My 2023 Year In Review.

As the year comes to an end it's a good time to reflect on the wins and losses that happened this year. In this article, I'm going to be sharing some things that happened in the different months of this year.

January.

I started this year on a really good note, I got an email saying I was part of the DevRetro 2022 winners. I was so excited about this, you can check out the article I wrote here.

I joined a team late last year to participate in Technovation, which is a competition for young women between 8-18.

Our Technovation Girls program equips young women (ages 8-18) to become tech entrepreneurs and leaders. With the support of volunteer mentors and parents, girls work in teams to code mobile apps that address real-world problems.

Source: Technovation's website about page.

The project my team decided to work on was MySkin, an app that can detect a user's skin type and suggest suitable skincare products and routines. Our project fell under
SDG 3 which is Good Health and Well-being.

For this competition participants could use MIT App Inventor, this was what my team members wanted us to use but along the line we decided to use Flutter, so I had to pick it up since I was working on the app. Learning Flutter wasn't easy at all plus the bad network I had to deal with, I made use of different resources ranging from YouTube tutorials, reading some documentation and asking Uche (a friend of mine who is a Flutter dev) to help with the whole installation process.

I and my friends Meemah, Poria and Michael started holding a weekly space called Junior Techies Hour, it was a space where junior techies got to talk on issues like consistency, learning in public etc. With time some more experienced devs started joining the space and we got to learn a thing or two from them.

I, Meemah, and Poria also created a Whatsapp group for women in tech which has been thriving a little bit and we plan to upscale it to a higher level next year.

Jude my Technovation mentor told me about Devdegree.

A computer science degree unlike any other

Earn a computer science degree through a learning and placement path that’s unlike any other computer science program. Our innovative work-integrated learning model provides hands-on experience across a breadth of disciplines and teams, giving you the confidence to jump-start your future—wherever it takes you.

Source: Dev Degree's website.

Though I first came across it while reading someone's article, I forgot about it. He advised me to apply which I did with two of my friends(Chichi and Naya). Also, the application for Fall 2024 is open you can check it out here.

I have also wanted to travel around the world so I created this wallpaper and included some pictures of the places I would love to visit too.

I also made a list on Notion of the twenty countries I plan to visit and I even added places to visit in each country, it's quite funny because I didn't even have a passport. The list is not yet complete so later on when it's complete I might share the link, my main target where countries that give visas on arrival or e-visa.

February.

Either during late January or early February, I applied for Enyata Build up 3.0, this is a program done by Enyata in which they gave out 50 Macbooks to 50 techies. The first part of the application asked for your name, email, Github handle/portfolio and also to record a video talking about why you want to win a Macbook.

I continued with learning Flutter and my teammates worked on our business plan, financial projections etc.

I decided to ask Makuo(my sister) and Einstein(my friend) to help me out with the designs for the screen of the apps. Makuo initially started the design and Einstein helped with the finishing, after looking at what they designed which was pretty I started thinking if I could do it.

---

I was able to do something similar being it was my first time building an app.

Back to my Dev degree application, I was able to complete the computational test and essay then I submitted it successfully.

I also registered for JAMB as I was instructed to but to be honest I wasn't even reading because I had started seeing myself going to Canada lol. February was a chill month, I still had two months before the submission of my team's project so I still had time.

On the 23rd of February I got an update for the Dev degree, it said my personal statements were being moved to the second round to be reviewed by another Dev degree team member. After this step, the next thing was for the life story interview.

March.

The deadline for Technovation was approaching and I was not yet done with the app, I was having double minds if I would be able to see it through but I did. Since my Dev degree application was looking promising I decided to go ahead to apply to one of the partner schools which was Carleton University in Ottawa Canada. The application fee was 100 CAD so I made the payment using my PayDay card after that I got a confirmation that my payment was received.

Three days later I got an update from Dev degree saying I had been invited for the Life story interview, I was so happy at this point my Canada dream was getting clearer and clearer. I later got an email that the interview was cancelled I was like ahhh what happened?? So apparently my interviewer was not going to be available so I had to reschedule which I did. To prepare for my interview I made use of Pramp, a place where you can practice for an interview with someone and get feedback too.

After getting the documents I was asked to upload to my portal, I decided to upload them and wait for my admission decision. My life story interview went well in my opinion, so I decided to stay hopeful.

Earlier in the month I completed a challenge on Microsoft Learn, the first set of people who completed this challenge were invited to the Microsoft office in Lagos for the Student Summit watch party.

I finally got an update from Enyata concerning my BuildUp application, the next step was to take an aptitude test.

ABOUT THE TEST

• While the test is device-friendly, we strongly recommend that you use a desktop device to help ease the experience with no hiccups.

• You will be required to share access to your camera, microphone, and screen recording access to assist in monitoring against malpractice.

