IBM Cloud Bootcamp for Africa Leadership University
Tags: eventsinyourcity, twilio, cloudskills
Published: 2021-08-20 15:10:17

As part of supporting the University relations team, @ibm MEA Developer Advocates conducted a bootcamp for university students in Africa. 

This bootcamp was targeted towards student developers who were interested in learning about @ibmcloud and how they could get started on their IBM journey.

The prerequisites for the bootcamp were to sign up for an [IBM Cloud Account](ibm.biz/bootcamp-alu) and [Twilio Account](https://ibm.biz/whatsapp-chatbot-twilio).

![Watson Bootcamp-31](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/12492961/130242690-fd09f9e1-f1fa-4403-a8c3-56798ce1c8ab.png)

The first session was conducted by IBM Developer Advocates [Mohammad Ali Khan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/devkhan/) & [Asna Javed](https://www.linkedin.com/in/asnajaved/) and, it was hosted by [John Matogo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmatogo/) who is the Global University Programs Leader for Africa. The agenda was as follows -
i. What is IBM Cloud?
ii. What kind of services are there on IBM Cloud?
iii. Brief introduction and overview of Watson Assistant
iv. What are the Foundational building blocks of Watson Assistant
v. Creating our first Intents

The recording of this session is available on [Crowdcast](https://www.crowdcast.io/e/africa-bootcamp1)

![Watson Bootcamp-32](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/12492961/130242688-b64e561d-e956-454f-aa1a-cefdef75c936.png)

The second session was conducted by IBM Developer Advocate [Mohammad Ali Khan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/devkhan/) & IBM Client Software Developer [Tosin Amuda](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tosinamuda/). In this session, the focus was to dive deep into the workings of Watson Assistant and learn how you can properly use Intents, Entities and Dialog flow to create a robust chatbot of your own. The agenda was as follows -
i. How to create Entities, Dialog Node for Watson Assistant Chatbot
ii. How to structure a Dialog Node
iii. Learn to integrate Intents, Entities onto a dialog node
iv. Explore some advance features of Watson Assistant

The recording of this session is available on [Crowdcast](https://www.crowdcast.io/e/africa-bootcamp2)

![Watson Bootcamp-33](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/12492961/130242684-85be1434-6cea-40c4-be1c-ad0f7498c74f.png)

The third session was conducted by IBM Developer Advocates @mridulrb & @kif01. The focus of this session was to extend Watson Assistant chatbot’s capabilities by connecting it to WhatsApp using [Twilio](https://ibm.biz/whatsapp-chatbot-twilio). The agenda was as follows -
i. Recap of Watson Assistant
ii. What is Twilio
iii. How to integrate Watson Assistant with WhatsApp
iv. Chatbot Assignment Project

The recording of this session is available on [Crowdcast](https://www.crowdcast.io/e/africa-bootcamp3)

At the end of the bootcamp, attendees were introduced to 
IBM Developer resources. Many of the attendees showed positive feedback and appreciation for the bootcamp.

[Survey](https://ibm.biz/BdfeHQ): ibm.biz/BdfeHQ
[IBM Cloud Sign-up link](https://ibm.biz/bootcamp-alu): ibm.biz/bootcamp-alu
[Meetup page](https://www.meetup.com/IBM-Cloud-MEA/events/): meetup.com/IBM-Cloud-MEA/events/