“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” — Steve Jobs
Who would have thought that it’s already a week in TIIDELab already. It has been an entire week of dream fulfillment, ups, and downs, and a rollercoaster of emotions. As you read my article, I hope you’ll have a feel of my feelings.
I heard of TIIDELab first from my elder brother (he was a fellow in cohort 3) and I just knew that this is definitely where I want to be. When I came across the application form for the Pre-fellowship 4.0, I just knew that I couldn’t mess up.
There’s no doubt that you’re wondering what TIIDELab is, right? That was literally the first question I asked when I first heard about it before I did further research on social media.
TIIDELab, short for Technology Innovation Industrial Development and Entrepreneurship Lab, is a Nigerian-based non-profit organization focused on youth development and technology innovation. Its primary objective is to equip young Nigerians with the skills and knowledge needed for success in the tech industry. TIIDELab offers various programs, including internships, training sessions, workshops, and mentorship, aimed at fostering entrepreneurship and technological proficiency.
My beginning at TIIDELab.
Fast forward to day 1, when the Pre-fellowship started, all the plans TIIDELab had in store for us were revealed and for the second time, I had a confirmation that this was the right place to be.
After the plans were revealed to us, we had the presence of Mr. Kadiri Salami(founder of TIIDELab), who emphasized that AI is the future. It’s here to stay, highlighting its potential to break language barriers and facilitate global understanding.
The keynote speaker, Mr. John Orakwe took the discussion further, exploring the internet revolution between 1995 and 2005. He delved into the distinctions between AI, ML, Deep Learning, and Neural Networks, providing examples to illustrate each concept.
Interesting, right?
Our amazing instructors, Mr. Shams, and Ayodele Samuel Adebayo graced us with the presence of some alumni, and they told us what we needed to do to scale through the Pre-fellowship successfully.
You’re right if you guessed that we started class almost immediately. Uncle Bigbay took us on our first class – Setup your Web Development Workspace.
DAY 2 wasn’t tasking as Fridays are our free days but then, we need to practice what was taught in the previous class.
DAY 3 featured a Twitter space where participants in the Pre-fellowship had the opportunity to ask questions about the fellowship in areas they weren’t clear on.
DAY 4 continued with Unclebigbay diving us into HTML and what we need to know about it. He also went further to build a barbershop’s landing page using everything we learned about. Trust me, it was super fun coding along.
Day 5 and Day 6 were productive because we dived deeper into HTML by learning about its attributes.
Did you know that there’s a significant difference between the id and class attributes? Well, there is and I learnt that from Unclebigbay.
Day 7 started with the management assigning us to different groups and each group with a mentor for effective collaboration followed be meetings with our respective mentors.
Although the sound of this article is all fun and joy, I must say there were a whole lot of sleepless nights, regular meetings, and long study periods involved, participants are drilled and expected to give their best during learning, and every other activity. This is all good because I’m sure success is the only result that is expected after all the hard work.
My special appreciation to our sponsors, Mr. kadiri Salami, Mr Shams, Unclebigbay, the technical support team, and the entire TIIDELab family for making this experience possible.
This is just my first week in TIIDELab and I’d be writing more articles on the coming week. Keep an eye for it.
