Categories
Career advice Kickstart Tech

Reasons to Consider a Job in Tech

You probably have heard all about the importance that comes with the position of a lawyer, doctor, accountant and all of the regular corporate world job titles. What you most likely have not heard is that aside those corporate positions and the prestige they offer, there are a wide range of other career options that offer as much relevance as a job in the corporate world, with an added advantage of having to work from any location in the world at any time in the day deemed convenient.

A bulk of these career options is found in the Tech industry. Data science, software development, information security analysis, computer systems analysis, web development, search engine optimization, technical writing and artificial intelligence are some of the high demand career options that exist in tech.

If you’ve always wanted a job that allows you all of the freedoms you deserve to lead a happy life while harnessing the best parts of your mental capability; if you fancy the idea of contributing effectively to making the world better yet remain behind the scene, you definitely should consider getting a job in Tech.

Here are five reasons you should consider a job in tech, especially if you desire to contribute a part of your mental ability to increasing world innovations while getting rewarded.

  1. Skill over qualification
  2. Opportunity for innovation
  3. Opportunity for growth
  4. Possibility of working remotely
  5. High demand

Skill over Qualification: Jobs in tech such as web development, digital marketing, artificial intelligence, cloud computing etc., do not necessarily need a lot of paper work to get you hired and strapped in for a new project. Unlike regular office jobs, tech career options reserve the best positions for the most skillful and emphasizes competence over certifications. A job in the tech industry has no discrimination whatsoever on age, gender, nationality or religion as long as the job gets done.

 Opportunity for Innovation: Technology is evolving daily, thanks to the millions of tech-professionals working daily to make things easier. You can agree with me that twenty years ago, an interactive website with a very colorful landing page used to seem like a luxury especially in developing continents like Africa.  Today everyone can have access to millions of specialized websites in seconds, connecting from virtually anywhere in the world. This is proof of how quickly technology has evolved in the past two decades. This trend therefore suggests that, a career option in any tech field, gives no room for monotonicity and boredom as every day is an opportunity for innovation.

Opportunity for Growth: Tech knowledge is pretty easy to acquire with practice and consistency. A job in tech offers you the opportunity to get better in your primary skill and pick up a few new skills.  In tech, it’s all about working and growing.

Possibility of Working Remotely: Not many career options can boast of liberty to have workers function remotely, away from the supervising eyes of Management yet perform at maximum efficiency. Taking on a job in any field of tech allows you the liberty to work in an environment other than the organizations facility, yet function effectively.

High Demand: These days, everyone depends on one form of tech or another to get through daily life activities. From social media handling, to creating just the right designs for banners and business logos, down to completing a college assignment, there is always a need for the use of the computer and internet enabled devices; Thus an increase in the demand for tech savvy individuals with every tick of the clock. This  insinuates that getting a high paying job in the tech industry isn’t just a possibility but a norm in our century.

       To conclude, the tech industry isn’t just interesting, it is also rewarding. A job in tech might just be your first step to career fulfillment and financial freedom. Tech-up today!

Need the right tools and resources to help Kick start your Tech Career today? Visit: https://techrity.org and join the community to get started.

Categories
Social Tech

Women Can’t Code: Tech Myth or Not?

“She is a woman. She can’t code” This has to be one of the biggest tech myths ever! Every year we see more women venture into the tech space, challenge the stereotype, and excel in whatever path they’ve chosen. But the gender in the tech space cannot be overlooked. Taking one of the world’s premier centers for tech as a case study, the UK records “19% of women employed in tech jobs, despite women making up 49% of the overall workforce in the country“. 
But do these statistics confirm the myth that women can’t code based on their reduced numbers in the tech space? 

Breaking the Myths

Women have continuously broken bounds in the tech space, though seemingly glaring, it still needs to be pointed out – You don’t need to be a man to be a programmer. Though recent stats shows men still make up the majority of programmers, this is rapidly changing. Any business of thoughtful leadership has understood the importance of gender-diverse teams. It’s not just good for equality, but a gender-diverse team make better decisions and are less likely to be biased.
Gender type is not a factor in how good of a programmer you can be. Programming is mostly about problem-solving and we need as many perspectives as possible to solve a problem in the best way.

Going Against the Stereotype

In times past, women have been recorded to being on top in influential programmer lists. Here’s a brief list for you:

  1. Ada Lovelace – An English mathematician and writer. She was the first programmer in the world. 

You can read more of her interesting journey in tech here.

  1. Grace Murray Hopper – Grace Murray was a pioneer of computer programming and one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark 1 computer. She also developed the first compiler for programming language. 

