My Tiidelab Experience 1.0
Prior to the 6th of August 2020 when the current cohort of the tiidelab fellowship started, i was someone with a passion in the developer world but oblivious on what path to take…i had been introduced into coding sometimes ago but i didn't know what path to take as i have never been under a direct tutelage before now, and so i viewed this tiidelab opportunity as a defining moment for me in my career as a developer. I had quite big expectation towards the program, however , on starting my expectation was blown wide as what i thought i knew to be the standard in the developer world soon became a proof of incomplete knowledge. i was given the best foundation to the developer journey you could ever thought of and right there from the beginning , the goal was clear “ to be self reliant and problem solvers”, indeed the training has been targeted towards building problem solving skills and ultimately to be self reliant. in-order to achieve this, the training was structured into two formats, “The technical skill training” which focuses on the nitty-gritty of software development including various languages and frameworks, also “ The soft skills training” which focuses on building and amplifying the core inherent skills that humans possess or must possess in-order to be a competent problem solvers and influencers in whatever fields.
The Technical Framework
The technical aspect of the training which till date has been delivered by competent and outstanding instructors has ensured that i now have a working knowledge of some of the languages both markup and programming languages needed to build software for web application, the instructor started by taking us through what makes a good developer and as well what makes a good code. Readability and scalability makes a good code. Readability being how clean and clear a code is to a third party reader and as well scalability being the ability of the code still be usable even when the data base has increased, the is specifically how a code can be written to accommodate future discrepancy and demands. The Big O notation helps us to measure the scalability of the code, these are valuable understandings gotten from the training thus far. By the way bring your codes let me determine if its scalable hence a good code. Moving further i was introduced into Data structures which simply entails how Data are built and used and their various types. I was also taught how to deploy websites over the internet and now I understand how the web works. Finally on the technical aspect of the training, thus far I’ve being taught some of the web technologies used to write web apps and the roles they play, i was taught advanced HTML and CSS and as well a little on JavaScript for now.
I have used this knowledge of the web technologies to design and code a beautiful portfolio website.
The Soft skill Training
Moving further, the soft skill aspect of the training has been outstanding for me, as the process has refined certain qualities such as Leadership, Team work, and Critical thinking in me. Astonishingly the training has been been practically delivered, so the aforementioned skills were not only taught but they have been refined in me as well and i can out-rightly say, in the course of the training. To name a few, the non technical aspect of the training has covered the following:
- Team work
- Problem framing and identification
- Profiling
- Decision making process
I have demonstrated leadership, team work and critical thinking skills as i have been taught.
This leads me to my DEFINING MOMENTS thus far
well, for me I’ve had some very interesting and amazing moments in tiidelab such as when i became the deputy head of house because it defined how the following week would be for me in the training.. Obviously it’s a leadership position and the consequence of leadership is responsibility, this gave me an opportunity to showcase my leadership quality as touching creativity, coordination and organization, and also I had a great moment listening to the CEO of Nigeria Climate Innovation Center (NCIC)… Mr Bankole Oloruntoba
after just a few minutes listening, it was obvious he’s a well informed man with a well defined idiosyncrasy and it wasn't difficult to depict the secret of his success, his unique paradigm, idea, lifestyle set him up for a life of great achievements, this was a defining moment for me as i left there with a tone of things to work on.
My Experience as Deputy Head of House.
Fundamentally, I believe Leadership is based on the principle of pulling a group of people in a definite direction towards an objective or pre-determined goal, and if you’re going to pull a crowd, the first step is to step out of the crowd…. Hence for me, the first thing i did after co-defining what our goal for the one week would be with the Head of House, Arimoro Ezekiel, was to make sure i added more springs to my boot so i could move closer to our objectives part of which was to deliver an improvement in the attendance and performance levels of the fellows, in order for this happen, i personally had to shift my level of performance and as well increase my punctuality to class by connecting to classes way before time…This enabled me to follow up on fellows who were lagging.
Also, I was able to practice the decentralized system of leadership by relating with and assigning duties to Team leads as directed by the Head of House in order to get reactions from members of various teams. Of course this didn't come without few challenges such as unavailability of some key persons during meetings, lack of response/feedback from some fellows.
However, as our tenure came to a closure, together with the Head of State, we were able to work on a short video presentation to appreciate the management of Tiidelab for putting together such a life changing well structured program, this again was an expression of creativity, fellows recorded videos of themselves saying thank you to Tiidelab and i was able to merge the videos in a professional way using Filmora desktop application
This is only a summary of the humongous additions this training has added to my journey. once again, the goal is to become a competent problem solver and it’s a journey to self reliance and i will never forget “Positioning beats talent everytime” — Pishikeni Tukura
Thank you.