Please go through the rules and make sure you understand each of them before going in:­

1. The nature of the test is structured to test your aptitude level. It is nothing technical—just cognitive questions that apply to the human process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

2. The test will last for 10 minutes and be comprised of 15 questions.

3. The test will be available only to those who have successfully registered for the build-up 3.0 program.

4. Each question has a score of 4 points, totalling 60 points for 15 questions.

Source: The email I got from Enyata

I finally got an admission decision and I was admitted to Carleton!!!!!! At this point, I could smell Canada. So I decided to start my passport process. March was a good month.

April.

This month started on a bad note, I received a rejection from Shopify concerning my Dev Degree application. I was very sad about the outcome of everything, I couldn't even consider going to Carleton because the school fee was about 45,000 CAD.

As the deadline for Technovation approached my teammates started wrapping up our project. We made our pitch deck using Canva, the pitch deck covered our
Financial Plan and projection, Executive Summary, Company Description, Products and Services and some other things.

We also edited our pitch video and I worked on the recording of the live demo of the app.

I also made a thread on X to talk about the project, working on this project with my wonderful teammates Timi, Balqees & Mujisat and my wonderful mentors Prudence and Jude.

I had a few weeks to prepare for JAMB, initially, I was not able to go for my exam because the location was quite a distance and I was to write it by 6 AM and maybe a part of me didn't want to write it too. I was called to do a mop-up exam and out of the three times I had written JAMB this was my highest score(I'm not sure if this happened in April tho but later in August I wrote Unilag's Post UTME).

I got an update from Enyata BuildUp, it was time to take the skilled-based test. There were two different skills either engineering or product, so when I was to take mine I first saw the product test and clicked on it(mind you I have little to no knowledge of anything product). After taking the product test I went to the Slack channel to complain about not seeing the engineering test link and I was told it was in the mail, I went back to the mail and after scrolling to the last part I saw the link. At this point, I felt like I was not going to make it to the next round.

May.

On May 1st to be precise I had a missed call from an unknown number which I later found out the person was from Enyata.

The next day I got a rejection from Enyata, I had already lost hope but the same number that called me the previous day called again and I was able to pick up. He said he was from Enyata and was calling me concerning my BuildUp application, at this point, I was confused and just hoped for the best.

My team received an email saying we were quarter-finalists and we were invited to pitch at the Regional event happening in Lagos, it was a nice experience because I got to hear feedback from people about our project.

June.

June was a pretty chill month, I got another call from someone from Enyata and I was asked similar questions and I answered them to my best understanding.

July.

I got an email from Enyata to submit a professional headshot, which I did and a few days I got another email congratulating me that I'm part of the BuildUp 3.0 winners. I was so happy!!!!

While searching for schools I could apply to I came across

• African Leadership Academy (I got rejected from this)
  and

• African Leadership University

I submitted my application to ALU and I hoped for the best.

As I was scrolling through X(Twiiter) one day, I came across a tweet from Oyinbooke concerning a high school internship at Microsoft, I decided to apply.

August.

I got into the internship and this was my main highlight of the month. I got to work on a group project with my fellow teammates and I learned new things like Digital fabrication, you can read about my experience here.

September.

In September, I got a conditional admission to ALU. That means I still have one or two things I need to submit before getting an unconditional offer.

I also used this time to think about what exact career path I wanted to be in and what programming languages I wanted to learn. After a while, I decided that I would focus my attention on learning Python and C++.

October.

In October I turned 19 and I was grateful to God to be able to see another year in good health I was looking forward to what I will be able to achieve in my new age.

A few days later I got an email concerning the scholarship I applied for at ALU, I had some things to do which included taking an English proficiency test submitting my equivalence certificate and also filling out a form. I did the necessary things and joined the Whatsapp group which was in the email sent, now another round of waiting began.

November.

I started watching a C++ tutorial on YouTube to get more familiar with the programming language. At first, it was looking quite challenging but with time I started understanding it a little.

Then the news I had been waiting for came, I got an email saying I was awarded a Mastercard Foundation scholarship to study at ALU. When I saw this mail I was so excited and I was glad everything eventually worked out. I had to get some documents like a police clearance certificate etc and I started processing it.

December.

I was able to get all the documents I needed and I also accepted my admission and scholarship too. I also received my ticket and I filled out a form to cater for my airport pick-up.

Summary.

2023 was indeed a good year for me, I thank God for all He did for me and also for rewarding all my hard work. I'm also happy that the prayer requests that I wrote down in my Halleluyah challenge journal are already coming to pass.

I'm looking forward to 2024 because I know by God's Grace it will be a better year. I want to use this medium to thank my family and friends who were always there to encourage and support me.

Also, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, 2024 might be the year I start posting some exciting content.

On that note I wish everyone a Happy New Year and by God's Grace 2024 will be a better year.

Cheers to 2024🥂.