Year 2021 In Review!
In January 2021, things were pretty good with my tech career, I kept making tweets with the intention of inspiring people and bringing more people into tech, which is one of my missions. Obviously, my primary mission is to make Web and AI more accessible to everyone and not just #developers. I got 3 job offers in January. But most of them didn’t turn out well because of my age, I was just 15. I started with contributing to an Indie Maker community, Makerlog, where I got the verified badge there. For a while, I was working at urspace.io, I worked with world class developers in the team, that made me a more professional Developer Advocate. I lost an award in this month, The Buildies Awards.
In February - April, I had to keep pushing to keep things pretty much alive, I had an interview with one of the biggest tech communities, code newbie. It’s one of the biggest achievements of my life. As well as I released an AI based project with IBM Watson in May. I really enjoy using Watson, so I thought of creating something with it. When I released it, IBM Watson’s Twitter official page made a tweet about it. I was shocked. I also became an AngelHack Ambassador between these months. Was also looking to see if I could do stuffs in the IBM Z Community, but it didn’t turn out well. I had a media feature with Channels TV, and other media publications I didn’t share with anyone. Why? I’ve learnt to stop sharing everything on Social media. Oh well, I was also having a lot of contributions in the IBM Community, as a result of this, I became the #1 top contributor in the IBM Community for the first time in this month. I started learning react in this month.
In May - September 2021, I started preparing for my final exams in High School. I had to start connecting with a lot of intellectuals at this point of my life. One thing you’d notice about me is that I love thinking outside the box. That’s one thing that has really helped me, I didn’t just depend on school stuffs, I had to start connecting with people who I could gain knowledge from for the exams I was about to write. My parents forced me to stay away from my laptop, and take a long break from my tech career. It was really hard - sometimes, I’d go sneak to take my laptop. As well as things didn’t still work out fine. I made a lot of friends at this point of my life. I started to know what life really is. Meanwhile, I got my first endorsement in July from FriendlyCup, where you can actually get a cup for 20% discount with the code, CODEROFLAGOS. I was shocked, because I wasn’t doing much yet. After this happened, I got a media feature from News Direct too. All these was unplanned, I wasn’t doing anything at this point. A lot of people turned me off, actually. At some point, I had to take a break for my mental health. I still came back with problems. Although, I still kept having talks (keynote talks - now 67 altogether). In September, I got a mail from @25under25 awards that I was a #nominee under the Tech Category, all because of my contributions in Agility CMS. I knew there were a lot of contributions, but honestly, I was #shocked. Prior to 2020, it’s one of the awards I wanted.
In October - December 2021, I finally won the 25under25 award (the 6th award in my life, dedicated it to my mom - she’s really helped me, she’s a huge part of my career, I definitely want to make her proud 🥺. I didn’t see that coming though. In November, I joined the Loom’s Creators Program and also Podia too. I also wrote 4 articles within these months (although, I’ve not released 2 yet). I released an article on IBM Watson in November that really went far with people in IBM. Also, I spoke at 6 DevFest events. It was one of my life goals to speak at a DevFest event.
I’m looking forward to doing more in 2022. Watch out for this space! 🚀🥺🎉