In June, 2022 I had the privilege of attending the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit in Rwanda. It was the first trip I had taken out of my home country, Nigeria and it impacted me in many ways. I was selected to attend this event by Ingressive for Good in partnership with Exponential Destiny.
The Generation Connect Global Youth Summit was organized by ITU to empower young people around the world to become the champions of digital change in various spheres. The theme of the 2022 summit was. It featured presentations from renowned speakers, team interaction, and other educational sessions.
The biggest highlight for me was the training from the Exponential Destiny Team. The Exponential Destiny focuses on building a solution on the SDG using metaverse as their main drive which made it interesting. We were introduced to Virtual reality and its application to solving new problems. We also assisted in coordinating a booth, educating and registering people for the SDG metaverse challenge.
There were several training sections on Virtual Reality space, digital entrepreneurship, Metaverse and its relevance to the field of education, leadership, etc. I gained a lot from each training session. I took note of the lessons and here key takeaways I got from the program that would help any techie achieve their personal and career goals. We had practical training on building projects using applications on the Virtual Reality headset.
In an inspiring presentation, Marcus Shingles, the CEO of Exponential Destiny, challenged us to be voracious learners. He made it clear that no matter the technicality of a skill, if you are the first to know it, you will reap from the skill before so many people know about it. Sometimes we’re intimidated by topics that are novel like Web3, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality. I have learned to give up my fear of delving into new subjects. I’m even more motivated to learn new skills.
Othman Almoamar, one of the ITU GCAB Board members, spurred us to ask the right questions to personal and career development. The questions were: Who are you? What is your career? Where are you going from here? How are you going to reach your destination? He encouraged us to dig deeper and discover our values, passions and goals
Marco Vargas, co-founder of Exponential Destiny, taught us the importance and principles of constructive criticism and reflection. He had a meeting with us to reflect on the success of the booth we had the previous day. He pointed out that for any event or task carried out, there should be a meeting to discuss what you have achieved, the problems, and what can we do to make the next event or task better. This is very important. As a team, you have to appreciate what you have done making it get positive feedback before checking where the problem has or might have occurred. He mentioned that having positive feedback is like having a positive mindset which is very crucial in a team’s work.
I have been equipped, not just with networking opportunities, practical insights on Metaverse and Virtual reality, but also with a transformed mindset. As a young person, I have identified my potential to create innovations that would benefit both the present and future generations. The sky is indeed my starting point.