Ife: Being a long time coming.
Ife (Yoruba: Ifè, also Ilé-Ifẹ̀) is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. The city is located in the present day Osun State. Ife is about 218 kilometres (135 mi) northeast of Lagos. A place full of potential!
As a student of Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-ife, you are expected to almost bag a first class and you are in to experience the maddest set of lecturers the world can give. Technology in Ife, Techpoint in a 2016 article highlighted OAU to have one of the most influential tech communities in Nigeria. Prior to this there are significant startups that started on campus and awesome projects that students have undertaken.
In the last decade, OAU students have positioned themselves to become talents that go on to accomplish giant strides, despite the fact that the school doesn’t give much support the tech community on campus, students still pull off stunts that deserve accolades. I would take through a mental picture of what the community looks like now and where we want to be.
My experience
In my part one I was interviewed by Odu Oluwafemi with VOISSAPP as a content curator, aced it, got recruited, after many failed content strategy meetings, I think I wrote an article or two before I never got called for content meetings again and I kept on asking what went wrong from guys I could lay hands on and I kept hearing voissapp was getting an upgrade which included running the app free on the OAU internet (intecu). Prior to the interview I accidentally bumped into Oyewale Ademola at Channel O and told him how much I wanted to be part of a tech community on campus, we later never saw and I didn’t join a community till my part 3.
In part 2, i took python classes from the python club, wasn’t consistent tho, met great folks like Lekan Wahab, Bashir Hamza, David Asamu and Razak but I was still oblivious about the communities on campus till my part 3, where I got the chance to attend Leverage by Consonance and this earmarked my first encounter with a tech community and since then it’s either I started one community or a key member of one.
Where Ife Tech is now.
Communities
Still in its infancy, we have a couple of communities here on campus speaking of OAU, we are not sure of other institutions in the region. On campus we have Startup Grind Ife, Consonance Ife, forloopOAU, GDGOAU (Now GSCOAU), Peered Camp, IEEE OAU, Sparkplug, Python Club, ALC, Django Girls, Women Techmakers, intel OAU, iLab, iLabRoc, Space Club.
Infrastructure
Currently there’s no collaboration center here in the Ife system, though we have hubs littered around the city and on campus but there’s no place for general folks to come together and collaborate. Departmental libraries, opened lecture theaters, internet cafe serve as spots where students can work together. In the case of holding meetups we either stick to using damaged (getting renovated tho) lecture rooms for free or pay quite expensive charges for the “almost great” venues. We are mostly at the mercy of intecu (OAU Internet).
Innovation.
Despite no access to the right infrastructure, the technical creative has over the years proved to be creative and built remarkable projects and even represented the country at international levels. Projects like Team Humane, Invent One, Sanwo, Foodie.ng, Copula, Voissapp, Fhotodit
Where we want to be.
Infrastructure
Despite the talents coming out of Ife, we students strive to learn and develop under very unfriendly climate on campus and its environs. We want a collaboration and innovation space here in Ife. With this in place, it would increase the economic prosperity of the state, as it would even attract talent from outside the region thus contributing the talent soup of the region.
Cash Inflow.
Ife has shown track record in developing projects that transcends beyond campus to become successful startups and I believe with more hackathons, technology themed case study competitions and idea competitions, with this in place this would inspire the already inspired students to even produce ground breaking ideas that can further drive technology inclusion in the state.
Advisory Network
The growth of any ecosystem is hinged on the availability of advice from experienced veterans in the technological space and we lack that in OAU and has caused many projects with good prospects to die off. I believe we have notable alumni who can constitute an advisory board who an advice students on projects and how to build beyond campus.
Media.
Media plays a major role in getting word out as regards innovation, talents and ideas. That’s why this publication was set up anyways, the publication aims to inform the public of what goes on in Ife and its processes.
That’s it! Don’t forget to clap and also share around.
