JayTee Ojo Foundation is a non-profit organisation set up from Ekiti to help make the young person globally competitive and help our communities towards self-sustenance.
We have, among other projects, donated solar streetlights to light up communities at night, we have donated borehole water fountains, we have sponsored several medical interventions, food banks, sports intervention as well as farmer empowerment and local farming interventions.
For all the intervention projects and works mentioned above and many more besides, we are prouder of the investments we make into the future via educational interventions from donating books to students, to multiple scholarship programmes that cover school fees, various examination registration fees, accommodation, and projects support.
The projects our team are most proud of however, are the work we do in empowering people with programming skills. Just like Steve Jobs, our team believe everyone should learn how to program a computer and we also think programming should be mainstream as seen a poverty eradication and levelling-up strategy.
We sponsor and facilitate a programming club in Ekiti public secondary schools, in this club, we teach teenagers how to create solutions with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The aim is to take programming to the young people at their most formative stage.
We also sponsor and facilitate open trainings for everyone regardless of experience, education, vocation, gender, background, or ability. This is perhaps our most interesting endeavour as we get to see humanity at it’s best. In our open courses, we have had a Consultant Medical Doctor learning alongside a Dry Cleaner, and we have had people who did not finish secondary school learning with a someone who holds a PhD. We have delivered open training in Python, Digital Design, Digital Marketing, HTML, CSS and JavaScript as well as Excel and Database Administration.
Finally, we are really excited to make available in print, some open source resources that has helped us in training our schools club in HTML. We will follow up with CSS, JavScript and Python editions.
We provide this book without charge and with no copy rights, to all public secondary schools in Ekiti State.
We are only able to do what we do because of support from volunteers, friends, and partners of the JayTee Ojo Foundation, to whom we say a BIG THANK YOU!
Otunba Taiwo Olayisade Ojo
President
What do you want to be in future? What do you want to be when you grow up? I remember being asked this question as a little boy and you may have been asked the same question in a variety of ways. When I was a boy, I wanted to be a doctor however at the age of 13, I started my first business and my first money.
I had wanted to call my uncle in New York, so, I went to the post office in Ado Ekiti and bought 100 units NITEL Phone Card. For young people wondering what that is (see picture attached), it is like a debit or credit card, it had a chip which stored phone calling units which
ran down as you called in the public phone booths.
My memories are not too detailed anymore however I think had bought this card for N120 and off I went to the phone booth close to my home. There were many university students lines up to make calls and some just standing by. I tried my uncle’s line, it rang but no one picked up, yet the phone had charged about 25 units or so. I was quite sad about that, however as I came out of the booth to wait around and try again later, the person after me asked if they could “rent” my card. I was not sure what they meant, they then explained
that they will pay me N50 to use 10 units and if they used more than 10 units, they would pay me I think N5 per unit or so.
I was curious, yet nervous that this older guy will not pay me, but the other students encouraged me to let him rent it and they assured me I will be paid. One student even stepped into the booth, checked, and announced the starting unit before the renter started
their call. When they came out, my backup once again checked the final unit and long story short, he paid me twice what the entire 100-unit card had costed me and used less than half of the units I had available.
That was the beginning of my first business. I went on to make thousands of naira as a young man (literally hundreds of dollars). I eventually opened trade at multiple booths and hired attendants to scale my enterprise.
I tell you this story to make a point, fortune see not age nor place, it simply comes from taking opportunities and scaling to take more opportunities. Now I travel the world as a young man, I see that abilities are well distributed around the world. A young person from Ekiti exhibits similar ability a young person from England, the obvious difference that drives the gap in the outcome of those two is “Opportunities”. Your ability is only relevant when you can express it to make your world better.
There are unlimited opportunities in the Tech Space globally. Luckily you now also live in that Global World through the internet. That means you are no longer disadvantaged with opportunity.
The question must be that of ability. Do you have what it takes to take
advantage of the opportunities open in Tech?
You get hired for job in one of two ways, as a potential expert who can be trained and taught or as a practitioner who has already been trained and taught to expertise.
Most young people, post formal schooling, seeks to be hired and trained in a job, the problem with this approach is that they are seeking to transfer the burden and risks of their training on to another person or organisation. The organisation or person will tend to charge a premium for the privilege of bearing the burden of training a staff or potential staff member..
If however, you take responsibility for you own tutorage and apprenticeship, instead of seeking for a job or training like others, it is more likely that you will be sought out and paid a premium for your expertise.
Therefore, my message to you is to seek for opportunities in the Tech space, once you conclude on what you want to do, find out how to start and get yourself trained. The trick for wealth is Supply skills, services, or products in highest demand.
In Summary, please
– Find out what Tech Skills are in highest demand
– Front load your own learning
– Find your niche and become THE expert!
Finally, please do not wait. Start from where you are and Start with what you have.
I will see you at the top
Otunba JayTee Ojo
President JayTee Ojo Foundation
