Problems exist in every society and this is usually in droves. However, the kind of problem experienced by society is commensurate with how developed it is. Solving a problem we see in our nation and community is not cut out for the seemingly rich or those who society tag as “well-made”. Rather, the more positive impact is achieved when individuals who have gained something of immense value deem it necessary to share it with others who do not know about it. This was the heart that birth the Awka Hack Week.
Let’s put a little background to the event.
After putting three years of effort to make his dream of studying in the United States, a less than 10 minutes interview which led to a denied visa to get a PhD degree in Physics, Chukwualuka Chiama decided to go back and learn programming after the brief stint he had with BASIC (a programming language) in the University. Over time, he learnt about software development and the progress he has had so far was attributed to the gift of mentorship he was given.
Reflecting on the gift of mentorship he received, the current lack in the society and the slow progress of self-taught programmers, he alongside Ugo Ekemezie worked on bridging this gap by mentoring students who wanted to learn how to code in an online class. This attempt achieved significant success with people from different states in Nigeria signing up for the program and learning for free online.
(Read more about the story here).
With this success, plans were made for the first edition of the Awka Hack Week. According to the organizer, Chukwualuka Chiama, the focus of the Hack week is to provide avenues for young Africans to take advantage of the opportunities available in the tech sector.
“If talent is not nurtured it will go to waste,” this is one of the fundamental drives behind the organization of the hack week. Guidance and mentoring play an important role in the development of a software engineer and this is true in other career paths also.
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Speaking on the event, Chiama said
“one hack-week will not make software developers of all that are interested in the profession. It will not even guarantee that all that partake continue to have careers in software development. It is a step though… we should not allow fear of failure stop us from reaching for our dreams. How much this dream will yield cannot be told now”.
–Chukwualuka Chiama
Programming languages: HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Date: November 4-8, 2019
Time: 10am to 4pm daily
Venue: Anambra State Polytechnic, Awka, Nigeria
Price: FREE
Interested? Hurry and register here.
Click on the Share button in this article to update your friends on this opportunity in the Nigerian tech space. Do drop a comment on this post and let me know what you think about the assaults and if the fundraising effort will be effective enough to stop this anomaly.
Featured Image Source: @UgoEkemezie – Twitter
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Dear connectnigeria.com owner, Thanks for the well-researched post!