IfeMeetsTech — I believed.

This is more of an emotional story rather than a tech one. It’s a story of a journey that was enriching, fruitful and almost delusional. It’s the story of a community. This is a thank you story.

It’s a lie!

Note: There is a second part to this story, it’s definitely leading somewhere.

In the beginning

I could remember the day vividly back in 2014 when the idea first occurred to me. It was mid-night, drizzling and the internet connection was epileptic at geology in White house. The time ideas rush into peoples head is always early in the semester and my case wasn’t different, you think there is time to execute before end of session. I was browsing something about Mozilla foundation when I saw one of their program where they teach web technologies, they called it the WebMaker Party. It looked like so much fun and learning was going on around the world and my school was missing out. We have to host our event, I thought to myself. I instantly became engrossed with it and ideas started flowing.

The first reachout

I immediately reached out to a fellow nightcrawler on facebook, Oyewale Ademola. You know those kind of friends you have that you don’t know where they are, it was 2 am in the morning, but you are sure were awake browsing like yourself. I described my thoughts to him, but he didn’t seem to understand what nonsense I was typing over a facebook chat; but he said ok. The best thing you can tell someone trying to convince you of an idea you think is crap, is ok. If he had said no, this can’t work — the idea would have died right then, and maybe rightly so. If he had said yes, that would mean — I love this idea, why didn’t I think of it. But he said ok — I have heard, now leave me alone ! I was thrilled to hear him say ok. This gave me the leverage to talk to others about it, and by the end of that day, I must have convinced 10 people about my silly idea to host a tech event.

What is in a name ?

You don’t just have an idea, you need to execute it. Since the idea was sparked by Mozilla WebMaker Party, I decide to call the event, MozParty. We were going to invite lots of students, we would have fun, talk and teach web tech. Only problem with the name was that there is a female hall of residence called Mozambique — Moz for short. So it sounded like we were hosting a female only free-for-all party, the MozParty. Oyewale Ademola had become genuinely interested now and was first to raise concern. Somehow Ife-Meets-Tech was named, an event like project were the guys from Ife meet tech. Talk, fun, engage, share, learn. Makanju Dami Perfect , Moyinoluwa Adeyemi, Otaru Babatunde, and a host of others were now in on the idea but I still had more work.

The run up

This was the toughest part, convincing myself and people that this event was really going to hold. I became an evangelist. I stabbed lots of classes just go into other people’s classes and convince them to come for an event. Convincing 10 people is hard enough, convincing hundreds at a time is worse. Why I kept at it still baffles me. Thinking of the fact that I actually went into people’s class scares me at this moment. I was like a disturbance in their ear, sighting me reminds them of the event. And I did this every weekday for the next 3 weeks. Moyinoluwa Adeyemi had brought in Adegoke Obasa , Adeyemi Olaoye, Omolara Adejuwon, Ayodele Obasegun at this point.

The D day

Moyinoluwa Adeyemi played the doubting Thomas on this day. She kept asking if people would show up. At a point, I wasn’t sure anymore. Then fear started setting in, what if they forgot about the program ? They had all the right not to come, it was test period, I myself had written a test earlier that day if they decided to take the day off resting, they deserve it. Afterall, we are students before anything else.

But …

Lessons And Conclusions

This is not the story of one person, it’s the story of a community that openly embraced each other to greatness.

If you are reading this, take it as a way to note that your idea can fly. Share it with people, they would give you better insights and help realise it. But you will have to do most of the execution.

Respect and love to the people who made the Ife tech community thick from the inside. Youth, Love and Passion.

The power of the youth is the ability to try things out.

I code, thus I exist.

to be continued…

Thanks again after all this time

I have to say thank you to many people who made this event happen. Funny enough during this whole period, I was a broke, like broke. I didn’t have any money to pull this off, the only thing I had going was- I don’t know. Moyinoluwa Adeyemi needs to take praise for making it happen through the Google Developer Group, she supplied the drinks and brought the HOD! She also secured the venue used. So you see, she almost single handedly made the event happen. Oyewale Ademola bought into the idea and chipped in insightful comments. Ayodele Obasegun gave a story that day, I really respected him more. The mentorship from Adegoke Obasa, Adeyemi Olaoye, Akapo Damilola Francis, Oyewale Oyediran. A friend (Talabi Opemipo) brought in standby generator and another (Omotosho Omoniyi) made sure internet top notch. Makanju Dami Perfect gave time, effort and shared if ideas to impact knowledge.

Thanks for reading.