2018 In Review : Nwa Biara Ije ( A CHILD ON A JOURNEY )
Before I take you on this amazing journey that is my 2018, I just want to state that I’ve always wanted to write a year review. The inspiration to write came after reading year reviews from Prosper Otemuyiwa & Ire Aderinokun. I’ve always thought there wasn’t anything exciting about my past years, but I have to say 2018 was my year!!!
“Progress is progress no matter the amount”
The quote summarizes my whole year, here is a recap of all the highs and lows
Work & Traveling
So this year, I got an internship at Genesys Tech Hub in Enugu, Nigeria. It was an awesome six months that provided invaluable experience in software development. At the end of the program, I was awarded the intern of the year – which comes with a job 😃 as a community Manager (I start in August 2019!)
Since ASUU has refused to call off the ongoing strike, I’ve been working part-time as ??? 😆 . In this period, I’ve visited eight universities were we hosted ‘Hacktober’ ( A Genesys tech hub Campus Hackaton). In addition, I visited fourteen secondary schools to teach the basics of algorithms and computational thinking.
Open source
I have always been a bit overwhelmed 😱 when it comes to contributing to opensource projects. However, after a conversation with my friend Oreoluwa Ogundipe I tried out a few and it felt so rewarding sending in PR’s. Some were merged, some were not but I was proud overcoming my fear. On one occasion, I gave a talk at a Developer Student Community on contributing to open source. Shout-out to Even Stensberg for always being accessible and helping out.
Writing
This year I became an author at Scotch.io ✏️. Funny story I’ve always wanted to write for Scotch. Over the years I have read articles on the platform by different interesting authors. I’ve got to say that I feel quite fulfilled to finally say “ Hey I am Obinna and I write for Scotch” 😮 Check out some of my articles…
Life
This year I grew physically ,intellectually 📈, and emotionally 📉though I am still trying to find my balance ( It’s been quite crazy). I went through a bad breakup but I came out strong (as a bad guy you know). I have now learned that I’m not quite ready to accommodate another human being in my life right now emotionally (focusing on myself *cliche*) That was just a little hiccup, I actually met a lot of cool people that I am sincerely thankful for.
Community & Speaking
All through 2017, I attended a lot of meet ups and each time I could only dream about giving those talks and enlightening people. These are some of the things that give me joy. To achieve this goal, I sent out a couple of applications to speak at a few events. Fortunately I got the opportunity to speak at 2 events— Google Devfest South-East and A GitHub meet up in UNN
As for communities, I am currently planning events with forLoop and Ingressive. More information soon 😉
Mentor ship
The first thing I know is that I know Nothing, the second thing is that the world needs what I know
I currently have the privilege of mentoring a few people in the ongoing ALCTanzania in Tanzania. It has been a a rewarding experience — I’m also brushing up on my Swahili 😆 .
Lastly, I met two individuals I look up to: Christian Nwamba and Chuloo. Shout out to Oreoluwa Ogundipe. I consider these 3 my personal mentors.
What about 2019?
So 2018 was definitely one hell of a ride. 2019? Well I have quite a few aspirations:
- Travel to 2 African Countries
- 1,500 commits on GitHub
- Become GitHub Campus Expert
- Give more Talks ( I really want to speak at concatenate 2019)
- Give a Ted Talk ( I have some ideas worth sharing )
- 100 Articles on Scotch.io ✏️
- Write more code for more Startups 💻
- Mentor more people
- Take more photos 📷
Big work to be done !!!! 😆
