will get 50 different answers in different perspectives.

However, to me and largely a few of us will agree that what is most important at this stage is the enabling environment to air our views, opinions, objectives, ideas, futuristic plans and have a common objective of moving our "ailing industry" to greater heights.

Just so you know, I think computer programming is one of the most permit me to use the word "malnourished" industry in Nigeria. My humble opinion and stand to be corrected.

Most importantly we ought to leave legacy for posterity. The truth is we might not actually benefit directly from making this a success but surely people coming after us definitely will.

An email address has been setup for interested persons to send an email in no particular format. The password to the email account will be sent via mail to a few people to help monitor, coordinate things. I know we all have a lot of other important things to do with our time but I implore us to devote at least 15mins of our daily schedule to this common goal and see where it takes us to.

The email address is "nigprogconf@yahoo.com". I know not a fantastic name but sure will get us started in the right direction.

this is great, and like others have said it is not a must for mr seun to be in.

Thank you Bolaji for indicating interest. Still expecting more people to indicate interest then we'll start.

so what is the purpose of the conference.

The Purpose of the Conference is to discuss programming trends,new tools,frameworks ad personal life of others coders basically its mostly about getting contacts to expand ur business or spotting a promising programmer,no matter how great a coder u are Social networking is still a key factor.am all for the conference