Why Kelele Can’t Fail

I was probably overly excited by the news of a pan-African and International tech conference taking place in Africa when it was announced at Barcamp Africa in Mountain View last October. I’ve written about it, I’ve pod-casted about it, I’ve evangelized, and here’s my worry now that it’s March and no other details have been released about this conference planned for August since it was announced. My worry is that it won’t happen.

This would be bad because Kelele was supposed to be the rallying cry for technologists and bloggers all over the continent. Make noise, is what it translates to. And that’s what those of us looking forward to it have done. And with things pushing closer with no updates, a lot of people are beginning to wonder. I realize that people have lives and personal responsibilities that might distract, but this conference can’t fail. Why? Because certain people expected it to fail before it was even conceived. For them, failure is what happens in Africa, it’s what people expect, it’s inevitable and looming. It’s the status quo.

Our responsibility as a new generation of African thinkers, entrepreneurs, dev workers, writers and do-ers is to upset that status quo, not fulfill it. There’s, arguably, more opportunity on the continent than ever before. People are excited. Kelele has the potential to be the culmination of a number of strong initiatives all over the continent….from South Africa to Morocco and everywhere in between. Barcamp Africa was great but what does it say about the continent when the biggest conference in African tech last year was held in the United States?

It says too much, actually.

Kelele represents a fantastic unifying movement. A tech conference in a different African city, every single year. This year Nairobi, perhaps next year Joberg, Accra, Cairo…there’s so much potential to bridge borders and bring people together here. Hopefully, the awesome people behind it are just sleeping on news and working on things behind the scenes. I for one offer every resource at my disposal to help make it a reality! If you also want to see this conference happen, I encourage all you other bloggers and tech enthusiasts out there to also ‘make noise’ to show your demand.

Who cares about the wind-up? It’s all about the follow-through.