KWARABUILD TECH CONFERENCE 2019; LESSONS, STRATEGIES, CHALLENGES AND AND THE WAY FORWARD
Like every event, we planned. Like every planning, we strategized. Like every strategy, we collaborated. Like every collaboration, we connected. Like every connection, we were value-driven. Like every value-driven connection, we were successful. Like every success… WE DID IT!
It all seemed like an arduous task that couldn’t be executed. The good news there however was that, we did it!
The planning of KWARBUILD TECH CONFERENCE(Kbtc) 2019 actually started the next 24 hours after KWARABUILD TECH CONFERENCEE 2018. This happened because we were driven with the passion to make our ‘after’ become better than our ‘before’.
Kbtc ’18 left us with indelible lessons to learn. Via the feedbacks we received and that which we gave ourselves, we discovered some loopholes which if such should repeat itself again, the brand –KwaraBuild might become a thing of the past. We ensured we learnt from the past and not just neglect it.
When we received the news this year from one of the attendees based in Kwara State that, “this was the best tech conference she had ever attended…” we smiled. We however went over the moon when another shocking feedback from a Lagos based tech enthusiast screamed over the phone as to how such massive success was recorded in a state like ‘Kwara’ and a city like ‘Ilorin’. One could notice his disbelief from the manners with which he stressed and reverberated the sentence –In Ilorin like a 4-year old wanting to memorize ABC in the shortest time possible because he was promised Chocolate.
During the Kbtc ’18, we were very happy on the D-day that the event would be extremely good. We were confident to host the largest tech conference in the North Central. We received the shock of our lives when we were told on the D-day after we were done doing the rigorous cleaning and arrangement that the place would not be given to us anymore. We felt it was like a joke until we discovered that it was actually real; it wasn’t a joke. We had to get another venue under duress that same moment and had to mobilize over 1000 participants there. Yes, you could call that an achievement but who would think we could pull that off at such an hour with the Devil whose only one bullet could kill and we’ve used it to kill just his cohorts. Thank God that we still had our bare hands to strangle him to death.
To ensure this doesn’t happened this year, we made our findings well and were fully sure that that venue was available for use by US on THE SAID DATE before we added it on the flyer.
Once bitten, twice shy.
Another thing was the issue of proper planning to matters arising. Because Kbtc ’18 was our first, we went with the approach of tackling a problem as it comes. We cared less if it was urgent or important, as long as it was a problem, we tackled it. This costs us loss of time, energy, resources, and money.
Kbtc ’19 however came with different tactics. No matter the gravity of the matters arising, we follow the already laid plans. This way, we saved ourselves more money, energy, resources and loads of time. At the end, we discovered that some of these matters we thought were intense, were actually mirage.
Kbtc ’19 was successful because of the following highlighted points:
SPIRITUALITY: Life itself is spiritual. We would be telling a white lie if we should neglect the place of spirituality and not itemize it as the first in our success at Kbtc ’19. Everyone, comprising different religion all had roles to make use of their spirituality to ensure everything went well. All thanks to GOD. He was fully involved!
THE RIGHT TEAM: One of the greatest tools we had at our deployment was having the right team. We were blessed with the right people. We weren’t just group of guys, we were groups of talented, creative, energetic, connected and enthusiastic professionals. Everyone of us is a don in his industry. We ensured we assign roles to everyone according to their capacity. We ensured feedback was given as and when due. Follow ups were made paramount. There’s always something to motivate. We made that available. We weren’t just men alone. We comprise both men and sophisticated, valuable and intellectual women. Having the right team was one of the crucial part of our success.
COMMUNICATION: We ensured that communication was carefully noted, examined and acted upon on roles assigned, updates, information, suggestions and what have you. We created a platform where location would not be our barrier.
STRATEGY: This was the core of everything we did. This was the beginning, middle and end of everything. Here, we made the comparison with every tech conferences that we have attended personally or in groups. We made use of those who would work in our territory and innovated others. We strategized to stop PURSUING; we simply began to ATTRACT. We received a lot of support via our model of ATTRACTING and not PURSUING.
PARTNERSHIPS: This was also one of the zenith of our success at the event. We had partnerships and collaborations with Kwara State Internal Revenue Service, VMware, Virtualize Africa, Plat Technologies, VNsync, and a host of others. We couldn’t have done it alone. All thanks to our partners.
LEVERAGE: We aren’t just tech guys. We practiced what we preached. First, we leveraged on the power of the social media; twitter majorly. On the day of the event, we RANKED 5 on the TRENDING SECTION on Twitter. We moved the world from Ilorin city. We also leveraged on Other People’s Influence (OPI). Everyone that was aware of the conference received the reason to also share on their platform riding on their influence.
These were the top and major process that resulted in our getting results at this year’s conference.
It was challenging, tasking, learning, fun, educative, rewarding, and successful.
We’d like to end with the words we began with:
Like every event, we planned. Like every planning, we strategized. Like every strategy, we collaborated. Like every collaboration, we connected. Like every connection, we were value-driven. Like every value-driven connection, we were successful. Like every success… WE DID IT!
See you at KWARABUILD TECH CONFERENCE 2020!
Pics
Pictures from the event have been uploaded to kwarabuild, view the full album on Google Photos.
A dream achieved by all is a worthy contribution of everyone, we appreciate every hands that has contributed to the success of this event, our amazing team, volunteers, mentors, speakers and philanthropists. We say a big THANK YOU!
Host
Kwarabuild Community
Event Partners:
Media: Lascot Studio
Media: Dasilva Concept
Support Partners:
For more interesting posts, join our online community on the following platforms:
· Twitter: @kwarabuild
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kwarabuild/
· Medium: https://medium.com/kwara-build
. Website: https://kwarabuild.com
Written by Akolade Oluwatoba
Content Developer, KwardBuild