Learn more about her tech journey here.

  1. Adele Goldstine – Adele Goldstine was an American computer programmer. She wrote the manual for the first electronic digital computer, ENIAC. 

You can read more about her here.

  1. Jean E. Sammet – Jean was an American computer scientist. She developed the FORMAC programming language in 1962. She was also one of the developers of the influential COBOL programming language. 

Read more about her story here.

  1. Marissa Mayer – Marissa Mayer is an information technology executive. She was one of the earliest programmers in Google.

Read more about her tech journey here

In conclusion, your gender is not what makes you a good coder or programmer. Far from it! 

You can become whoever you want to be, once you set your mind to achieve it!

I Am a Woman. I Can Code. 😎

Categories
Kickstart Tech Techrity Programmes

TECHing The Young: Techrity IWD2021 Educational Outreach Program

The impact of educational outreach programs in schools can be felt on the academic, physiological, and psychological traits of the students.

Various barriers prevent many young ones, even the young female, from starting a career in tech at an early age. One of such barriers is the lack of sensitization of an early career start in tech, even as a secondary school student, limited availability of resources and materials for learning, as well as a Mentor, to guide and track progress. 

Techrity’s talent development scheme called the Kickstart program is aimed at solving these problems. We embarked on an outreach program tagged: TECHing the Young in various secondary schools in a bid to educate the young ones on the need to start a career in tech at a young age to boycott the unemployment problem faced in Nigeria. The outreach program was embarked on to commemorate the International Women’s Day held on 8th March 2021, and also to sensitize the female gender and educate them on the opportunities for females in technology, this was done as part of our commitment to the UN SDGs 5: Bridging the gap in gender disparity in the tech industry.

The outreach program featured talks centered on careers in tech, the need to start their careers early, as well as showcasing successful young talents in the tech industry such as Opemipo Disu, the 15-year-old developer and IBM champion from Nigeria.

Opemipo Disu aka the 15y.o developer and IBM Champion

Two students who showed great enthusiasm were awarded scholarships to enable them to kickstart their tech journey. Techrity’s Kickstart program includes a laptop, a personal mentor and data support for each child to aid their learning journey.

These students are Prince Onuzulike of Inama International Secondary School, and Chijioke Egbuomuche, a student of the Hybrid International Academy. 

Prince Onuzulike is in class 1 in the Junior Secondary category of Inama International Secondary School. Prince is a young lad who almost had a deformed hand from an accident, which is quite noticeable.

From left: Miss Owanate (Founder, Techrity), Mrs. Onuzulike, Prince Onuzulike, and Mr. Adagboyi Joseph (Principal, Inama Intl Sec. Sch.)

Chijioke Egbuomuche is a student of Hybrid International Academy Senior Secondary. He has a flair for creating things which can be seen in the picture below.

Chijioke created a Fan, a Car, and a Dispenser. These things were all made from cartons, D.C motors and batteries. For the fan, he used something like a blade to act as the propeller so an amount of air touches you when it is turned on. The car moves with help of the D.C motor connected to the back tyre under the car. The Dispenser is a manual one, so it had no use for the D.C motor. Chijioke’s creativity and innovation are what earned him the scholarship to further enhance his creative flair and help him digitally.

Chijioke – Winner of Techrity Kickstart Scholarship Award and Owanate

The recipients of Techrity’s Kickstart Program will be given a laptop, a mentor as well as data support, to help guide these young minds to early career exploits in technology. The mentors assigned to these young ones are responsible for their growth and progress in technology. 

Few students were also awarded cash prizes for their great performances. These students are David Bob, Emmanuel Ekeh, Prince Onuzulike, all of Inama International Secondary School and Miracle Eboseh of Hybrid International Academy. Some of the students were awarded cash prizes for their ability to answer technical questions, performance in examinations and their quest for knowledge.

A student receiving a maths set and books for his outstanding performance
A student receiving a maths set and books for her outstanding performance

Techrity is all about Helping New Talents and building solutions for social good, we also believe in Paying it Forward.

Watch this explainer video on Youtube.

Students of Inama International Secondary School 
Students from Hybrid International Academy 
Techrity Outreach Team

Important Links

Visit the Techrity Website

Watch the Women in Leadership and Technology Virtual Event on Youtube

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on LinkedIn

Thanks for reading!

