Is there a link between your growing up and your love for Computer Science?
Yes, I believe it has a lot to do with that. My mum was a banker, but now she’s retired. There was a time she worked in the Airport Branch of the bank at Murtala Mohammed International Airport. After school, my dad would drop us with her in the bank and go back to work. For me, it was really exciting seeing planes take off and land and then seeing a lot of foreigners, who were friendly to me. At that time, I would naively say I wanted to become a pilot and my brother would say he wanted to become an aeronautical engineer. I believe it’s partly the reason he studied Mechanical Engineering. But I recall also that one of my mum’s co-workers would take me to an empty office where I used to play computer games for hours. It was so much fun. Over time, our parents got us desktop computers to keep us busy at home. They installed applications like Encarta encyclopedia, Microsoft word & PowerPoint. So, as children, we were already trained to be computer literate. On our own, we installed lots of games on the computers. My mum studied computer science in England, so she knew the potential computing skills had and she made it clear that all of us must learn how to use computers. My dad’s interest in technology and computer also influenced my penchant for Computer Science. With all these, I guess consciously or unconsciously, I became very comfortable with computers. By the time I was in SS3 and it was time to pick a course, computer science matched my preference perfectly.
Even though it was all you wanted, how easy or difficult did you find the course in your first year?
To be honest, I wasn’t a serious student in my first year. In fact, the Visual Basic and C programming language we learnt in 100 level was all abstract to me. That was also the first time I would be on my own, so it was difficult for me to manage my time effectively, thus, I had low results in my first year. It was particularly difficult because some courses – Biology and Physics – that I didn’t like were introduced. Most of my course mates also had same challenge. Needless to say it was quite challenging but I scaled through without failing any course. That semester was my lowest result through school. It was unlike my performance in my previous schools. In primary school, I always topped the class, always collecting the prizes on prize giving day, but in secondary school, I was a B+ student, better than the average B student in academics but not always as good as the A students. I only made sure I was among the top seven in my class per term. My class teacher in JSS2, Mrs. Victoria Adebayo, taught us to always put ourselves in the subject teacher’s shoes and set the type of questions teachers could set on each topic and answer them. I used this method to prepare for examinations up till final year, coupled with using acronyms and keywords when preparing for exams. Those strategies worked.
We learnt you developed a program that is now of commercial value, what informed the idea?
We had this class, Operation Research, in our third year and the lecturer, Dr. Senanu Okuboyejo, who was also our class adviser gave us a pep talk on the need for us to identify problems around us during our Industrial Training programme and turn such to our final year project and that we could turn such project into a business. We were due for another lecture, so, many of us didn’t pay attention to it. But I did and it registered in my mind. When I went for IT, I had that objective in mind.
So, what did you find?
I did my Industrial Training in a foremost commercial bank. I worked at the headquarters and I worked with the tech group. I learnt a lot during my time there and I am forever grateful for the experience I gained during those months. Based on what I observed, which I would call improved security system, I decided to build a multimodal biometric system incorporating fingerprint and facial recognition. And I started work on it while the IT was still on. By the time I got back to school, I had completed chapter one to three of my project, four was midway and I had already completed the facial recognition feature. I met my project supervisor, Mr. Azubuike Ezenwoke, to get approval for my project, and he has always believed that students should have projects that have commercial value, so he liked the idea, but felt it was cost intensive and I didn’t have any unique value proposition. So, there was basically no point. I had to come up with something different and that was how universitycompass.ng idea was birthed.
What is University Compass about?
It started as a criteria-based university search engine. The average prospective university student does not have enough facts to make an informed decision on university, course or career, even with the 143 universities in Nigeria. Yes, they have preferences but lack adequate information for comparison and ultimately selection can be quite difficult. I feel the traditional approach involving the use of brochures, interaction with alumni and current students, individual visits to colleges, etc., could be stressful and time consuming and might not lead to an optimal college choice; hence, a better approach to aiding university choice selection is required. That is one of the solutions it provides. In the course of an interaction, the need to incorporate course profiles into the platform occurred to me. Also, midway into creating the course profiles, I figured it would be nice to have a feature that could help students select a course based on their interests. That was also included. At the end of the day, the way the platform works is that you simply input your criteria, select how important each criterion is to you and we handle aspirations.
How long did it take you to design it?
It took me about six months to build everything that is currently on the site and I finished it in January 2017 but I didn’t launch it until April so I could criticise it adequately. It was a very taxing mental process but I felt it was necessary to building a good product. What is currently on the platform is phase one of a four-phase plan I hope to implement by the Grace of God. I put it out to get feedback from the general public about the platform and so far, users are satisfied with the results and the feedback is really amazing.
How did you raise the funds to finance it?
I simply used my pocket money. You don’t always need a large sum to implement IT ideas. For me, my capital was predominantly my laptop and my mind.
Did you do it alone or was it a joint effort?
I worked on it alone by the grace of God but like I earlier stated, I started it as my final year project so I had guidance from my project supervisor. When I participated in an idea pitching programme, where undergraduates, some alumni and a few staff pitched their ideas at Centre for Entrepreneurial and Development studies in CU, the judges criticised everyone’s idea or product, except mine; it was flawless. They all just kept saying wonderful idea repeatedly. Getting external validation about my work was priceless and it gave me confidence to continue. Overall, I’d say the dreamer’s project is a wonderful initiative.
