I am dedicated to the global agenda for economic growth and social inclusion and my interests cut across employment and entrepreneurship, quality education, youth and leadership development, good governance, women & girls’ rights, gender equality, ethics & technology policy.
How It Started
The scale of the impact and global recognition I have enjoyed as a change-maker all started in 2011 with my GPRS-enabled mobile phone and a notebook. It was a Nokia C1.
I was just discovering the direction my life would take shortly after secondary school. I struggled with depression and addictions as a teenager and was searching for answers. It occurred to me that my peers were facing related problems. These challenges combined with my curiosity made me create a Facebook group to share the knowledge from my self-discovery. It was also a way to keep ourselves busy and motivated about life as we anticipate admission into college. It was named Royal Youths Forum.
As the community grew to over 600 members in a year, I discovered blogging and evolved to teach soft skills for the leadership development of young adults. At 16, I launched seasonedlifejournal.com.ng, writing and recording podcasts about developing a positive self-image & personal leadership. I couldn’t afford to hire a developer, so I invested my weekly stipends of less than $5 to teach myself to code and design. Through creative writing, peer mentoring, coaching and recording podcasts, I blogged about developing a positive self-image & personal leadership. Using this medium, with over 180 publications, in 5 years I was able to reach over 20,000 readers with over 590,000 views from 37 countries across the continent, helping them get clarity, boldness, strategy and tools to impact their communities.
Although, initially, I didn’t know what I was doing was “social impact”, with the benefit of hindsight, I was using tech to bridge a knowledge gap. This first-hand experience of the power of technology in creating social good in an unprecedented way, deepened my conviction, to further harness digital technologies. Also, to show others how digital tools, with innovation, can help create tremendous social change. I acknowledge that my access to a basic mobile phone and the internet a decade ago was a privilege that more than 300 million Africans still lack today.
This, my friend, is what led me to who I am, and what I stand for today. 🙂
