Scholarship / Technology administrator - how you build and maintain relationships in a professional capacity [2]

my life's centre

Building and maintaining relationships remain at the centre of my life because it invariably avails me the opportunity to align and realign my values, learn from the richness of diversity through collaborations and social endeavours, and a rare channel to exercise my civility. It must be mentioned that with social media and the internet, building personal and professional relationships have never been easier (and yet murky).

Professionally speaking, most of my speaking engagements have come from people I met at conferences. Recently, my invitation to join the Nigerian Youth Internet Governance Forum Organizing Committee came through a recommendation by a friend, based on our work together on the Nigerian Network Operators Group event on October 2018. Also, I facilitate an annual youth hangout which aims to bring young people together to share ideas and learn in an "ideas-safe" environment. Every year, most of our sponsorships come from referrals by people with whom contacts grew into valuable interactions and ideas exchange.

It goes without saying that most of my professional accomplishments and life goals advancements are tied to the social and professional contacts developed over the years. I have consciously worked hard to keep my network vibrant with incredible people in a bi-directional manner; people younger than me with whom I share my experience, people at my level with whom I usually collaborate on projects and seniors who serve as my mentors and from whom I learn. It has been a privilege to connect with mentors in my field of computing from outside Nigeria through social media and their impact in my life has been one of a tremendous volume.

The exposure to the global network that the Chevening scholarship promises, leaves so much to be desired. In my career path as a technology administrator, knowledge exchange is the hinge upon which progress is built, juxtaposed with my life goal (of using technology to further improve the quality of education in Nigeria) will gain from the richness of a global outlook while I will contribute my quota to the Chevening community in every capacity possible.

Scholarship / LEADERSHIP - My chevening essay on showcasing my leadership and influencing skills [3]

I HAVEN'T EVER BEEN IN A SUPERMARKET.

That was in my JSS 3 computer class in 2016 when I was serving my country in the mandatory national youth service corps as a secondary school computer teacher. I was trying to explain to my class that computers are useful even in a supermarket when a female student said out loud that she hoped to go to a supermarket someday. I took out my mobile phone and showed her what a supermarket looked like on YouTube. That was when it hit me, computer education is necessary for the mind of a child.

I grew up in a rural area which was outside the power grid, but my mom insisted that I got a computer literacy education. This exposed my mind to the world outside my village. And studying computer science at the university endowed me with enormous problem-solving skills. So, I decided to give the over 200 kids enrolled in the place of assignment the privilege that I enjoyed by teaching them how to use a computer. First, we needed a functional computer lab, then a power source and lastly extra time to use the computers. Firstly, got some key teachers interested in the idea of a computer lab so that they can back me up when I make a formal request to the proprietor. The proprietor was interested in the idea and allowed me to use a room which was sort of an archive for old materials and books. I got the bigger kids together and we cleaned out the room, then over the weekend, we fixed old broken furniture turned them into tables and benches. Then I spent time with the senior students using parts from one of the old desktops to fix the other two - this way I was trying to show them the internal components of the computer. Seeing the progress, the proprietor bought a generator, especially for the lab. I began to use the lab to teach students using my PC as one of the computers for practical. Whenever there was a large class, I borrowed laptops from my fellow corps members to augment. When my service year was almost over, I started to solicit donations for the laboratory. I got two extra laptops for the lab.

During the last of my two-term stay at the school, the senior students started to help me teach the younger students. They went from holding a mouse upside down to typing up the draft of the school magazine and teaching their juniors how to use the computer. After I passed out, I was pleased to hear from four of my former students that they wanted to pursue a course in computer science. I have since tried to replicate this model in more rural schools.

Leadership is about making others become better versions of themselves and as with my former student, I always take every opportunity to make team members grow. Chevening scholarship will grant me a new dimension of exposure to learn from a global community and support my work I bringing computer education to students in rural areas with perhaps more impactful methods.