While I have always been fascinated about how online platforms like Facebook, BBC and so on were built, I never got to know how to build one myself even though I studied Computer Science in the Polytechnic (ND and HND).
You might want to say I wasn’t passionate or fascinated or intrigued enough, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But at the same time, the Polytechnic didn’t really help matters — I don’t like blaming anyone for my predicament though. We wrote computer programs to add two numbers, solve some really complicated mathematical equations and even a food-based program that ended up printing “Eba” or “Rice” and what have you on the PC screen, but it didn’t go beyond this. A lot of emphasis was on passing and graduating !
Soon we graduated, and then we realized we didn’t have a single skill required to get jobs, or even create one, in the technology industry. It was a problem. I personally was scared of my future!
One thing I loved to do was write — though never like Chimamamda Adichie — and immediately after graduation I applied to one of Africa’s biggest tech pubs, TechLoy. After about two months of interning, I was employed to be a writer. This afforded me the opportunity of knowing more about our tech industry — I never knew it existed prior — and connected me with several key players. Opportunities to learn a lot of things that’ll be pretty useful in tech and everywhere else came my way but I couldn’t grab any for inexplicable reasons.
Then NYSC came and I said two prayers to God: one, bring opportunities my way, and two, give me the ability to grab them. During my service year, several opportunities came. Kaduna-based CoLab announced it was launching Code School, Jos-based nHub announced plans to launch their inaugural Fellowship Program, and Lagos-based Switch also launched to train world class software developers. After so much thought and consideration, I decided to go with nHub. The hub’s founder David Daser, who I have been in constant communication with due to my writing job, encouraged me to apply too!!!
I did apply and went through all the stages, including sending across a 1 minute video stating reasons why I should be accepted into the program, and got accepted. I almost had a party to celebrate this important milestone — startups do this all the time, so I wanted to copy! I called home from Lokoja where I was still relaxing after my service year to inform them about everything. A series of problems came up after that call that almost made me give up.
My parents didn’t want me to go because it was Jos — a northern volatile state. I gave them reasons why I wanted to go till I got exhausted, drained even. In the end they agreed but more problems came up. My laptop developed another fault after I fixed its bad keyboard. I spent so much money shuttling between Ikorodu and Badagry to get it fixed again. At the end of the day, I had to pick up another laptop — much lesser than mine in terms of cost, specs, et al — so I could go for the program. I arrived Jos two days later than I planned.
I got to the hub some minutes past 2pm on the day the program commenced— June 5, 2017 — and stepped into the class filled with Fellows and one dude teaching them. I later got to know what was being taught — Deep Thinking and Algorithms — and who was teaching — Timothy, a very brilliant Mechanical Engineering grad and ‘self-taught’ software developer who really should be working for NASA.
First day in class and exhausted from the journey; I didn’t quite get what was going on but I managed to learn a few things. I later got to meet David and some big wigs at the hub. Thereafter, a challenge came up again — where I was going to pass the night. I ended up sleeping in the hub with a Fellow. Actually, I didn’t sleep much cos of the mosquitoes — an elderly man in the bus I came in had warned me . The guy with me was feasted on — I killed up to 20 mosquitoes on him alone that night!!!
Getting a decent accommodation was a very serious challenge but luckily we met a very kind agent the next day who reduced the rent we were to pay for a two bedroom apartment, and gave us the key to a four bedroom apartment in the same compound to pass the night. We both slept on the floor though, using our Jean pants and other clothes as makeshift bed.
More challenges popped up still. I missed David’s first class on Version Control System because my phone suddenly crashed. I had to rush to Terminus to fix it, and when I got to the ATM to get out cash so I could pay the repair guys, I couldn’t. I tried several ATMs but none worked. I almost gave up again!!! After spending about 3 hours at EcoBank the following day, I was able to withdraw again and I picked up my phone.
It’s almost two weeks now in Jos and everything is beginning to make sense. Our apartment is taking shape — we not buying anything fancy; just basic stuffs — and the lectures are really sinking in gradually.
As I said earlier, Timothy is a brilliant chap. I mean seriously…don’t kid with this dude. He’s got everything on lock down. He’s been working our brains out with a lot of Algorithms. We’ve been writing programs using Flogorithm — solving problems on Fibonacci series, Prime, Even and Odd numbers, using loops, Counters, Arrays, indexing, hashing, et al and doing lotta stuffs I still need to catch up on. Right now, we’re delving into C++.
David has taught us Version Control Systems (VCS) and we all are now on Git, the world’s most used distributed VCS. We’ve learnt how to initialize our repo (git init), create directories (mkdir), add to our repo (git add), stage our changes (git commit), push to the master repo (git push origin master) and what not. Our first class work required some Fellows to really fork certain repos, others cloned while some others fetched. It’s been really fun!!!
We now know what working in an agile environment and Scrum is. We know the Scrum team is self-organizing; there’s no leader. There’s the product owner, who has domain knowledge of the project being executed; the Scrum master, who’s like the errand boy in the team: arranges meetings, organizes the team, stands between the product owner and the team, et al; and the team, comprising the designers, developers, et al. We got to know about the Scrum Daily, which holds everyday for about 15 minutes — could be longer though — with all team members present. Then there’s Sprint, Sprint planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, and so on, and the Scrum Artifacts — Product Backlogs, Sprint Backlogs, and Burn Chart.
Tomorrow is another day at the hub and I’m seriously looking forward to it. Let me go and study…got loads to catch up on.
PS This article, which now spot a few changes, first appeared on my Medium Page - https://medium.com/@KelvMakanjuOla/nhub-fellowship-its-beginning-to-make-sense-7ee33a52e22.