00:00:00.399
um so I'm
00:00:02.399
gonna talk about the baa
00:00:05.720
story
00:00:08.040
and um the purpose of the talk is
00:00:11.280
definitely just to share Inspire Empower
00:00:14.920
pick whatever you can from this
00:00:20.439
and so um this talk is especially
00:00:26.080
for anyone who is in Tech has
00:00:30.920
transitioned careers into Tech um or his
00:00:34.600
transitioning out whatever um so it's a
00:00:37.000
transition story and for me it began
00:00:39.800
with someone else's story where I saw
00:00:41.800
fragments of myself um and I was
00:00:44.239
inspired into action and so I'm just
00:00:47.399
going to take you through my story but
00:00:50.239
through my story provide some insights
00:00:52.680
in The Art of
00:00:55.559
Storytelling and so um my name is
00:01:00.000
Nigeria toet I'm based in Nairobi
00:01:02.920
Kenya and I currently consider myself as
00:01:08.880
someone who who helps nonprofits design
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develop affordable efficient and
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scalable scalable take Solutions I'm a
00:01:17.960
Creator I'm a
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builder and I'm a Problem
00:01:22.720
Solver uh I quit my job at 45 and
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transitioned into Tech um that was like
00:01:28.200
four years ago
00:01:30.960
and I'm a wife and a mother of
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three
00:01:38.240
so um just in the chat think about
00:01:43.079
your last the last TV uh show you really
00:01:47.360
enjoyed whether it was a book or a movie
00:01:51.079
or a
00:01:52.159
podcast
00:01:54.000
and write in the chat why why you think
00:01:58.360
it was a good story
00:02:15.120
yes we all love happy endings don't
00:02:19.000
we yes um unexpected turn of
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events characters I can relate to
00:02:26.480
relatable characters the adventur the
00:02:29.599
Discover very interesting character
00:02:33.760
Dynamics
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humor uh a lot of the setup paid off
00:02:47.120
M human race RS itself nice showing
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compassion I'm talking about people
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Cho great great so keep them
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coming uh
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continue so my
00:03:05.840
story um we'll start off with the
00:03:10.040
character
00:03:11.599
so like I said mother of three teenagers
00:03:17.400
um soon to be two adults in the house um
00:03:22.239
wife living my life I was working as a
00:03:26.400
digital media specialist and that
00:03:28.879
entailed just working on online
00:03:31.400
communities um I was I joined this
00:03:35.040
company I'm sure if you went to my
00:03:36.879
LinkedIn you you'll get it but for
00:03:39.000
purposes of VTO we we'll keep it
00:03:41.159
Anonymous I joined this company and had
00:03:44.519
worked for three years as a social media
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manager and then um I really loved it
00:03:50.560
because it's it involved me being on
00:03:53.360
social media
00:03:54.920
247 like I was paid to be on Facebook
00:03:58.959
Twitter and Instagram and just create
00:04:01.200
content um on a very interesting subject
00:04:05.200
love sex and relationships and that was
00:04:07.200
really fun the platform targeted young
00:04:09.599
people with very interesting content and
00:04:12.120
we had
00:04:13.120
campaigns um and I really enjoyed
00:04:15.840
it um I enjoyed it so much so that um
00:04:20.759
three years into that role because I
00:04:23.280
really I I was really good at what I was
00:04:26.160
doing
00:04:28.320
um and the Community had grown when I
00:04:31.000
joined the Facebook Community was like
00:04:33.560
50,000 and by the time I was getting to
00:04:36.000
my three-year stint I had buil the
00:04:37.800
commun to 1.1 million um Facebook like
00:04:42.880
followers and I felt like I needed a
00:04:46.280
bigger
00:04:47.280
challenge
00:04:49.199
um of course the management saw that I
00:04:52.240
was really doing a good job and my then
00:04:54.720
manager we just a team of two um wanted
00:04:58.120
to go and pursue her PhD
00:05:00.320
and so
00:05:01.680
she um uh had offered her resignation
00:05:06.520
and there I was thinking oh my God I'm
00:05:08.320
gonna get a new boss and this Dynamic of
00:05:11.039
this you know we were the like the
00:05:12.960
Fantastic Duo she was a great content
00:05:15.440
creator and I was like oh my God I'm
00:05:17.520
getting a new manager and lo and behold
00:05:20.880
the head of Department had seen my
00:05:24.319
efforts and how hard I was working
00:05:26.479
offered me the position to take up that
00:05:28.400
position as the coordinator for the
00:05:31.680
team um which which I said
00:05:34.840
yes and this was the team then uh we had
00:05:38.400
grown from a team of two to seven and we
00:05:43.759
were expanding into another country so
00:05:46.960
the organization had set up in Kenya
00:05:48.639
initially and was expanding into Nigeria
00:05:51.759
so now I was in charge of this team so I
00:05:54.840
was really excited about the move um
00:05:58.520
into a senior position and of course it
00:06:01.160
it meant more money and More Travel um
00:06:04.160
very interesting
00:06:05.960
things um along with
00:06:09.960
that uh other things that were happening
00:06:12.759
is that my kids had grown initially we
00:06:15.840
lived in a two-bedroom flat um kids were
00:06:19.080
