The story of the boy who left the village to become a computer scientist - Part2

Published By zooboole

Then, I came back to my broken house. And I had the idea of going outside of the country. I thought of Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana. Notice, I chose only the English speaking countries. I knew Nigeria, I was too dump to survive the hotness of the country. South Africa was too far, I needed to use a plane. I could never afford that. Remaining Ghana. I could try that. I took a backpack with one old laptop a cousin gave me. I opened an account with Ecobank. I kept about 50.000 CFA inside so that when I reach there I could use it to go to the University Of Ghana(Legon). I have heard of it from the brother who connected me to the cafe guy. I saw pictures online. It was clean and beautiful. I left for Ghana.

I crossed Benin, I crossed Togo, then got to the Ghanaian borders. The guys there robbed me all my money. I could only pay the car to Accra. I had some coins left in the pocket. Once in Accra(Makola), I did not know what to do. I knew nobody. I knew nowhere. I started walking around the town. Sleeping by the roadside. I had done that for about two weeks. Then I met a hostel(YMCA) where there were some boys speaking French whom I approached. They accepted for me to put my bag in the corridor and sleep in the back of the house. The following morning the watchman came around 6 AM woke me up.

There were so many people around me. The man told them that I tried to break the back door of that building in the night. Shocking news. They threaten to beat and kill me. The French boys denied me. I begged them. I took my bag and went back to the streets.

Meanwhile, I have been going to the main office of Ecobank to get my money from my Benin Account. Then they were not having their Rapid Transfer service. They wrote a letter to my Ecobank branch in Benin. They stood there telling me the next day, the next day for more than three weeks. The money never came. I discovered a campus of the University of Ghana close to where the Tigo current office is now. I went there, but it didn’t look like what I saw online. I didn’t know that it was just a branch. I stood inside and the watchmen allowed me to sleep where the ladies sell food. So, I roam in the daytime, in the night I will come back there to sleep. In fact, they allowed me to bath outside there. After a week, unfortunately, they too had to get rid of me so that they don’t lose their jobs. I continued on the road. I remember people use to chase me even when I try to sleep in gutters(Trust me, I did that).

One day, while I was at Ecobank, I saw a man who was speaking French. I approached him. I asked him to allow me to put my bag down at his place and just continue the roaming. He told me he was living in a hotel. He came from Ivory Coast for a conference. He asked me where I was coming from and what I was looking for in this country. I explain my story. He told me to go back to my country and how much could help with that. I calculated it and it was about 10.000 CFA. He gave it to me. But I had my money hanging at Ecobank, I couldn’t go just like that. I went back to that hostel to pay for a week. It was also an opportunity for me to prove that I was not what they thought. The week was passing by and the money wasn’t coming. If I don’t get the money I will go back to the street and this time I would not have any rescue. So, I used those French boys phone to call my senior brother to send me some money. He did it on Friday that week, the following morning I was off to my country.

I was back again to my broken house. I was there with some other boys who had no house with the cousins. Then my senior brother went to a separate house. I went to join him there. Over there I open a free IT training center with my classmate. We trained so many people. Then, when I explain how computers work people use to marvel at how a kid like me knew those things hahaha.

Oyakoo.com was there. We use it from time to time to sell. We delivered in France, Cameroon, Gabon, and many in Benin using DHL(very expensive). We started another business called obenin. We use to book hotels for people. That was cool. We met so many people. Hotels were respecting us. But we had a problem. We could not renew the hosting. Several times we lose those websites. The worst about this is that we did not understand that we started a revolutionary business. We lost that opportunity.

2011, I went back to Ghana again. this time I prepared some money to stay at YMCA. I got the chance to know some school like NIT, IPMC. I stood there for two or three weeks then went back to Benin. You remember the man from the USA I met in the Internet cafe, we remained in touch. He is a pastor, every time he comes to Benin, I am his small boy. I would assist him everywhere. Once he came with a group of other people of the Church. One lady among them got touched by my story and promised me to help me continue with my education. She asked me what I wanted to learn. My answer to her was obvious: computers again. Where? the answer was also obvious: Ghana.

2012, I left again for Ghana dropping oyakoo, obenin, and my training center. The lady sent me the money. I enrolled in Graphic designing at NIIT, That was accidental because I could not explain what exactly I wanted. I needed something to get me closer to coding and computers. The ladies didn’t understand me and pushed me in that class. I did it. After that, I did web development as well. At the same time, I enrolled in another school to learn English.

