2019 in Review: A year pushing for greater height
The year 2019 was a great year for me and for the people around me accounting for more wins, learning experience, privileges and achievement I’ll love to share. Just like the year 2018, I’ve definitely grown, explored different things and achieved more for myself and with the different sets of amazing people I came in contact with. Most importantly, I enjoyed the divine favour of God.
This year, I learnt a lot, had a lot of experiences, traveled far and wide, spoke at local and International Tech meetups and conferences, had the privilege to handle important roles, met and worked with smart brains in doing a couple of amazing things, Learnt from great industry expert from Facebook, Google and great guys from Silicon Valley who served as mentors and provided support. I also had the privilege to participate in different Competitions, Hackathons, and Tech Exhibitions. All of this is to the Glory of God for such opportunities.
As this year comes to a close, I’d like to take a moment to look back on the year, reflect and thank everyone involved for the truly wonderful journey which gave me amazing opportunities. I’ll love to share a review of how my year went and the things I was involved in to realize how far I have come, and how much I need to contribute to making a difference.
Facebook + United Nations Hackathon.
Earlier this year, around March, just 50 undergraduate students across different Nigerian universities out of over 1000 applicants, got selected to participate at this years Facebook with The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime(UNODC) in partnership with Africa Teen Geeks #Hackathon4Justice competition, where we are to come up with technological ways to make the world a safer place and solve the problem of Injustice in Africa. Luckily, I was among the Top 50 individuals and the name of my Team is Laravel.
It was an amazing 3 days of experience meeting different people, planning, designing, and coding our solutions. It was an engaging moment for me to work with a new team, get support and mentorship from Facebook engineers, and other staffs who came around while developing our technology-based solutions to solve a global challenge, specifically affecting the rule of law. I got the chance to meet Chimdi Aneke, Facebook Developer Program Manager, who is a very gentle and calm man in which I had the chance to ask a couple of questions when he was sharing his expertise with my team. Also, several mentors came around and were really excited about our solutions and our team spirit. They included software engineers from Facebook and Africa Teen Geeks, representatives of UNODC’s Education for Justice (E4J) initiative, which co-organizes these events.
With enough coffee and snacks to keep us awake and motivated, and an impromptu limbo contest halfway through to energize us even when it was around 3 am, the coding went on for 30 straight hours before our projects was ready for presentation alongside with other teams.
Another great moment for me during the program was when Iyin Aboyeji, the co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave came around to give his keynote address, talked on how Tech can fix the justice system and how we can think of a solution that can create value for everyone. Also, he shared his background and his journey into tech with us.
After his speech, I was able to spend a lot of time with him asking him a lot of questions as he was sharing his background on how he got into tech, his experiences, advice, and dream for the future. I really got motivated, inspired by having a greater impact on my generation. It was a memorable time for me and since then, I have had the chance of meeting and speaking with him personally.
My team worked on building a Tech solution to improve justice for children and to ensure that children are better served and protected by the justice system including the security and social welfare sector using a Web-based and an AI Chatbot Application. Our platform provides early intervention for criminal cases. after 30 hours of straight coding, we presented our solution to the awaiting jury included technology and education specialists such as Lucas Moscovicz of Facebook, Lindiwe Matlali of Africa Teen Geeks, Gilberto Duarte of UNODC’s E4J, Edith Osanyinpeju from Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education, and Professor Sagir Adamu Abbas from the National Universities Commission.
We really had a great presentation and a good product we demoed for the judges and the audience in which they really applauded well but unfortunately, we didn’t come out top 3 winning teams. After the whole event, I reached out to one of the judges to tell us why we didn’t come out top 3, he said we really did very well and the competition was tight in selecting the winners and again we didn’t have any female in our team. It was very painful. The hackathon gave me the opportunity to test my skills and learn even more. This is not the end, I’ll keep the same energy and continue providing solutions to the problems of the world.” I later received a Certificate of Participation, won some contests and got some Facebook Swags.
Some weeks after the hackathon, I got selected again for one-on-one six months remote mentorship program with a Senior Software Engineer for technical mentorship and another mentor for Interpersonal skills all from Facebook London’s office. I was added to Facebook’s Workplace internal group. It was such an amazing privilege to learn from experts directly from Facebook teaching and training on developing my career face to face remotely.
