Tajriba {UX Month: Nairobi 2015}

It was in 2013 when the first Tajriba event was held and that was the first time a UX month was being done in Africa. You can read how that event went down from this blog post by +Mark Kamau who orchestrated this feat.

[Reblogged: Originally posted here]

Tajriba – A Swahili word which means experience.

Partners from all over the world supported this mission and their stories are the most interesting such as +Erik Flowers Principal Service Experience Designer at Intuit who received his invite through a tweet from +Kagonya Awori or +Susan Dray a leader in the UX field who contributed in the founding of ACM’s sigCHI {Special Interest Group in Computer Human Interaction} chapter and found this new development in Kenya – a must do.

Google UX MasterClass { 2nd Edition }

The first edition of the Google UX MasterClass was a blast and that's why I am so happy to announce that the second edition is here with us! ...and the crowd goes wild...

This April, designers from the Google User Experience Team will be visiting Sub-Saharan Africa to conduct hands-on user experience MasterClasses in Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos.

5 Year Tech Bash

+iHub has come a long way as a tech community in the last 5 years. It is therefore time to celebrate the growth and appreciate all the people who have made this happen. +iHub is facilitating the largest tech gathering in Kenya...ever! All the tech companies and individuals who made this happen are welcome. It's a community event by all of us, for all of us!

It starts on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 pm with a tech job fair, speed dating for techies, and a chance for everyone to demo what they’re doing. There is tons of space available, so there are few limitations on what you can do if you want to show off what you've done as a company, and what your focus for the next year is. Plans for big media to be at the event are underway.

UI Tenets +Traps

I've been having a huge debate in my head for the past couple of weeks on how I would best deliver this topic to you guys. This is because it is based on a training that was held at the +iHub UX Lab at the +iHub but I never managed to attend it due to prior commitments. However, I was given a number of flashcards that they used during the training and to be honest, I found them easy to understand once I went through them. 

So the big question was whether I could be able to explain the cards in such a way that everyone else would as well. My biggest fear here is misleading everybody here. I wouldn’t want that. Not at all! With that said, I thought the best way to start this discussion would be to give an introduction of some sort on what UI Tenets + Traps is all about then go ahead to explain the cards one by one in later posts. Cool?

Google User Experience Masterclass

Reposted from the Google Africa Blog.

If you are intrigued by the world of User Experience and Design like I am, then this is definitely the post you should be checking out.

This October, designers from the UX team at Google will be visiting Sub-Saharan Africa to conduct a 2-day, hands-on user experience masterclass in Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos. Attendees at the masterclass will learn the process of taking an idea from concept to launch, including sketching, user testing, prototyping, and the importance of making continuous improvements to keep your users engaged and satisfied. It will cover interaction and visual design pattern including Material Design. The masterclass will be conducted with in collaboration with Flow Interactive {Cape Town}, the +iHub {Nairobi} and the Pan Atlantic University {Lagos}

Intel AppThwack Testing Day

Is it just me or is the Nairobi weather awfully confused? In the early morning it is freezing cold, a couple of hours later it is sundress season, late in the afternoon rooftops are being blown away by the strong winds and in the evening it is shower hour and no place to shelter cause the roofs were blown away! What is up with that? It is August! It is supposed to be sunny. I want a reversed Global Warming thingy to take place. Somebody? Anybody?

 Anyway, my weather rants aside. This is a quick post for anyone in the area or anyone who can make it to the area for this ongoing event. Intel is currently holding an AppThwack testing day at the +iHub Community space, fourth Floor of the Bishop Magua building off Ngong Road. The event is about testing apps on Intel-based Android devices.

BarCamp Nairobi 2014 - Who’s Your Data’s Daddy?

When I see how quickly the tickets to this event are selling out, I cannot help but feel like I should have posted about it sooner. However, there are still more remaining so all hope is not lost.

This will be the 8^th edition of the Barcamp Nairobi which is Nairobi’s premier technology event and it will be held on Saturday, 30^th August, 2014. Barcamp is produced by Skunkworks Kenya – a disruptive collective of Kenya’s best looking and best skilled techies and it will be jointly hosted for the second year by +iHub, Nailab and m:Lab East Africa at Bishop Magua Centre, Ngong Road.

Google Developers Group, Nairobi Meet-Up.

Before I forget, there is one more post for the road. +GDG Nairobi will be holding their usual monthly meet-up tomorrow from 9:00 am {GMT +3} at the +iHub.

If you are in the area, you are welcome to drop by and get involved in the day’s activities. The main agenda will include special twists in implementing essential platforms on the Google cloud and gaining some serious ninja skills as the series of getting sharp on the Google Cloud Platform begins. 

August Kids Hacker Camp {Maker - Breaker Day}

Originally written by +Wachira Ndaiga and published by +Angela Okune both of the +iHub 

Kids Hacker Camp is week-long camp hosted at +iHub which is Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community. The camp is aimed at kids and teens aged 7 to 18 years, who are drawn to and interested in crafting, hacking, discovering and tinkering. The camp is envisioned and designed to provide an engaging platform on which children and teens can interactively learn, explore and build; spurring them to understand the world around them, analogue and digital. This exposure and tutelage will then go on to help them build skills in design/creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and self-confidence.

This edition of the Kids Hacker Camp focuses on System Thinking through Physical Computing. We believe that an understanding of how different agents within the environment interact will go a long way in helping the students learn about the world around them {Science}. The physical computing plugs in to provide them with an avenue to understand how one can purposefully interact with this environment for desired outputs, i.e. using hardware to sense, compute and actuate.

StartUpLand: A Documentary Series

Hey guys, how are you doing? I really hope it’s not too late to get the details for this event out there, but if you will still be able to make it despite my short notice, then my work here is done. 

Join your entrepreneurial community at +iHub to be among the first in the world to view the first episode of Startupland in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, World Bank, and UP Global.