Barcamps are an “un-conference” where participants share and learn in an open (and free) environment.

The second edition of Barcamp Benin was held on December 22nd in Cotontou, Benin – eighteen months after the first such gathering. The theme: mobile, Internet, and open source for the development of Africa. The suite of sponsors included ESTB, Google, Isocel Telecom, IGBANet, ESET, NTSC, mafanikio, Starsoft, and EtriLabs.

Impressively, the Benin event featured 21 sessions (with 3 held simultaneously) with topics ranging from open source technology to mobile health to writing for the Web to online security. It seems as if no subject was off limits! The result? More than 200 participants signed up to attend.

Bidossessi (of LinuxBenin) wrote of his experience at the Barcamp. He speaks highly of the simultaneous sessions and notes the seriousness of most talks (apart from his own on open source software). Noted are the session on Internet governance and the ability for people to simply discuss the future of IT in Benin.

A Twitter recap can be found under the #barcampbenin tag. A least a dozen attendees posted live updates, including:

On vient d’arriver au #barcampbenin twitter.com/toussine/statu…

— Wilfried Toussine (@toussine) December 22, 2012

j’adore les débats d’idées #barcampbenin

— Achille LeKaizer (@achillo17) December 22, 2012

Additionally, fifteen high-res photos can be seen on Adevou Fera’s excellent Pinterest Board.

There’s no doubt we can expect more events like this in Benin’s future.