HOW I GOT INTO TECH
While I was in school studying computer science at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, now Rivers State University. Information about Google programs like Google Summer of Code, Google Season of Docs, Outreachy, and write and get paid programs. Never got my hands nor my eyes to read about such information until 2016, preparing to say farewell to the University blocks, I came to know about one of these programs which was for students interested in contributing to open-source software development.
Then in school, I met guys like Techie Frankie and Kingsley, who were already good at using Visual Studio Code at that time and doing nice things with C++, I can’t forget my first Laptop and how it was stolen. A quick one on that; knowing these guys were good options for me. I met Frank asking for his help to teach me how to use C++, We installed my first text editor which was the VS code 2015 version, and with joy and eagerness to learn how to code, he introduced me to some materials.
The Disaster
What you know, “An event or fact that has unfortunate consequences”; properly defines my next block of text.
My eagerness to learn how to code was obstructed by a disaster as I call it. An event that got me to lose my laptop to an unknown person who happened to break into our room and do what he could do without being noticed, in an environment full of students. During the same period, I lost my mum and I was confused about what to do, it took me a year and a few months before I could think of my code live, and how to get a new laptop was now on my list of budgeted items. My interest declined to the nearest minimum.
ANASTASIS
Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀνάστασις (anástasis, “resurrection”).
This is one experience, that is been bookmarked in my life, meeting UgoMatt was my anastasis. UgoMatt is currently the CTO and Co-founder of Meghee; A SaaS company operating from Port Harcourt.
UgoMatt then was a good Joomla user, who loved the growth and believed in giving back to society, after we met, we discussed tech and I told him how am planning on going to NIIT(NIGERIA INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY) to learn how to be a programmer but am broke. He introduced me to the Port Harcourt Tech ecosystem, and I was initiated into the GDG Community Port Harcourt led By Gino Osahon.
WELCOME ONBOARD MATE!!!!!
Being part of the GDG and TECH PH Community, attending meet-ups, being a volunteer at a few events, and being active in the community have been the drive ever since. The effort from guys like; Ben Ogie, Precious Chukundah, Joshua Joshua, Wisdom Arerosuoghene, Ayaosi Oshoke Godfrey, and Amas Albert the current GDG lead PH, helped the passion not to be tagged with the bullish experience but with bearish.
My experience in coding was gradually given a head start by all these great men, with their talk and fire during conferences and meetups, so I started as a self-learner into the basics of Web development with freecodecamp. The journey was a slow one, you had to teach yourself and work part-time to get money for data and transportation to where you can get access to power supply.
KNOWING THE BENEFITS OF MENTORSHIP
Knowing the benefits that come from being mentored by someone during a particular career journey, improves communications and personal skills, Develops leadership and management qualities, reinforces my personal study skills and knowledge of my subject, Increases my confidence, and earns job referrals from your mentor. With all these great benefits most of us never got a chance to have one but instead, we made books, and educative/technical tweets from people like Prosper Otemuyiwa, and Victor Asemota became a guide and road map to where we wanna be years from now.
I would also want to be called “a retired investor by the US Embassy” or to be known by a popular tweet “A new day another opportunity to be world-class”, or to be loved by Developers from other countries because of my advocacy for their resilience fight to be better, quoted above from JavaScript Teacher
One of my favorite Twitter quotes came from Prosper Otemuyiwa.
WHY IT DOESN’T SEEM DIFFICULT TO GET A MENTOR
I can’t tell if it is difficult to get a mentor or not because I don’t have one yet, what am sure of is this, while it doesn’t seem difficult for me to locate a mentor on this path of life, I guess is social media. You may be wondering how. Let me Quote Samy Dindane “Social media is widening the gap between those who will stay average and those who will rise to the top. You can either use it to scroll other people’s (fake) lives & share memes. Or leverage it to learn new skills, build a network, help people & improve your quality of life”. This has been my way of life over the past few months that I have been active on Twitter.
With the mentions above, I duplicated all I read on social media(Twitter) to make our startups more effective, and getting good friends to help me out in code reviews and supervision of my PHP code because learning from an expert makes you an expert.
TIMIUN TEAM.
I joined the timiun team not as a Web developer, but by contributing ideas and strategies to see us deliver quality online services and a good quantity of online products to our users on timiun. As a member of a team, you’d be active and resourceful, coming on Twitter and reading about Startups gave me an insight into what we should be doing and how we could scale up with what we currently have at hand as a team. I’ve made friends with one of the guys who used to work in the creativity and designs department; Ayoleyi Lurogho a UI designer, as for the time of writing this I am a DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR at timiun.
Timiun is a company that brings up different strategies for easy buying and selling online. We work as a team to make sure these strategies are put in place to make goods and services available to our consumers and merchants.
I leave you with these according to www.thindifferent.com; ‘’ Finding a mentor around a specific topic is easier than finding a life guru. All we need to do is look for someone who has more expertise and experience around a topic or area we want to grow’’ and now social media has made it possible for us, now have a pool of choices to make.
Thanks for Reading!!!!!
