Leading Communities
Been following the tech communities in Ekiti from 100 Level, passionate about every bit of it, the way I swiftly leave classes to the Tech Hub even made my colleagues nickname me "Techub".
But then there was no clear path, no focus, looking around there were no cyber security communities, so what was I doing? I joined the dev communities, going to every event just to take the swag and yes learning too.
The then Google Developer Students Club lead was Mr. JET, he helped me master the usage of Bootstrap CSS while learning frontend, fast forward to the end of his tenure, and he reached out to a couple of us if we would be interested in being the Lead of GDSC.
Well, I was really happy, that I could become a lead of GDSC. I was wowed, I applied, created a video recording, and yes did the interview, but I never made it to be the lead, the rejection mail made me feel I was never meant to or have what it takes to lead a community.
I joined the administration as a core team member and yes, we did great stuff and made an impact on fellow students.
So I was one day applying to the GitHub Student Pack to access the Pro benefits and I got to know about the GitHub Campus Expert Program.
Went through the program and it's awesome, I felt, yes I was so good with using GitHub already then, so I felt applying won't be bad, let me start spreading the gospel of GitHub across the campus and yes their swag was too sleek too.
But yes the rejection mail came, and that was a wrap for me about leading haha, up until early 2021, Sir Moses started a nonprofit security community called DoH (Diary of Hackers), a community aimed at helping students learn about cyber security, connecting them to professionals, mentorship, and internships.
But of course, I have known Sir Moses since 2019 via Linkedin, so the form for Campus Lead was out and I felt this is my chance to bring a security community to the Eksu campus.
Assembled like minds, charge forward and help the upcoming security folks too, so they don't end up switching paths because the communities left here are all developer-focused.
I applied and became the lead, held sessions on networking, Linux, and more, virtual meetups about using VPS, performing osint and a 30 days boot camp of Offensive security via PentesterLab and Defensive security via Rangeforce with the help of Sir Seun(pentester), Ayobami (design), Sir AY.
I led effortlessly, I was passionate about getting the community folks to learn, and my energy was up, constantly sharing security resources in our community group.
Fast forward to 2022 late of Q2 (June), I got so pre-occupied, I was after improving myself, got a few gigs demanding of me, school, and more, so I knew its time to let go of the lead role, so I left and sir seun became the next campus lead.
But it doesn't just end there, still, in 2021, one faithful day, I saw on Emmanuel's status about something called Open Source Chapter Lead, I never knew what it was even about deeply, but I knew I had done something in past related to open source, during the time of Google Code-In.
So I followed the link in the status to Twitter and I applied.
Wasn't expected to be picked though, and not so lucky getting those roles, but yes the congratulatory mail came in, I was so happy, was selected to lead an Open Source Community Africa Chapter in the state.
Shared the news and yes, got advice from sir Admoll on how leading communities work and more, so I prepared the Google form to receive applications from individuals who would be interested in joining as a core team member.
And yes got the best minds on the team, Sproff, Tosin, Favour, Sir David, Segun, Emmanuel (Design King), and Geo, we forged on.
We've honestly spread the gospel of open source, as a community we participated in OSCA Open Source Challenge 2021, and I alongside three other community members became a finalist and was rewarded $25 worth of mobile data each.
We've hosted over Twelve Impactful Sessions across different topics about Open Source, and the OSCAFest Ado Ekiti Extended would be the Thirteenth for both me and my team as a roundup.
Also, you know open source is all about collaboration, and collaboration is also an essential skillset needed by any engineer or teammate in any organization, we promoted that in the yearly Hacktoberfest, where OSCA Ado Ekiti reaches out to other tech communities in the state to collaborate.
And we don't just collaborate to send in PRs for the sake of sending in PRs, we build solutions to issues together, tasks shared, fixes sent in, and more guidance to newbies from the mentors(experienced open source contributors in the community).
You can lookup Hacktoberfest Ekiti 2021 and Hacktoberfest Ekiti 2022.
Is that where it ends? no, we hit some targets which are the aims of OSCA, The Next Billion Creators, just one of those days, Sproff hit me up via DM and shared the idea.
HackSultan started a thread where a lot of tech companies, what they do and the founder's handles are shared.
We thought this is good, it would be handy for students who want to land internships with tech companies and even those who want to hunt for roles, we decided to make a database, it was in markdown at first.
But fast forward, Timonwa, a passionate frontend open source contributor turned it around and made it a web page from the markdown mode, check the live web app out, Tech-Companies-In-Africa
Yes, a lot more people contributed to the project by adding more African tech companies.
Is that all? Of course No, we went ahead to start another open source project, shared the idea in our community group and we started the project, here are the great minds who worked on the project.
What's flipify? an open-source tool that helps product teams switch their product deployment from one cloud provider to another provider without having to care or know about the behind-the-scenes, just a flip, and your product is live on another cloud provider.
But the sad news is, we've stopped and the project has failed, better than not starting.
Also a big thank you to Bolaji and Edidiong, the community managers for their support and to my core team for standing to make sure we get through it all.
Stay tuned, we've got OSCAFest Ado Ekiti Extended coming soon, lest I forget, OSCA Ado Ekiti got the OSCAFest Sponsorship twice too, it's a win!!
Haha, got complimented by my Co-Lead too, feels like we pulled it all well 😁
But what's next? do I want to lead a community? The answer is No, but I would love to join a core team of security professionals/engineering communities and craft CTF games and tasks.
Also, we are starting an Ekiti Campus Hack (Hackathon) in Q3, 2023, the first of its kind in Ekiti, Favour brought the idea up.
It's an opportunity to make more impact to bring on the building spirit in the state campus tech eco-system and we are actively seeking sponsorships 😁, you can reach out to Favour if you would like to sponsor the Hackathon.
Noticed I said we mostly go to tech events because of swag. yes, but guess what being someone who has been on the receiving end of branded merchandise both in Nigeria, across Africa, and outside Africa.
We've observed the various problems of merchandise branding in Africa and we are solving that @stickerkeen - Simplifying the creation, management, and distribution of branded merchandise across Africa.
In the end, I give all that glory to Allah, who has made it all possible, because none of these happened because of the skillset nor the knowledge I possess.