Tag: tech

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Best practices Career advice General Team Management Tech

The Most Basic Skills You Need For a Tech Career

tech skill

The highest earning people in almost every profession, not excluding the tech industry, aren’t always those with lots of certifications and technical know-how. They are usually not the “geekiest” people in the team, yet you wonder why they are always team leaders, corporation managers, occupy very important positions in every organization, earn the highest figures in pay and lead happy lives. Whether you want to build a career in the tech industry for only a few years or the rest of your life, soft skills are a sure bet for achieving a tech career that offers you fulfillment. This article defines the concept of soft skills, outlines the five most important soft skills everyone needs to possess given the dynamic work conditions of this century, why soft skills are necessary and how to acquire them. Do not forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get updated on new trends in tech and all you need to be successful as a 21st century techie.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are a set of social, interpersonal and emotional skills, a blend of which enables people efficiently carry out tasks in work and non-work environments made up of human beings. Soft skills are necessary in every field of human endeavor as long as it involves day to day interaction with people.

Best-five 21st century soft skills.

The following are a list of the five most important soft skills needed in the tech industry for a competitive advantage:

 Critical Thinking

 Team work

 Time management

 Leadership

Wondering what each of these skills are and how they blend to offer a mix of job success and customer satisfaction? Also wondering why they are ranked as the best-five 21st century soft skills? Keep reading.

¶. Critical Thinking: This means an ability to intelligently analyze and proffer solutions to problems. It requires mastery in tackling problems as bits of an entire whole- abstraction. This skill demands creativity, curiosity and flexibility.

¶. Teamwork: You most certainly know by now that “TEAM” is an acronym for “Together Everyone Achieves More”. Guess what? Your organization also knows about this acronym and wants to achieve high efficiency through the various teams and departments in the organization, they expect this from you too. Teamwork is the ability to contribute ideas and manpower towards the achievement of a common goal. This means sacrificing all of your time and energy to ensure that the common goal gets achieved. Teamwork demands communication, tolerance, patience and a willingness to bear the burden of a lagging teammate. This is a difficult skill given the various difference in likes and dislikes specific to different humans, yet teamwork ranks the highest in its ability to achieve organizational goal in the shortest possible time. To learn more about teamwork, click https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-teamwork-work-11196.html

Time Management: Time management is a skill that involves giving priority to important tasks and getting them done before focusing on leisure activities. Given the peculiarity of jobs in the tech industry and how dynamic certain tasks tend to be, clients are always hoping to have their projects delivered in the shortest possible time, hence the need for time management. Time management cuts across intentional planning of work schedules, to-do lists and progress level markers.
¶. Leadership: No leader is born. Yea! Read that again. Leaders aren’t born but made. As a soft skill, leadership involves directing the affairs of others to get tasks done in record time. It demands understanding various viewpoints of different people, strategic decision making, and firmness to follow through with previously laid out plans, not ignoring the intelligent suggestions from team members. Leadership involves a lifelong learning process to manage new sets of people given new working conditions.

¶. Networking: Networking is the art of creating relationships for organizational benefit. Networking creates room for growth and strengthens business connections.

If you gained value from reading this article, stay glued for the next episode where we’ll talk about the 10 easy steps to acquire and master soft skills.

If you need help starting your tech career, techrity has got you covered. Click on https://techrity.org/ to learn More.

Have you subscribed to the techrity newsletter yet?

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News Tech Tech For Good Techrity Programmes

Tech for Good 2021

Tech for Good
Tech for Good Image

Showcasing Tech Innovations for Social Good in Africa.

What is Tech for Good?

The Tech for Good (T4G) is an annual conference that aims to showcase the impact of using Technology for Social Good in Africa.

It is the intentional use of technology to try and have a positive, measurable impact on the world. It’s about using technology to solve big social and environmental challenges.

Why Tech for Good?

There is a lot of negative information being spread out there concerning Tech and its use in Africa. We created Tech for Good to solve this problem.

First, the evolution of technology is beneficial to humans for several reasons. At the medical level, technology can help treat more sick people and consequently save many lives and combat very harmful viruses and bacteria. … Technology has also increased the productivity of almost every industry in the world.