Oracle Nigeria Certification
Some months after, I was invited to Oracle Africa’s office to collect my certificate courtesy SV-NED Inc after the successful immersion program which held last year. I was part of the lucky graduates and I was issued my certificate by the Country Director with a handshake. I was later called in for a video recording interview to talk about my experiences.
I got featured by a reputable Silicon Valley company, @SVNEDInc as a success story on their website and also on different Newsletter articles. Thanks to SV-NED Inc and the entire team for such privilege.
Techpoint Africa 2019
In June, The Techpoint team reached out to us (InventOne) to come to speak and exhibit at this year’s conference. It was another amazing opportunity to share our knowledge and talk about our technology platform to a larger audience. I and my colleagues prepared hard for the event ensuring our presentation slides and our project was on point.
We had the opportunity to handle a workshop session talking on IoT and Robotics and how to get started using the InventOne platform. Our talk was on “Building IoT and Robotics Systems” with little or no technical experience. kudus to the InventOne team for making this a success.
For me, It was another great privilege sitting with big industrial experts in tech in Nigeria and having the chance to talk and share ideas with them. I had the chance of meeting with Andela Vice President of Operations, Google Country Manager, MTN Nigeria CTO, top CEOs, and other great leaders I aspire to become like. I later had a lunch break party with them and others, folks, as a VIP guest.
Before then We’ve been featured on Techpoint Africa official website and on other popular websites as a team of young Nigerians building a global IoT based Hardware company. Click on the link below to read more.
Facebook Accelerator Nigeria(FBStart)
Also in June, the Facebook Accelerator team with CChub Lagos came to my university(OAU Ile-ife) for an orientation road-show program talking to students about their accelerator program, its benefits and also how they can apply their deep Tech ideas to form a startup and possible ways to get into the program. FbStart Accelerator is a 6-month research and mentorship-driven program for innovative and visionary teams daring to create solutions with advanced technologies. I had the chance to help facilitate an interactive session talking to the audience about IoT technologies, possible solutions, and opportunities they can use it to solve. Different students were able to come up with different ideas relating to IoT deep technology.
Weeks after, InventOne applied to the FBstart accelerator program with our solution and we got in for the first phase of the interview. We were invited for the physical interview as a team and out of over 660 applications from different startups in Nigeria and Ghana, only 12 startups got selected. Luckily, InventOne was part of the top 12 startups who got in.
Some few months after into the accelerator program, I left InventOne to focus on something else.
Tech Community Service
Google Africa Developer Scholarship
I had another privilege of serving as a Community Facilitator for Osun State and Mentor for the Mobile-Web development track at this year's Google’s Africa Developer Scholarship ALC 4.0. Google partnered with Pluralsight to give over 30,000 developers free access to Pluralsight course content plus support from Andela Learning Community across 3 skills development Tracks: Mobile Web, Android, and Google Cloud.
It was an awesome moment for me to give back, meet new folks and mentor them on their journey to becoming Developers. I also got the chance to learn new stuff from people and fellow mentors from other countries in Africa where I understood some technologies better.
Hashem Bootcamp
The InventOne team got the chance to introduce and train different teens from different schools for 1 month on IoT, Lego, and InventOne Robotics Technology and we got them to build amazing projects. Their presentation was the best so far after the entire Bootcamp program.
Nigeria Robot Olympiad(NRO) 2019
I served as a Judge for the Senior Category alongside Timi Ogunyemi at this year’s 2019 Nigeria World Robotic Olympiad (WRO) competition which held in Lagos at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island. It served as the qualification stage for the upcoming world final WRO competition in Gyor, Hungary from Nov. 8 to Nov. 10.
The theme for the 2019 WRO is “Smart Cities”. There was another competition category including the Open category, Junior and Elementary categories all across different teams. I was able to see a couple of kids I’ve trained in Lego Robotics in the past(at TechQuest, Vodacom and others) qualifying and competing at the National finals. The 2019 WRO Nigeria was put together by Arc Lights Foundation Academy, a program that has been on since 2014. The participants for the WRO Nigeria are drawn from across public and private schools across Lagos State.
