Dictbennie
Sep 26, 2020
Scholarship / Scholarship essay to highlight socio-economic development of Nigeria, leadership initiatives and com [2]
Please I need urgent help. I know it's quite lengthy but I'll appreciate if a honest feedback is given.
Growing up, my father told me that education is the only legacy he had for me and I should do everything within me to ensure I had great grades. That statement spurred me to grow faster than my age. While I had interests in what normal kids of my age did, I also had access to books and journals, documentaries, and the Nigerian Television Agency (NTA) 9PM news cast compulsorily to have a knowledge of recent happenings in the country and the world. Reading about computers and the internet at that tender age spurred my interest in science and when it was time to make a decision in secondary school on which arm to go, I didn't think twice before choosing sciences with an intention to study computing in the tertiary institution.
My academic background in Computer Science has furnished me with the right motivation to pursue a master's degree in Data Science. Having taken mathematics, statistics, computer programming, database design, digital transformation etc. I am confident that I will contribute immensely to the socio-economic development of Nigeria and Africa with a master's degree in data science.
Nigeria and Africa suffer from socio-economic problems such as human rights abuses, illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, tribalism, unstable exchange rates, decayed infrastructure, inflation, poor human capital development, environmental degradation (oil spillage), climate change etc. Data science brings concepts, tools and methods from various fields especially computer science, statistics, business etc. to process large amount of data into insightful knowledge and information for decision making. The growing importance of data in the world is non contestable. Data is making significant impact on every sector across different industries globally. As a data scientist, I envisage contributing my quota to nation-building by utilizing the tools, techniques, processes, and methods in collecting, visualizing, engineering, analyzing, and mining data for development. I intend to take up a data scientist role in a private or public organization in the financial services or security sector. My work would assist my employer in making sustainable and implementable policies to better determine consumer preferences and likely future demands based on past demand trends, target adverts of products and services. Also, proper business analysis will identify new business opportunities which will result in improving the profit of the organization and get a competitive advantage among competitors and be relevant in the industry.
One of the major problems facing Nigeria and some countries in Africa is terrorism. My knowledge of data science techniques would enable us to have a leverage in the fight against Boko Haram and other terrorist organizations. Leveraging on data analytics would enable security agencies in understanding the modus operandi, background, method of communication and location of terrorists. Having all this information would give details of their network, informants, financiers, suppliers, supporters as well as patterns of attack to forecast the likeliness of their future attacks, location and likely people that will join the groups. Data gotten from internet searches, social media activities and smart phone location data can be engineered to enable the government and security agencies to be one step ahead of terrorists in monitoring, preventing, and combatting them.
During my compulsory national service in Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria, I led a team of computer science/information technology graduates as part of our community development activities to five selected secondary schools to teach ICT as a subject. At Community Secondary School, Gyel, Jos, we discovered that there was no ICT teacher neither did they have a functioning computer lab. I volunteered to visit the school twice a week. A day was dedicated to teaching senior secondary students (SS 1- SS 3) which resulted in some senior students registering for ICT in their senior certificate exams because of the knowledge impacted and the other day for teaching junior secondary. At the end of service year, we donated five sets of computers to the school and ensured we liaise with our state coordinator to post corps members with IT background to the schools we identified that had shortage or no ICT teachers.
Professionally, I am a volunteer for ARM Pension Funds Managers Limited's RUN FOR THE FUTURE biannual program. It is a corporate social responsibility embarked by the company to promote healthy living among their client base and the public through exercise to enable them to have a smooth work life and enjoyable retirement. I had a duty of ensuring runners had enough water to drink at my water stop.
Furthermore, I am a member of Bayelsa Focus Group (BFG), a Facebook pressure group that focuses on discussing government policies in Bayelsa state and how they affect her citizens. Through out inputs, changes have been made to bills in the State House of Assembly and sometimes the government has backed down from signing controversial bills to law like the controversial life pension for elected public officials that the governor refused assent to.
Please I need urgent help. I know it's quite lengthy but I'll appreciate if a honest feedback is given.
education - the only legacy
Growing up, my father told me that education is the only legacy he had for me and I should do everything within me to ensure I had great grades. That statement spurred me to grow faster than my age. While I had interests in what normal kids of my age did, I also had access to books and journals, documentaries, and the Nigerian Television Agency (NTA) 9PM news cast compulsorily to have a knowledge of recent happenings in the country and the world. Reading about computers and the internet at that tender age spurred my interest in science and when it was time to make a decision in secondary school on which arm to go, I didn't think twice before choosing sciences with an intention to study computing in the tertiary institution.
My academic background in Computer Science has furnished me with the right motivation to pursue a master's degree in Data Science. Having taken mathematics, statistics, computer programming, database design, digital transformation etc. I am confident that I will contribute immensely to the socio-economic development of Nigeria and Africa with a master's degree in data science.
Nigeria and Africa suffer from socio-economic problems such as human rights abuses, illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, tribalism, unstable exchange rates, decayed infrastructure, inflation, poor human capital development, environmental degradation (oil spillage), climate change etc. Data science brings concepts, tools and methods from various fields especially computer science, statistics, business etc. to process large amount of data into insightful knowledge and information for decision making. The growing importance of data in the world is non contestable. Data is making significant impact on every sector across different industries globally. As a data scientist, I envisage contributing my quota to nation-building by utilizing the tools, techniques, processes, and methods in collecting, visualizing, engineering, analyzing, and mining data for development. I intend to take up a data scientist role in a private or public organization in the financial services or security sector. My work would assist my employer in making sustainable and implementable policies to better determine consumer preferences and likely future demands based on past demand trends, target adverts of products and services. Also, proper business analysis will identify new business opportunities which will result in improving the profit of the organization and get a competitive advantage among competitors and be relevant in the industry.
One of the major problems facing Nigeria and some countries in Africa is terrorism. My knowledge of data science techniques would enable us to have a leverage in the fight against Boko Haram and other terrorist organizations. Leveraging on data analytics would enable security agencies in understanding the modus operandi, background, method of communication and location of terrorists. Having all this information would give details of their network, informants, financiers, suppliers, supporters as well as patterns of attack to forecast the likeliness of their future attacks, location and likely people that will join the groups. Data gotten from internet searches, social media activities and smart phone location data can be engineered to enable the government and security agencies to be one step ahead of terrorists in monitoring, preventing, and combatting them.
During my compulsory national service in Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria, I led a team of computer science/information technology graduates as part of our community development activities to five selected secondary schools to teach ICT as a subject. At Community Secondary School, Gyel, Jos, we discovered that there was no ICT teacher neither did they have a functioning computer lab. I volunteered to visit the school twice a week. A day was dedicated to teaching senior secondary students (SS 1- SS 3) which resulted in some senior students registering for ICT in their senior certificate exams because of the knowledge impacted and the other day for teaching junior secondary. At the end of service year, we donated five sets of computers to the school and ensured we liaise with our state coordinator to post corps members with IT background to the schools we identified that had shortage or no ICT teachers.
Professionally, I am a volunteer for ARM Pension Funds Managers Limited's RUN FOR THE FUTURE biannual program. It is a corporate social responsibility embarked by the company to promote healthy living among their client base and the public through exercise to enable them to have a smooth work life and enjoyable retirement. I had a duty of ensuring runners had enough water to drink at my water stop.
Furthermore, I am a member of Bayelsa Focus Group (BFG), a Facebook pressure group that focuses on discussing government policies in Bayelsa state and how they affect her citizens. Through out inputs, changes have been made to bills in the State House of Assembly and sometimes the government has backed down from signing controversial bills to law like the controversial life pension for elected public officials that the governor refused assent to.
