The CMS Africa Summit which took place from 1st – 2nd April, 2016 at Gems Cambridge International School in Luzira was the first of its kind in Uganda, and the third of its kind in Africa, following two other successful summits in Nairobi Kenya. Powered by WordPress with support from Telecom provider, Airtel Uganda and Africa’s Talking, the summit was all work and lots of productive play.
CMS summit attracted many industry professionals and scholars, web developers, open source organisations, internet service providers, web hosting companies, web administrators, e-marketers, mobile bankers, students,online sellers and e-bankers. The participants were treated to keynote addresses and workshops about disrupting old ideas and enforcing new ones while highlighting what moves the IT world.
With speakers very versatile and highly regarded, the sessions were indeed relevant for the time and industry. Most of these professionals approached their subjects from a business background and perspectives from their own companies which made them realistic to the audience and easier to connect with the audience.
We dispelled myths and fears like the conception that Drupal is difficult, ugly,slow and lacks support. Benjamin Kiyita a specialist in Drupal development said that all is false and in fact it is the opposite. He emphasized the simplicity of use of Drupal, the various enthusiastic users and its beautiful themes and templates.
Hagen Graf, a consultant and web architect talked about how to get rich and famous with joomla. He showed the participants of the summit business opportunities in the joomla project and examples of existing businesses related to joomla.
Speakers from automatic and Woothemes shared with the audience on how we can all help bulid WordPress both online and offline ways. Word camps, meet ups and community day outs are some of those ways. We were also reinforced with the teachings on how to make our joomla and wordpress sites hacker –proof.
Eugene Kiplagat A Google Development expert shared about the progress of web apps with emphasis on their safety, responsiveness, and stability .He asserted that that web apps are easier to use than mobile apps. All this remains for you to judge and affirm.
With the CMS Summit programme clearly laid out on a mobile App, all participants were able to keep up with the various sessions on business, how to keep customers and even a word on blogging, a two day hackathon which had hackers race against time to develop the most commercially viable app.
The third CMS Africa Summit, 2016 can honestly be said to have been a successful one. Which brings us to these questions; where’s the follow up to all the solutions hacked during this two day event? What disruptive solutions can we point to as having come out of previous engagements? These are things we can think about and do something about perhaps!
What was your take-away? Let us know in the comment section.