Technology affects the way individuals communicate, learn, and think. It helps society and determines how people interact with each other on a daily basis. It’s made learning more interactive and collaborative, this helps people better engage with the material that they are learning and have trouble with. 

 In summary, it has become an intricate part of our being.

There is a lot of good being done in the Tech Space, startups, innovators, individuals, companies, NGOs are working tirelessly to ensure lives are improved. How much of those actions are being showcased especially in the international media?

T4G brings together students, communities, hubs, organizations, Non-profits, etc to explore veritable use cases for using technology for social good.

Aims and Objectives

  • Showcase innovations in Technology across African Continent
  • Foster Collaboration
  • Provide mechanisms for people to access or use technologies in an open, cost-efficient, and sustainable way.
  • Promote Diversity and Inclusion in Tech. Tech for Good welcomes everyone who has made an impact using Technology in Africa.

Event Recap

The Tech for Good Conference was held on the 2nd October 2021 at TechCreek, Rivers State ICT. Port Harcourt.

The event featured; 

  • Talks
  • Kickstart Award Presentation
  • Inaugural Ceremony

Event Stats

No of Attendees: over 250 attendees

Social Impact Orgs: 10

Social Impact Projects: 2

Speakers: 5

Partners/Sponsors: 2

Present at the Conference was;

Mr Ibifuro Asawo (SA to Rivers State Govt.) was represented by Ella Blaise. She spoke on the topic Driving Social Good Innovations and Youth Development using Technology  

  1. Daniel Don (Founder, Frontend Mentorship) spoke on Using your Tech Skills for Social Good 
  1. Goodnews (CEO, Dantown Multiservices) spoke on Using Blockchain for Social Good
  1. Stephen Okonkwo (Product Lead, Voyance) spoke on his Journey in Tech

Social Impact Organizations

Accelerate Hub was represented by the Women in Tech Accelerate Lead.

Fairexx Solutions was represented by Godfrey Ayaosi, Product Manager.

HerTechTrail was represented by Alex Chibueyim, Design Director at HerTechTrail.

CodeAmbassadors representative speaking at the Tech for Good Conf.

OlotuSquare was represented by Bruce Lucas, CEO OlotuSquare.

FemCode Africa was represented by Shullamite, Founder of FemCode.

TechnovilleNG was represented by the Founder, Technoville – Richard Sodienye Pepple

Kickstart Award Presentation

The award was presented to the recipients of the Kickstart Award Scholarship which consists;

  • Personal Laptop
  • Data support
  • 6months Training.

The recipients of the scholarship were;

  • Prince Onuzulike from Inama International College
  • Chijioke Egbomuche from Hybrid College
Prince Onuzulike receiving his scholarship
Prince Onuzulike receiving his T4G swag from our partner company Dantown
Prince Onuzulike and his mother and siblings with a representative from the Inama International College – Mavis Ejiofor (right)
Chijioke Egbomuche receiving his scholarship from the CEO, Dantown Mr Goodnews Igwe
Chijioke Egbomuche and his Father (Left)

Read more about the TechingTheYoung Outreach 2021.

A Look at Our Partners and Sponsors

Dantown is a fintech company that solves on-ramp and off-ramp payment problems by providing a secure environment through its mobile application, where users can trade cryptocurrency and gift cards.

Our services are geared with customers’ needs in mind. This is the reason we focus on securing the funds of customers, provide a 24/7 helpdesk service, and also offer great digital asset-to-fiat rates.

The company’s goal is to provide more services within the coming months that will further make financial settlements safer, easier and more accessible for the unbanked. 

Founder, Techrity in a group photo with the Dantown Team

Productsio is a learning hub for product builders. we train product makers to build products that are intuitive, that deliver real, usable and commercially valuable innovation through research and understanding in-depth the different cultural keys that go into making a product attractive to local markets.

Productsio representative, Iyerefa speaking
Productsio, sponsors of Tech for Good represented by the Productsio Team

Inaugural Ceremony

Techrity is a tech non-profit that began its operations in December 2020, incorporated in April 2021 and officially launched on 2nd October, 2021 focused on talent development and building innovative solutions using technology for social good in Africa.