World Robot Olympiad, 2019
Weeks after, I was invited over again to serve as a Coach for the Open Category team(Team BrenTech) where we represented Nigeria at the World Finals in Hungary after weeks of preparation and training in building robotic and IoT models that can solve problems related to Smart Cities. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures to share but it was a great exposure experience.
Speaking Conferences
TechMoney Africa
I had the opportunity to give a talk about a Technology solution I and my team built at the TechMoney Africa Conference and also got the chance to meet with the Vice-Chancellor of Unilag.
The TechMoney & Innovation Summit Africa is where the entire tech ecosystem meets with Investment and Capital to solve Africa’s biggest challenges. The event brought together leading minds in Technology, Innovation, and Finance across Africa.
Ingressive ICA Africa Webinar
I served as the Lead Ambassador for Ingressive Africa at the Obafemi Awolowo University developer community.
The Marvel Creative camp
I was part of a Master class Bootcamp training for participants interested in Learning Website Design and Development for the Obafemi Awolowo University Student community training and mentoring a couple of students.
UTSSA Conference
I was part of the panel of speakers where I gave a talk to different Engineering and Science students at UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE STUDENT ALLIANCE conference, OAU, Ile-Ife. I gave a talk on “Getting started in your Tech career as a Student”.
Other Competitions
Hult Prize OAU
The name of my Team was Team Laminar where we pitched a Technology solution to solve the traffic congestion in Lagos and in different parts of Nigeria. We came out as top 3 winning teams at this year’s #hultprice OAU competition solving a major problem for Global impact. We are currently getting ready for the regional finals.
Hult Prize is an annual, year-long competition that crowd-sources ideas from MBA and college students after challenging them to solve a pressing social issue around topics such as food security, water access, energy, and education.
Venture Garden Group (VGG) Campus Hackathon
I and my team(Team Inventors) for the competition built an MVP platform called SmartHike, an effective Internet of Things as a Service(ITaaS) Software and Hardware system for monitoring, controlling and getting power usage insight on various Home appliances. We came out 2nd winning cash prize award.
Other Adventure
EasyCube Solutions
I started my personal Startup company earlier this year called EasyCube. Helping start-up businesses build simple and effective innovative solutions to solve the technology needs of our client’s pain points. Also, solving problems by building world-class innovative and creative technologies. Check out www.easycubesolutions.co to know more.
We’ve successfully helped more than 2 startup companies build and launch their technology solutions.
Also, in-house as a company with my partner we built our own technology product called Music Hangout — Africa’s first Indigenous Music +Social Networking streaming platform. Thanks for the support of 4MGS Entertainment and SV-NED Inc. We will launch our product fully in 2020.
Startup School by YCombinator
I joined Startup school by YCombinator learning how to start a startup with YC’s free 8-weeks online and group session courses. I also joined a network community of over 40,000 founders across 190 countries. I had the opportunity to engage with fellow startups to participate in frequent group sessions and set goals for our company. In September 2019, I graduated as a STARTUP SCHOOL GRADUATE.
AWS Startup day
My startup got selected to be part of the AWS Startup day conference where I had a one-on-one Technical and Bussiness mentorship with AWS experts. Also, I had a mentorship session on how to leverage AWS technologies to grow a startup company.
My family
- My Dad, Mum, and Siblings(I am really grateful for having them and for their great supports) were all in good health this year.
- I enjoyed God’s grace, protection, and provision.
- I made new friends and partners.
- Built a couple of projects with different teams
I am extremely grateful for meeting extraordinary people who were such an inspiration and motivation to me throughout the year. I want to also a very big thank you to my Tech Folks. I’m awesome because there are so many awesome people around me. I got exposed to the startup, building solutions, giving talks and technology project management world.
I thank God most especially and also many thanks to everyone who did contribute to making 2018 an awesome year for me.
2020: What’s the Plan?
I believe 2020 will be more fruitful and rewarding. Therefore, I will do my best to be a better me, travel more, impact more lives, build more awesome products, do more learning and most importantly, ensure everyday day counts.
Thanks for taking the time to read this long article. I really appreciate. You can get to know about me via ezekieladeyinka.tech. Also, feel free to reach out via email.
You can follow me on Twitter, or find me on LinkedIn. Let’s conquer the world in 2020 by solving problems and by lifting everyone around us!!!