Categories
Best practices General Tech

5 Practical Ways of Overcoming Procrastination as a Techie

Do the phrases “I’ll do it tomorrow,” “This project can wait,” “I still have enough time,” “Just one more episode!” sound familiar to you?   Most likely. Truth be told, we all have been victims of procrastination at one point or another, and I believe that your resolve to overcome this habit is why you’re on this page. 

Please read to the end of this article to know how to overcome procrastination!

  • Plan your tasks – Having a clear picture of what you need to do goes a long way in determining the success of the task. You need to have a proper vision of the day’s tasks. I personally have a way of planning out my tasks effectively with the aid of an app – The Todoist App.

Todoist is a to-do list app that helps you organize, prioritize and manage your personal and professional tasks. Using this app will help you keep track of the tasks you’ve set to achieve.

You can download the Todoist app using this link .

  • Break down goals – Often times, procrastination sets in when we focus on the size of a project at hand. So in order to minimize that overwhelming feeling, break down your tasks into smaller units. For example, as a designer, your next personal project might be to design the homepage of an e-commerce website. This would require a lot of thought process as there are many things to take into consideration. So break down your task into smaller units as this will make them more manageable and easy to achieve. 
  • Get rid of distractions – There are various sources of distractions. It could be from your phone, tv, or something else. As long as you do not need these things to achieve your goal, put them away or turn them off. When you get rid of these distractions, you’ve made it harder to procrastinate!
  • Have an accountability partner – This is another important step in overcoming procrastination. Find someone you can trust to keep you accountable. It could be a family member, your friend, colleague, mentor or even the online tech community you belong to! When you let others in on what you hope to achieve, it becomes harder to procrastinate.
  • Reward yourself – One way to motivate yourself to finish a task is to create a reward that you will give yourself once you’ve accomplished that task. This is very important but easily overlooked by many. Were you able to complete that project you vowed to? Give yourself a pat on the back. Were you able to accomplish the tasks scheduled for the day? Give yourself a treat. No matter how small you think your accomplishments are, never forget to reward yourself.

Remember that you are not perfect so pat yourself on the back for the times you overcame procrastination but also make a firm resolve to take the above steps when next procrastination comes knocking. 

You can do this! 💪

Categories
Build4SocialGood General News Tech

Showcasing The Winners for the Techrity #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020 Prize For Social Good Innovation!

On 1st December, 2020, The Techrity #Build4SocialGood Hackathon Programme team announced the #Buil4InformalSector Virtual Hackathon.

We welcomed Software Developers, Designers and subject matter experts to ideate and build solutions for solving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal for the African Continent.

Participants ideated and built solutions addressing UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 9, that is, promoting the industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG9), in the following areas.

1. Identity Management 
2. On-lending facility and access to credit through non-traditional financial channels
3. Credit Score and Reputation-based rating

For more info, see Announcing The #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020

We received a total of three project submissions for the On-lending facility and access to credit through non-traditional financial channels category.

The following teams submitted their solutions;

Team FundMyFarm

FundMyFarm is aimed at making smallholder farmers have access to informal credit facilities without any hassle whatsoever. We also make it possible for anyone who loves farming but does not have time to do it, to grow together with the smallholder farmers as they put smiles in the face of downtrodden while at the same time, their resources are working for them.


Team Trix

QuikMoni addresses the problem of SME access to credit without collateral.


Team Dorti

Dorti provides a system where users can assist or take care of garbage and get rewarded for it.

A total of 30 participants, 9 teams, and 3 projects were recorded for the #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020.

These projects were compiled and submitted to our panel of judges, and we are excited to announce that a winning team emerged.

Participating teams also got a chance to demo their projects in an online event on the 8 January 2021 in front of a live audience and received feedback from our highly esteemed judges.

View the Demo Day Event Recording.

Team Trix: QuikMoni emerged as the overall Winners of the Maiden #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020 Prize for Social Good Innovation.

The winning team has access to;

  1. A hub support 
  2. $250 cash prize.
  3. The Techrity #Build4SocialGood Incubation program.

Congratulations to Team Trix: QuikMoni for emerging winners of the #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020 and all of the participating teams who helped turn innovative ideas into practical solutions for Africa.

Visit the URL to the QuikMoni solution.

All teams’ prototypes and code can be found on the website and on the #Build4SocialGood Repository on Github.

We sincerely appreciate all participating teams, judges, mentors, speakers and partners who have been with us throughout the beginning of this hackathon. The time and effort invested towards building for social good and addressing the UN #sdgs challenges in Africa cannot go unnoticed.

We look forward to hosting our next #Build4SocialGood Hackathon coming up in the following months in 2021.

Thank you!

