Who is Francis?
I am a React Developer/Aspiring Tech entrepreneur, I love to write music, read books, code, and play basketball in my free time.
How my 2022 started:
I started 2022 full of energy and excitement, it was just when I came into the world of technology😍 driven by my passion/dream to build an app for an idea that I had which was what made me get into tech. At the beginning of the year I was learning HTML and CSS at the moment and I had just returned from Lagos after attending my first tech event #DevFestLagos2021 it was really an awesome experience, before then I was so worried about a lot of things until I went to Lagos and met with a lot of developers across west Africa and it gave me peace and assurance that there were amazing people and a community to help me out when I needed help with anything in my journey as a developer. I look forward to going back to Lagos this year 2023.
March - November 🚀
As of march I had understood Html and CSS pretty well because I have built some basic projects and regarding my idea, I was beginning to see that yes it was possible for me to build an app but I knew there was a lot I did not know and that I needed to keep learning but I was compelled to find answers,at that time I was in Abuja the capital of Nigeria so I did search for where I could talk to people regarding my idea and on the internet and I found The Ventures Platform they had a branch in Abuja which is the city where I live in and I booked a tour and went and was opportune to meet the manager he was super nice to me I told him about my idea he advised that I kept learning and developing my idea and come back (photo of me at ventures park below) took some photos and made new friends over there and I left and continued learning and building projects and pushing them to my GitHub I continued to learn bootstrap and javascript and built several projects with it and I attended an open source event that made me learn about Open-source and how amazing it it, right now I'm learning and building with React js.
Challenges 😤 and Accomplishments🤩
I faced a lot of challenges when I was told to go and continue learning, I felt bad and struggled and had anxiety coupled with the fact that I have been learning and building all through the year it was fun but I felt de-motivated at times. But looking back I realize right now that the rejection I received was actually a good thing because I can see the gap I have filled in knowledge and experience from then up until now I am happy about it and I continue to learn every day, Some other challenges I faced was I needed money to buy a better laptop because the laptop I was using was not faulty and not efficient it was also not fast enough for me. So I decided to go out to look for internships, paid ones at least I also figured it was going to be a great opportunity for me to practice what I have learned and gain some experience. That was when I attended my first open-source event in Abuja Nigeria #OscaFestAbuja2022 I learned more about open source and connected with new developer friends. At the event I heard about Outreachy - a paid internship program, I applied, and out of 4000+ developers who applied only 1400+ of us got into the program, we were to select two projects to make contributions to, and then after the contributions phase we were to submit final applications and a project timeline, then wait until selected interns will be announced. The contribution period lasted for about 3 weeks which was in October, I enjoyed and learned a lot of tools and softwares e.g docker. While contributing to Outreachy I also learned how to be a good team player and help others out, made pull requests that got merged 🤩🔥 and got some good positive reviews from my mentors which boost my confidence level. When the internship list came out I was not selected, it was a lady who got selected for the project we were contributing to, I felt sad but I realized that I got and gave a lot of value at the same time so it was a win🎉. I have also gotten a better laptop for myself and I am currently building my developer portfolio and a react app for my idea, So excited about how far I have come and where I am going .
Lessons learned and Conclusion 📝
I realized that as an individual you should first learn to believe strongly in yourself and your abilities and accept rejections and failure as an opportunity to improve and become a much better version of yourself. And one should always be willing to learn and that persistence is a very key component in getting whatever it is one desires! ❤
Happy 2023 🎉