I don't remember who first introduced me to Lira's music. Maybe, I introduced myself to it while getting content for Museke.com. I do know that I've been a fan of her and her music from day one. I also remember my bestie Phelele used to talk about how beautiful Lira was. Real African music connoisseurs would say the same about her music. Through dealing with various artistes as part of Museke, I got to know Lira better and even interviewed her. It was a Q&A (online) one, I didn't meet her in person. Last week, I did meet her in person for the first time. How that happened is a story I wish to tell. :-)

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After a successful couple of days of the SHAPE Africa conference, various Global Shapers attended a jazz musical concert at the Nedbank Auditorium in Cape Town. I was hoping to see a famous South African musician perform. Yvonne Chaka Chaka was there. No, she didn't perform, she was in the audience like us. She's also a member of the World Economic Forum. We were all attending Ilizwi, a musical. South Africans are such great singers and I always said that I wanted to find myself singing in the streets of Soweto with people one day. I'd be dancing the gumboot dance in addition.

Ilizwi is a musical production by the Casterbridge Music Development Academy. It's directed by Vuyo Jack and Ingrid Wylde. Learn more about Ilizwi here. Ilizwi means "voice" in Xhosa. The musical told a great story ...

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Earlier today, many Global Shapers in Africa had the pleasure of sitting down with Professor Klaus Martin Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum. He himself has really championed this Global Shapers community, a community of young people with demonstrated potential and excellence who are committed to changing and shaping the state of the world. I wanted to share a few soundbites from the session. For me, the biggest was his 'raving' about Nelson Mandela.

I asked him a question about "how he would compare the youth of today to the youth of decades past" since the World Economic Forum has been existence more than 40 years. In answering the question, he went into stories of how WEF was involved in the birth of a new South Africa. He mentioned how he invited Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki ...

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Earlier today, I was part of "A Meet-The-Leader" session with the "Oga At The Top" of OANDO, Mr. Wale Tinubu. This happened as part of events organized for Global Shapers attending SHAPE Africa and the World Economic Forum this week. Learn more about OANDO on Wikipedia. Here is a great write-up about him. Below are a few tweets I wrote while we were all picking his brain on various issues and learning and sharing.

In a session with Wale Tinubu of Oando, a successful African oil and gas company from Nigeria. #shapeafrica #wefafrica

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Earlier, I attended a leadership panel run by Coca-Cola in conjunction with the Global Shapers Community in Cape Town. Today is also the 127th birthday of Coke! I have had maybe 3 coke cans to celebrate this. I also re-posted a blog post I wrote about Coke a number of years ago.

The panel featured 3 panelists from Coca-Cola, one of which was William Egbe. There were a lot of great learnings and insights shared. I was live-tweeting some of them. And now we have a blog post :-)

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Learning so much at the SHAPE Africa event happening at African Pride in Cape Town now. So I had to share some with you :-)

Team best practices: Have designed & assigned responsibilities to every1 with relevant tasks (based on strengths & diversity). #shapeafrica

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Social innovation will be very important in shaping Africa. I think we all agree we need critical thinking, creative working and entrepreneurial acting in driving progress on the continent. That must be social though, it must be done together, in groups, in organizations, in systems, in partnerships and collaboration.

I am in Cape Town this week. I applied and got invited to join the World Economic Forum on Africa event this week. Before that starts on Wednesday, I am attending SHAPE Africa, which is the first gathering of Global Shapers from around the African continent. I've been in the midst of multiple awesome Africans but never have I been a group like this, on the continent itself. Interestingly, I know very few of the people attending SHAPE Africa so far. I know the Director of the ...

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Last July, I was welcomed into the Global Shapers Hub of Accra. Interestingly, I had only heard about it a month earlier when the Accra folks were looking for additional shapers in Ghana. I wasn't too clear on what the Global Shapers were but the way I just explained it to friends of mine recently are that Global Shapers are the young people shaping their communities who are connected to the World Economic Forum. Let's pick something from the official website. "The Global Shapers Community is a network of Hubs developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, their achievement and their drive to make a contribution to their communities"

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After a long period of uncertainty, looking for a venue and having to change the date, Barcamp Kasoa finally came off at the ICGC Transformation Temple in Kasoa on April 27, 2013. The theme was "Making an entreprising environment for an emerging market". It was intentionally chosen as Kasoa is home to many small entreprises and businesses, has a very popular market and is emerging as a city with a fast growing population. Barcamp Kasoa was going to be the first Barcamp in Ghana this year. The Africa Works crew were there to do live streaming and will be prepared a short video about the event. There were some media reps (one from Graphic) and a media crew from Multi-TV.

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In line with saying "More vim" all the time, I found it prudent to learn how to say "Let's go" in many languages. #Leggo is a rallying cry for let's get things done and this is a statement that is important for groups of people everywhere. With some help from my African friends, we have a list of 23 to work with. Choose your pick! On y vas!

Akan: Yɛnkɔ! What you thought I wouldn't add my mother tongue? Some folks can't say what "thank you" is in their lingua francas. Such a fracas. Don't belittle this at all at all.

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