Categories
Build4SocialGood General Tech

Announcing Techrity’s #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020

Techrity’s #Build4SocialGood presents;

Build For The Informal Sector (sdg9) 

Prize

$250

Timeline of Activities

  1. Registration begins 1st December 2020 via Hackathon Registration
  2. Join the Slack Workspace
  3. Hackathon Starts: 7 December 2020
  4. Project Submission Deadline: 21-23rd December 2020 
  5. Judging starts: 28th December – 2nd January 2021
  6. Demo Day/Award Ceremony: 16th January 2021

Why #Build4Informal Sector?

Nigeria’s informal economy has grown considerably over the last decade.

These are the individuals and micro-enterprises whose economic well-being is birthed and buoyed on the fringes of the formal economy; business activities that remain unregulated, and oftentimes, completely unknown.

Initially, much of the rhetoric centred on the need to ‘manage’ this ever-expanding behemoth that the informal sector was becoming. This narrative has since evolved into one that seeks to formalise these businesses, by catering to their needs and providing them with much-needed support.

Like other parts of the economy, the informal sector has taken a hit from the COVID-19 crisis. Governments have mandated workers to take costly protective measures, such as the regular purchase of masks, the reduction in the number of passengers for motorcycle taxis, or the observance of curfews. Farmers have seen falling demand for their produce as restaurants have reduced their purchases in the face of dwindling traffic.

Key Areas Of Focus

We leave it to you to design the new conditions for the informal economy, and offer the following provocations as a place to get started for your MVPs, prototypes, etc;

  1. On-lending facility and access to credit through non-traditional financial channels
    1. For example, how might we build custom financial solutions for entrepreneurs to access credit outside the regular financial system, other methods of crowdfunding exist such as cooperative funding with little to no default on loan acquisition.
  2. Identity management
    1. Beyond the use of identity cards, bank verification numbers, etc., how can we design an economy where individuals can build a solid identity with other means of identification they can provide such as their telephone number, Social security numbers, school certificates, etc.
  3. Credit-score/reputation based rating
    1. Using purchasing behavior, community validation, etc. How can we design an economy that takes into cognizance an individual behavior as a form of credit score acquisition, for e.g, the ability to use an individual’s reputation overtime on social media as a means to build their credit and reputation score for use in accessing credit and lending facilities outside non-traditional financial systems.

For more info, see the Issues Board.

How to Join

  1. Register your team to hack: Hackathon Registration
  2. Join the slack channel: Techrity Slack Workspace
  3. Read the hackathon guide

How To Submit Hackathon Project

Follow the steps outlined on the #Build4SocialGood Repository readme instructions to submit your project.

Official Hashtags

Please promote this hackathon so it can reach a wider audience on Social Media using the following hastags.

#techrityB4SGHack2020
#techrity
#SDG9
#Build4InformalSector

We can’t wait to see what you have built!

Happy Hacking!!

Categories
News Social Tech Volunteers Writers

Call for Volunteer Writers on Techrity’s Blog!

Techrity, is a non-profit social enterprise, a community of people contributing to advance humanity through their time, money and skills. We believe in the power of using technology for sustainable human capital advancement. We’re all about inspiring the youth to take up careers in tech, through our Mentorship and Kickstart programs, we are also committed to solving social good problems using tech through our Build4SocialGood program.

Techrity is calling for Volunteer Writers!

We publish at the intersection between technology and writing and support sharing knowledge.  Techrity connects you with our community of mentors, techies, writers, software developers, editors and provides the capacity for high impact publishing.

Take a look at this short explainer video explaining what Techrity is all about!

Techrity’s Explainer Video

Benefits

  1. Writers get access to our community of mentors, writers, etc.
  2. All blog posts are credited to the author
  3. Enhance your writing career
  4. Gain visibility

How To Get Started

Want to volunteer to write for us?

Fill out this Application form, and you will be contacted.

To Find out more, Visit the Techrity Official Website.

Thank you!

Categories
General News Software Tech Techrity Programmes

The Build4SocialGood Hackathon Programme

techrity build for social images
techrity build for social good image

Inspire. Coach. Build

The Build4SocialGood Hackhaton brings together developers and techies yearly from all over Africa to develop ideas and build targeted software products for solving sustainable development goals.

Social good is an action that defines some sort of benefit to the general public. Our continent; Africa is laden with a myriad of social good problem which Technology can help to mitigate. We’re looking at building these software which would be managed by the community. Techrity encourages you to #Build4SocialGood and for the #Community. These projects will be managed and open sourced by the community and Winners of the challenge will go ahead to enhance their MVP and solutions in the incubation programme.