I ended up being a Certified Graphic Designer, Web Designer, and Web Developer, then ICM|UK certified in English. I was rewarded with an English proficiency certificate. I wanted to continue with a degree in computer science but my lady couldn't support me anymore because time was also hard at her side.

I have always been passionate about teaching. In fact, our last class in web development I was the assistant to our teacher. I got jobs through that to teach people web development and C programming to students. I help many students in computer science build their final year projects. Many people know me for that. Everyone who has a problem always gets to me. Friends in the hostel where I was living then use to ask me questions all the time.

So, one day, I decided to create a website with all these questions with their answers. That gave birth to phpocean in 2015. I didn’t know that there were other websites out there like SitePoint doing this as a business otherwise I am not sure I would have built it. After launching I noticed that none of those people I created it for was using it(How do I know? Google Analytics). There were no visits from Ghana or Nigeria. Instead, I had visits from India, Indonesia, Philippines, USA, England, etc. people have been giving feedback.

Two particular visitors changed the whole thing. I was on the second version of the site when I met this boy from Czechoslovakia, Matej Sima, he was straightforward in his comment. He thought me the word “lame”. That’s how he called itutorage. The website was launched with the name itutorage. We would usually talk on facebook, he will always be disgracing the project and at the same time, he would give me suggestions. I guess he never thought I would make it. The next visitor is Mohammed Yasim from Pakistan. He loved itutorage. I also helped him build some few projects. He saw a potential in me. One morning he called on a phone and asked me to build a website specifically for PHP and I could name it something like phpocean. I just woke and bought the domain name. Then I started thinking about that new website, but I quickly noticed the site will conflict with itutorage. Besides, itutorage already had a bad reputation of not being liked. So, I decided to rename itutorage into phpocean. That changed a lot. I learned a lot from my community. Started getting hundreds of members and subscriptions to newsletters. As we are speaking the site now has thousands of members.

A lot of time has passed. I have been living in Ghana since 2012. I have never been to the dreamed USA hahaha.

I am still developing websites. As a PHP guy, you should know that it’s not easy these days. Javascript is the current thing now. So, we are trying to adapt. I have kept on learning and using Javascript little by little. Now I have taken it more seriously. I can write an acceptable JS now. In fact, I am currently working on the upcoming version of oyakoo with ReactJS… I have also launched a news website to cover startups and tech business stories.

So, what happened next.

In 2016, I have registered my first startup, Vialactea Technologies LTD, a company I want to use to offer my experience and that of my colleagues as services. We are very small for now, but I have the vim that soon we will be one of the greatest tech companies in Africa.

As for myself, I have always been in love with books and knowledge, I never stop. I have learned more about computer science, and software engineering. My next challenge is to study Computer engineering for the next 2 years by myself.

You can notice that I changed my twitter name to Computer Engineering Student. For that, I have gone back to electronics. My goal is to reach a level where I can write good code. So far, I have been reading books like Code: the hidden language of computer software and hardware, The Art Of Electronics - 2nd Edition, Electronics for dummies, The Art of Assembly Language, ARM ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE, Fundamentals and Techniques, Computer Organization and Design: The hardware/Software interface, Programmez en language C, et cetera.

Apart from those, there are other books I will read later. For now, I need to cross the level of these books I just listed. I read every day. I am re-learning C. I am adding python to my collection. Not because people talk about. I just need as many languages as possible on my belt so that I can be able to test them myself once I start to work with machine code. Certainly, more will come later on this topic.

In addition to that, I have started writing a small book to summarize my experience in web development which I am planning to launch on web development starter kit I am sorry this has to be that long. I wanted to write this for a long time now.

I hope it motivates someone. Every time you think of giving up, remember this boy who left a deep village and became an entrepreneur, a self-though computer programmer and soon a software engineer. He had no one to even feed him, but he made it.

Everything in life is always hard. Stop looking for how long it would take you to become a good programmer or to know a programming language. It should be a life dedication, the rest will be accomplished by itself. At each stage, you will get the chance to evaluate yourself as good or not. But never do it for/against someone. What I mean is, never do because someone else is doing it or because the person couldn’t do. Do everything for yourself, you will never be bored.

Stop complaining. If you want to get into programming you can make it today with less hustle. You have all the resources you need.

If you have any question or comment, feel free to ask in the comments section below.

Thank you for reading.