We aim to bridge the gap in unemployment, gender inclusion and poverty by providing the vital resources needed to kickstart young talents into tech and build solutions for social good in Africa. 

We envision an Africa where everyone has equal access to opportunities. Has a motivation to pay it forward. We’re engineering the spirit of social good in Africans. We believe if we solve the problem of the digital divide, gender inclusion gap, unemployment and target more social innovations with technology we can inspire social good actions in others.

Tech for Good Team, Speakers, Special Guests cutting the inaugural cake
Tech for Good Team

You can follow the updates from the Tech for Good conference on Social Media using the hashtag:

  • #T4G
  • #techrity
  • #sdg9

Important Links

For enquiries. Send a message to: hello@techrity.org

Tech for Good Livestream is available on Youtube.

Thank you for reading!

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?

A woman coding

“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
Best practices General Tech

5 Practical Ways of Overcoming Procrastination as a Techie

Tired male student or worker sit at home office desk look in distance having sleep deprivation, lazy millennial man distracted from work feel lazy lack motivation, thinking of dull monotonous job

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
News Social Tech Volunteers Writers

Call for Volunteer Writers on Techrity’s Blog!

techrity_call_for_writers
call_for_volunteer_writers

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 Software Tech Techrity Programmes

Techrity Kickstart Program

techrity_kickstart_image
techrity kickstart

The future of tech is now

Our Kickstart focuses on the orientation, growth, and development of her beginners looking to take up Tech careers. With our Kickstart program, you get access to a mentor who guides you through your Tech journey, that is, you get automatic access to our free mentorship program. You also get an opportunity to be featured as a Techrity Top Learner on our blog and get a chance to impact the skills learned to others by joining our mentorship program.

Techrity Kickstarters get access to;

Data Support

Donate data or cash to support a Techrity kickstarter.

Laptop Support

Donate a laptop or fund a kickstarter

Mentorship Support

Our Kickstarters get access to a community of mentors to guide them through their learning journey.

Simple Steps to kickstart

Who gets selected?

When you register for the Kickstart program, you will be required to take a short assessment to determine your competency level and area of placement.

Techrity is transparent and will only attend to individuals who signs of dedication and willingness to be mentored.

What’s the selection process?

  1. Fill the Kickstart registration form
  2. Receive an invite link to the slack channel
  3. Join the kickstart channel and take the foundation courses
  4. Get the foundation certificate
  5. Get connected to a mentor

Ready to start?

Apply to be a Kickstarter. Visit the Kickstart page.

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.

Thank you!

Categories
General News Social Software Tech Techrity Programmes

Techrity Mentorship Program

techrity_mentor_images
techrity_mentor

We create amicable interactions between mentor’s & mentee’s

Our mentorship program connects people who have specific skills and knowledge (mentors) with individuals (proteges) who may need these same skills to increase in their skillset. 

We are continuously seeking like-minded individuals, collaborators, and mentors that share our values and believes in “Paying it Forward”. Join our mentorship network and use your knowledge to serve humanity. 

Top Mentors are entitled to a Mentorship badge and a weekly feature on our blog and social media platforms and a #TechrityMentorFocus podcast.

Come join Techrity. Spread kindness and goodwill by mentoring someone. Techrity would be glad to have you as a mentor!!!

Mentees

We imbibe an “Everyone is Someone” culture. We pay close attention to our mentees and ensure they learn in a safe and progressive environment. 

Outstanding Mentees would be showcased on the Techrity Website and will submit a dedicated blog post to share your experience so others can be motivated.

Our successful mentees are encouraged to pay it forward by joining the mentors to mentor other learners.

Join Our Mentorship Team

Register to be a Techrity Mentor! Our seasoned Mentors are compensated with a mentorship badge and #TechrityMentorFocus monthly podcast. We believe mentors deserve the recognition for the time and effort they put into imparting knowledge.

Visit the Mentorship page to get started.

About Us

techrity_mentor_image
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.

Thank you!