IBTechMeetUp: Building the Ecosystem in Ibadan

Ridwan Rasheed
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read

What you are about to read, is an ambitious story of how an idea came to fruition with the efforts of some young vibrant and enthusiastic entrepreneurs who wants to change the world a community at a time.


I kickstarted my career as an Intern at Edawah Technologies limited, one of the few IT companies in Ibadan the largest city in West Africa.

Learning was challenging and fun, I found myself in a new ocean of Learning, where yesterday knowledge is fast becoming obsolete today. So I basically did a lot of learning, unlearning and relearning. I found out that a career in tech needs an ecosystem to massively grow. There was plenty of things to learn, from digital marketing, to software development, to project management and so on. The company culture taught me to believe in myself, be creative, make things happen and to think Globally and act locally.

Now it became obvious that I needed an ecosystem to learn, network and share growth. I feel I needed to share my knowledge with people and therefore I needed a community. I started searching and asking around. The only community of techies around in Ibadan then was the Google Developer Group lead by Gbolahan Alli. So through my sojourn I went for the Google Dev Fest South West in lagos last year. I met people and I so much love it.

First Meetup in January

However, I felt it was much more restricted to Developers, other careers in Technology are left behind. So #IBTechMeetUp came to mind, it’s an ambitious meet up project with the aim of creating a sustainable ecosystem of people in technology and enthusiast in Ibadan and beyond. People would basically meet up to discuss ideas, share problems and collectively solve them, share opportunities, interact and learn. The question of how to start beckons, I put up an estimate of what I needed, and it was way beyond what I can steer.

I kept a draft of that project in my diary. And during holiday in December last year, I decided to give it a shot. I shared the idea with few Friends on Facebook and the interest spurred me, so we made it happen. It wasn’t easy at all, we had to make a venue change at the last some last minute of the event. However, it was a success, special appreciation to Oluwamayowa Oshidero of Tinkling D, for been our host.

With #IBTechMeetUp we will be joining forces with everyone and group doing amazing tech related stuffs in Ibadan and beyond to build the future of technology In Ibadan and Africa.

So after the first Meet up in January, we had another meet up in April, where we brought Nigerian born and American Based Data Evangelist and CEO of Afrika Data Place Quadry Ola, to give a talk on the future of Big Data in Africa, Uche Aniche, Convener Startup South, and CEO of Venuehero.co and Niyi Aribiyi of CmapIT who all spoke about Data.

Now henceforth, we are planning to have Monthly meet up’s with the support of everyone in the ecosystem including IT companies, Tech Hubs, High Institutions of learning and all Tech Group in Ibadan.

Then we did March, and it was a bang, we had Emeka Azuka Okoye of Cemantiks Nigeria and Ogunbowale Olugbenga the CEO at Epower, both of the shared the secret of starting or building a successful career in technology.

Are we open to sponsorship and hosting?

Yes we are open to both. Anyone interested in hosting the next meet up will need to send us an email and we will follow up on them. Ibtechmeetup@gmail.com

Lastly there is no profession as sweet as technology. Let’s build the future.

Rasheed Ridwan.

Community manager #IBTechMeetUp

rrasheedridwon@gmail.com

Yusuf Adeyemo

Project Lead #IBTechMeetUp

yusadolat@gmail.com

Ridwan Rasheed

Written by

Accelerating the growth of youths and businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. Leading @ideraos @021foundation @toestoday ridwanrasheed.com

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