Caution: This could be the origin story of a great influencer in the world of tech.
Having a career dream is one of the most common things any Ghanaian schooling child has. As a typical Ghanaian school boy, I had the stereotype dream of being a doctor. Then I watched a National Geographic documentary and all of a sudden, I wanted to be a scientist.
This desire was further refined into being a computer engineer when an I.T adult school was opened by our neighbour. You could find me in his lab every single time after school. Although he never taught me directly, he allowed me to tinker and experiment with his computers.
It was a fulfilling time until we had to move out of the neighbourhood. Now, young me was once again lost. Imagine going on an anticipated trip and then you find out that there are many crossroads with no signboards. That was how I felt; no resources, no tutor, no direction, nothing on how to achieve my dream. Worst of all, life with its many obstacles came to make its name known. An I.T course was only introduced in my secondary school when I was in final year. I also failed to make it into the Computer Science program at the University. Everything around me then seemed to be set against me starting my I.T journey in a typical known manner. However, you cannot easily leave something you have a passion for even if you wanted to. Someway somehow, I found myself doing little I.T related courses and I found them so fulfilling. Still, this just put me on an unorthodox path and finding a job with just these little qualifications was hard.
In one of my job searches, I came across the Azubi Africa AWS re/Start program. It just stood out to me and I decided to apply.
I didn’t know the process would be so rigorous and despite the many challenges I passed right on my first try. Five weeks into the course now, I know I made one of the best decisions of my life. And who knows? This could be the origin story of a great person in the I.T world.