Well, i'm glad that is over.

I was not able to send out conference invitations until Friday morning. Over the course of the week the name of the conference, as well as the type of panel discussions, changed several times.

Naturally, we could not get many of the panelists that we wanted due to the short notice.

During the conference we had issues with time constraints, as the Q&A sessions of each conference section spiraled out of control. Several people that came to speak did not get a chance to speak, even people that traveled from other countries. The planned program for Thursday was not followed at all.

Was the conference a success? It is hard to tell.

There were many goals for the conference. The conference was meant to increase public awareness for the GIM competition. The conference was supposed to showcase best practices in waste management from all over West Africa. The conference was meant to foster a dialogue between current private sector players, government officials, potential entrepreneurs, advocates, researchers, and bankers.

Despite a sizable media presence on Wednesday morning, there was little mention of the competition in the press last week. Many of the speakers we had lined up for the best practices section did not get to speak; others that we invited to exhibit (free of charge) showed up without exhibition materials. There was a lot of debate and discussion between the private sector players and government officials, but those discussions ended up dominating the conference.

I thought it was incredibly disorganized, but by Ghanaian standards it was apparently ok.