Are you passionate about applying your skills for social good, but no funds to kickstart it? Participate in our #Build4SocialGood Hackathon and get a chance to fund your ideas/startup. Hackathon winners will have access to hub support to assist them in their unique innovations. 

#Build4SocialGood Hackathon identify specific challenges for teams to build and provide solutions for social good problems. 

Hackathon participants also get access to mentors to support and direct them during the hackathon phase. 

Come join us, learn new skills, and build functioning prototypes to solve those challenges.

How to join our hackathon challenge

Call for team applications will be announced on the Techrity Build4SocialGood website. Teams will be selected based on merit and inclusivity.

Winners will go ahead to win the prize money and qualify for the incubation program.

Steps

Follow the steps below to register your team.

Step 1: Submit an Application

Visit https://techrity.org/register/hackathon to register your team.

Step 2: Receive a confirmation mail

The #Build4SocialGood team would send a mail outlining next steps.

Step 3: Join the Slack Channel

Prizes

Prizes will be announced in due course.

About Us

Techrity Logo

Techrity, is a non-profit social enterprise, a community of people contributing to advance humanity through their time, money and skills. We believe in the power of using technology for sustainable human capital advancement. We’re all about inspiring the youth to take up careers in tech, through our Mentorship and Kickstart programs, we are also committed to solving social good problems using tech through our Build4SocialGood program.

At Techrity, we believe your donates open doors of opportunities for everyone including the donor, receiver, this creates a circle of givers paying it forward for technology.

Your donation plants seeds of kindness in others, and this promotes a world of revolving kind-hearted people. Help learners get laptops and data to kickstart and make their journey in tech a success.

We encourage you to donate to fund any of our programmes as mentioned. Visit the Techrity Donation page to help someone kickstart their tech career today!.

Organizations, startups etc, can fund a hackhaton programmes and get their ideas tested and developed by our community.


To find out more about what we have in store for our partners, please fill the contact form and we will get back to you in no time.

Thanks.


Categories
General Partners Social Techrity Programmes

Introducing Techrity Partners and Sponsors

Techrity Partners

Want to partner with Techrity to advance the common goal? Find out more in this short article.

Our partners program provides partners willing to fund/donate to any of the Kickstart, Mentorship or Build4SocialGood programmes organized by Techrity with an array of benefits.

Techrity encourages Startups, Organization, Companies and the Government to join in advancing the common goal of “Helping New Talents and Building Tech Solutions“.

Techrity, is a non-profit social enterprise, a community of people contributing to advance humanity through their time, money and skills. We believe in the power of using technology for sustainable human capital advancement. We’re all about inspiring the youth to take up careers in tech, through our Mentorship and Kickstart programs, we are also committed to solving social good problems using tech through our Build4SocialGood program.

At Techrity, we believe your donates open doors of opportunities for everyone including the donor, receiver, this creates a circle of givers paying it forward for technology.

We encourage you to donate to fund any of our programmes as mentioned. Visit the Techrity Donation page to help someone kickstart their tech career today!.

To find out more about what we have in store for our partners, please fill the contact form and we will get back to you in no time.

Our Awesome Partners

HerTechTrail

HerTechTrail is a non-profit raising African Women to build sustainable careers in Tech, by equipping them with relevant Tech skills and providing them access to opportunities.

Follow @hertechtrail on Twitter.

Accelerate Hub

Accelerate hub, facilitates student development in the area of information technology and tech-entrepreneurship.

Visit the Accelerate Hub Website to find out more or follow @acceleratehubng on Twitter.

This list will be updated regularly.

Thanks.

Categories
General News Tech Techrity Programmes Uncategorized

Techrity Launch/Fundraising

Techrity, is a non-profit social enterprise, a community of people contributing to advance humanity through their time, money and skills. We believe in the power of using technology for sustainable human capital advancement. We’re all about inspiring the youth to take up careers in tech, through our Mentorship and Kickstart programs, we are also committed to solving social good problems using tech through our Build4SocialGood program.

The Techrity Launch/Fundraising event is set to take place in December, 2020.

Follow our social media channels; @techrityorg for more updates and sign up to our newsletter.

At Techrity, we believe your donates open doors of opportunities for everyone including the donor, receiver, this creates a circle of givers paying it forward for technology.

We encourage you to donate to fund any of our programmes as mentioned. Visit the Techrity Donation page to help someone kickstart their tech career today!.

To find out more about what we have in store for our partners, please fill the contact form and we will get back to you in no time.