Dec 27, 2020
THE UNENDING JOURNEY: FINAL PART
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”- Lao Tzu
“…they taught me that it’s not how much you make in money that matters but how much you pay in terms of lifetime value. I work hard not just to make more money but to make more people in life. Of course, money is key, but making people is most essential.” - Dare Oduale
These were the words of one of my great mentor at StudentBuild Africa’s graduation ceremony.
Over the past 12 months, I have been sowing seeds at various checkpoints, locations and plains, one that five to ten years from now, I hope to remember for good the beautiful seeds I planted, connections I established, decisions I made, projects I started and realizations that occurred in the year 2020.
Amidst the challenges and uncertainties that characterized 2020 did I find a cause and journey worth embarking on and I’m glad to have taken the bold, first step which I can always look back to and beam a smile of relief and gratitude.
Quick flashback to how it all began:
I was opportune to meet Elijah Shokenu — a meeting which happened to be the igniting force behind my exploratory journey at StudentBuild Africa. Elijah is someone I have esteemed regards for in that we share some personalities in common. Elijah to me, is a Mentor I look up to when it comes to ‘deliverables’. I especially dedicate 50 per cent of my growth and experience at StudentBuild to him as he’s had an equivalent 5-year worth of impact on me within 12 months- what a magician!
You can read through my experience at the StudentBuild’s Summit here:
StudentBuild is a student support organization innovating between the African student community and the global value-creation ecosystem.
I officially started my journey with StudentBuild on the 6th day of January, 2020 where I attended a session on “science of happiness” with the serial Entrepreneur —Chidi Nwaogu . It was really a great head-start to a series of enlightening and inspiring sessions to come.
Obviously, I travelled through this journey in a virtual headset, confirming the fact that there is hardly anywhere in the world one can not go to in this age and time — thanks to technology. I got to meet a lot of great minds and connected with a handful of them and it in turn transformed me.
I met with the likes of Segun Adeyemi (Country Manager @ JUMO GROUPS, Nigeria), who walked me through the fundamentals of Business and the art of negotiating in a professional world. Chidi Nwaogu, taught me ways to becoming an Entrepreneur. I also got to meet a team of world renowned experts who’s been instrumental in my professional communication development and growth with the likes of Oluchi Ezeugo, Samuel Osho, Blessing Adogame, Mohini Ufeli , John Affaidzi Appiah. I really enjoyed being mentored by these world-class team of communication experts.
Not only was I privileged to meet with a team of communionation professionals but also met with a talented pool of other resource persons and I got to learn from their stories and experience shared with the likes of Jiboye Idowu, Bola Afuye, Feyi Olabiyi to mention a few.
For each of the sessions had with my mentors, I always leave myself with a nugget to be applied to my personal life and development. It’s indeed been the most entertaining and adventurous journey I embarked upon so far as I look forward to exploring new worlds and adventures (like Robinson Crusoe) as this is only the beginning of much exploits.
The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark ~John Muir
Often times, it’s said that the best moments are reserved for the latter end of things. This was the case with my experience at StudentBuild. Little did I know that the digest and mentorship sessions had at the initial phase of the fellowship program was just a tip of the iceberg as StudentBuild had in stock for her fellows, awesome projects and packages to work on and unravel.
The latter stage of the fellowship was the “Incubator phase”. This phase was peculiar for the fact that fellows were tasked with real-time projects. Having successfully aced the application to the incubator phase, it was time for me to commence another adventure with an entirely new team. Alas! this was one of the moments I had yearned since joining StudentBuild — working on a real-life project.
I would love to take my great listeners through a quick overview of my project @Studentbuild, but first, I would like to commend you for having followed my story to this junction-You really are the best.
I worked on an AgriTech project with a team of ten fellows. Each of us having Medium to high expertise in our specialization, or as we often term it – track. I was the Digital Marketer in the team and was responsible for marketing our product as we look to building a Product-Market-Fit.
At the beginning, there were lots of questions and as we gradually approached the end of the timeline given (3 months) to come up with a MVP (Minimum Viable Product), we came up with solutions to the problems and were able to accomplish our setgoal. We came up with an e-commerce platform that allows farmers to connect to buyers who are ready to buy their farm produce. Although, the product is still in a ‘beta-phase’, we look forward to launching in a grand style sooner than later.
Working in a team in itself was an experience because team members have got different thinking caps and its pertinent on every member of the team to be able to apply the much needed soft skills required to work in a team and profer solutions to problems. All thanks to my team, I learnt a lot working with them.
- Nuggets:
- Being a life-long learner is important to being very relevant.
- My watchword should be in making others a better version of themselves
- “Life is a journey, not a destination”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Your journey begins with a choice to get up, step up and live fully”-Oprah Winfrey
- “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark”- John Muir.
