I have always been passionate about making an impact. Growing up, people around me complimented my creativity and my love for solving problems. I wanted to be someone who contributes to making life easier for others. This inspired me to pursue a career in Education. I wanted to teach, share knowledge and mentor children into becoming good leaders in the future. I decided to study English language education in the University.
After I graduated, I had my NYSC in a government secondary school. After that, I taught at Holy Child College, SouthWest Ikoyi, Lagos. While teaching the students was a delight for me, the entire portfolio didn’t come without its own strain.
When I got married, my husband was in a different city at the time. After weighing our options, we decided to relocate to another city together. This meant resigning from my job. I thought it’d be easy to get another one but things didn’t go as I hoped. The offers I got were ridiculous! I remember working for six months with no pay, and even working overnight on some other jobs with little pay. I hated the experience and decided to try something else. I considered going into the fashion business but I realized that I lacked the entrepreneurial skills needed to make it work.
I thought about my situation and realized I needed a different career path I could transition to easily regardless of my location and work anywhere. I started looking for opportunities to acquire tech skills but didn’t know how to get started. Every other member of my immediate family was tech savvy but I had felt tech was for those who studied science in high school.
I was fortunate to meet other people who were interested in transitioning into tech so we connected. I had a friend who was more active on social media than I was. She discovered Ingressive for Good through a FaceBook post and shared the 1000 Women In Data scholarship opportunity with me. I decided to give it a shot so I applied. My brother supported my dreams and got me my first laptop! Unfortunately, I wasn’t selected. I was heartbroken but not discouraged. I would later discover this was a blessing because I had not figured out what I wanted to do.
I started researching the different career paths in tech to find what I was really interested in. I found a course online and signed up. There was a discount of 50% so I took advantage of it. I started learning the basics; HTML, CSS, and all that, and I realized it wasn’t a good fit for me. I did some more research and discovered Design. I was happy to find out that there were other aspects of tech that didn’t involve coding.
After a while, I4G announced the 1000 Women in Design scholarship. By now, I was sure of what I wanted so I applied for the scholarship. I got a congratulatory mail in April 2022! I was so excited.
The program was very beginner friendly. It gave me a foundation that made it easy for me to find resources. It was well structured and this made it easy to learn and apply the knowledge gained.
After the training, I connected with other techies in the I4G community and we worked on projects togther. This gave me an opportunity to learn more about UX design, work with a team and develop communication skills.
One of the best decisions I made was joining the I4G community. It exposed me to more opportunities. I was chosen to represent Ingressive for Good at the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit 2022 in Rwanda. I was really excited about the opportunity.
It was amazing to physically meet and listen to amazing speakers, including the Minister of Youth and Culture, Ms. Doreen Bogdan – BDT Director, Ms. Mariya Gabriel, Ms. Jaya Wickramanayake and Mr. Othman Almoamar. We also got to meet the Exponential Destiny team. I got introduced to the world of Virtual Reality. I got an oculus virtual reality headset, and learned to use it.
Prior to this trip, I had never traveled out of my home country. Since the conference, I have collaborated with some of the people I met to create innovations. I learnt that being a UI/UX designer doesn’t limit you to designing alone so I’ve been working on things I could do with my design skills in VR.
When I4G announces an opportunity, I always share with others. A friend of mine got the I4GxZuri internship to learn product design too. She’s been making progress on her design journey and even sharing resources with me. I feel so proud to be a part of her tech journey.
I plan to build with the knowledge I have gained so far from the Exponential Destiny team. This will help me get a proper grasp of the application of VR/Metaverse in professional settings. I also want to make contributions in the educational sector and impact the lives of female techies by sharing my knowledge with them.