Silicon Mountain

Silicon Mountain is a nickname coined to represent the Buea techosystem. It takes the Mountain acronym from Mount Fako which is highest point Mountain in West Africa. It currently incubates Africa's youngest tech startups and a growing community of developers and designers as well as the Universities such as the University of Buea, Catholic University Institute of Buea, Saint Monica University and many others. This region occupies the entire Fako(Victoria) Division of the South West Region in Cameroon. It is centred in Buea together with nearby cities like Limbe, Mutengene, Kumba and others. The term originally was de facto referring to the Buea tech community popularized during local tech community meetups like the BarCamp Cameroon, Google Developer Groups (GDG Buea) and the Kamer Design Meetups; but has eventually come to refer to all tech startups, Tech communities, Universities, and the local hacker and creative community.

Origin of term

The Silicon Mountain is a term used to refer to the technology ecosystem in Fako division of Cameroon. The term is a play on Silicon Valley and Fako Mountain ecosystem that is a dominant feature of Cameroon's topography. It was first used publicly by Rebecca Enonchong at the BarCamp Cameroon conference which took place in Buea in 2013.

History

Silicon Mountain refers to the city of Buea according to social scientists was founded by a hunter in search of game. Eye Njie Tama Lifanje came from the Bomboko clan behind the Buea Mountain (Mount Cameroon or Mount Fako). On that fateful day he founded Buea, he had set out in search of animals but there were no game to be hunted only a vast peace of hospitable land that could harbor his family. Eyé Njie named it “Mwea”, meaning, hospitable land for farming. The settlement soon grew into a clan but made tardy progress until the later part of the 19th century, when there was an influx of Europeans into Africa for exploration and colonialism purposes.^[1] Tea growing is an important local industry, especially in Tole. Buea was the colonial capital of the German Kamerun from 1901 to 1919, and the capital of the Southern Cameroons from 1949 until 1961. The German colonial administration in Buea was temporarily suspended during the eruption of Mount Cameroon from 28 April – June 1909. Originally, Buea's population consisted mainly of the Bakweri people. However, due to its position as a university town and the regional capital, there are a significant number of other ethnic groups.

The city hosts the University of Buea, the first Anglophone university of Cameroon. The city also hosts one of the three Catholic Universities of Cameroon among several other Higher Institutes of learning. The city still has a handful of colonial era buildings, notably the palatial former residence of the German governor, Jesko von Puttkamer. Other German colonial buildings especially the Prime Minister's Lodge (Schloss) and the Bismarks' fountain are still standing, but some of them suffer from lack of maintenance and old age. About 150,000 people live in Buea (including Bokwaongo, Muea, Bomaka, Tole, Mile 16 (Bolifamba), Mile 17, Mile 15, Mile 14 (Dibanda), Bova, Bonjongo, Likombe, Buasa, and surrounding villages). It also hosts the Nigerian Consulate in anglophone Cameroon and is the main operational hub of the Naigahelp medical aid organisation.

Silicon Mountain Annual Conference

The Buea Techosystem starting from 2015 organizes the annual Silicon Mountain conference popularly referred to as #smconfb which brings together over 500+ like-minded creatives and hackers from the Mountain Area and around Africa for two days of sessions, labs, speakers for inspiration and fun. Featuring Tech talks, design and code labs; everything required to inspire coders and designers in the Silicon Mountain area to code/create for the rest of the year. Silicon Mountain Geeks come to exhibit their skills at this Conference; from Iconic to inspirational, Silicon Mountaineers aim to push the boundaries and definitions of Technology in Africa. The Silicon Mountain Conference has the following

TOPIC Categories:

Development(Hackers)
Design(Creatives)
Sandbox Talks(Companies/Startups)

SESSION Categories

Creativity workshops
Community Pavillion
MeeTheTeam Booth

Universities, colleges, professional schools

University of Buea
Catholic University Institute of Buea
Saint Monica University
University College of Technology
Trustech Institute of Technology
Buea Institute of Technology
PanAfrican University Institute Buea.
Higher Institute of Management Sciences
St. Joseph's College, Sasse
Bilingual Grammar School, Molyko
Baptist High School, Buea
Bishop Rogan College, Soppo

Technology Startups

There is a growing number of high technology companies headquartered in Silicon Mountain. Among those, the following are creating vibe:

Startup Incubators and Accelerators

Looking for an accelerator in Silicon Mountain, here is the one you should check out

Tech Blogs

Technology Communities

There exist local developer communities aimed at promoting Computer Science, programming, Startups and developer technologies. These local tech communities organize large gatherings with demos and tech talks, to events like code sprints and hackathons.

References

Saint Monica University Website ^[1]

External links

Ranking of Tech startups in Cameroon ^[2]

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