growing so we needed to move to a bigger
00:06:20.680
space so I was like yeah we we can
00:06:22.400
afford to move to a bigger house so we
00:06:23.919
moved to like a four bedroom house one
00:06:25.960
of the rooms became my office I was
00:06:28.400
really excited at what that was all like
00:06:31.840
a big a bigger space I had my home
00:06:34.360
office um and then more work of course
00:06:39.000
and because I had moved to manager team
00:06:42.280
um there were more responsibilities I
00:06:45.000
had to be part of meetings to decide the
00:06:46.919
direction of the
00:06:49.280
organization
00:06:51.240
so what else
00:06:54.039
happened um one of the projects that I
00:06:56.800
got into was a web series which was part
00:07:00.479
of still creating content for our
00:07:02.639
audience that was really
00:07:05.440
exciting um and and the trailer is
00:07:08.800
actually on
00:07:10.960
online um travel to different countries
00:07:14.160
to represent the
00:07:15.879
organization um talk about the wonderful
00:07:18.560
work that you were
00:07:20.240
doing
00:07:21.800
um a couple of
00:07:23.919
months into my second year we launched
00:07:27.560
Nigeria the Nigerian uh chapter so I had
00:07:30.479
to travel to Nigeria and we had this big
00:07:33.000
launch ceremony and they got me wearing
00:07:36.000
a dress which I Rely do um and
00:07:41.879
then in the regional office which was in
00:07:44.360
the Netherlands things had changed so
00:07:46.960
they had to get a an African regional
00:07:50.599
manager to manage the two teams in Kenya
00:07:53.919
and
00:07:54.759
Nigeria initially they picked a
00:07:57.400
colleague and it was wonderful
00:08:00.199
we got to travel together we got to map
00:08:02.479
out what we thought uh the direction of
00:08:05.639
the organization would
00:08:08.360
be um but soon it became evident that my
00:08:13.479
vision and my direction was different
00:08:15.759
from the
00:08:17.120
organizations um we had the bigger team
00:08:20.639
that
00:08:22.479
was developing the strategy developing
00:08:25.479
the website developing you know the the
00:08:28.199
tech Solutions all best in the
00:08:30.120
Netherlands and we were just
00:08:31.919
implementing so everything came from the
00:08:33.839
top down I found this very frustrating
00:08:36.800
because having to build a platform from
00:08:40.000
50,000 to 1.1 million I understood my
00:08:43.159
audience I understood my local context
00:08:45.839
so I felt it was important for our
00:08:48.839
organization to understand that it's
00:08:51.600
people within the country that can
00:08:53.200
propose Solutions and the direction of
00:08:55.200
the
00:08:55.880
organization it was at this point that
00:08:58.880
we parted rates I felt solution should
00:09:01.800
be built-in
00:09:03.440
country their their funding and strategy
00:09:06.440
was to build in in the Netherlands and
00:09:09.880
then yeah deliver it to the local teams
00:09:14.600
um so at this point we disagreed I
00:09:18.000
resigned after six years and two months
00:09:21.040
in the organization actually
00:09:23.279
resigned 7 days before my 45th birthday
00:09:26.720
and by the time I was resigning I was
00:09:28.360
very clear I wanted to go into Tech and
00:09:31.720
build so that presented my first
00:09:34.839
conflict that made me make the decision
00:09:37.200
to be um disagreeing with organization
00:09:40.600
in terms of
00:09:42.200
Direction usually with conflicts there's
00:09:44.880
the external conflict which we've seen
00:09:47.120
here and then we have the internal
00:09:49.200
conflict so it's fine I've made the
00:09:51.200
decision I want to learn how to build um
00:09:54.519
Tech so I started looking
00:09:57.200
for I believe it started with earlier
00:09:59.880
than this um I think I have The Knack of
00:10:02.360
seeing things of feeling out of place
00:10:04.920
and then trying to work out what would
00:10:07.360
be my next move so by the time I was
00:10:09.120
resigning I had already made
00:10:12.279
contacts gone online did my research um
00:10:15.519
I found out about uh lesbians F Tech who
00:10:19.440
had a scholarship for anyone who was
00:10:22.640
transitioning to Tech or going to a boot
00:10:24.600
camp I applied for the
00:10:26.480
scholarship I got in so even when I was
00:10:29.839
quitting I knew there was something
00:10:31.680
coming but I didn't I didn't have the
00:10:33.160
timelines I didn't know what what was
00:10:34.760
going to happen so um I
00:10:38.959
quit that was November the whole of
00:10:41.320
November and December I went online and
00:10:44.160
I created a go fundme um campaign to
00:10:48.440
raise funds for my ticket and my
00:10:50.800
airfare by the time we had decided there
00:10:53.720
were two options either to go to a boot
00:10:55.399
camp in Colorado or a boot camp in
00:10:58.240
Barcelona Trump was President so us was
00:11:01.839
out for me I was like that was too much
00:11:04.200
a uh a risk for me not I mean trying to
00:11:08.000
apply for the Visa immigrants and but
00:11:10.079
plus Barcelona was warmer so Barcelona
00:11:12.920
was the the better
00:11:14.959
option um so I had an opportunity to go
00:11:19.079
to Barcelona C of boot camp um in
00:11:23.360
January I didn't know how I was going to
00:11:25.760
get there um my gounder me uh campaign
00:11:31.079
had raised about
00:11:33.440
$600 and that was enough for my airfare
00:11:38.040
return
00:11:39.720
airfare uh bear in mind this is 2019
00:11:44.720
December got my airfare I rared some
00:11:48.320
friends and people gave me loans and
00:11:50.760
they were like you know what just go get
00:11:52.600
there and everything you'll sort itself
00:11:55.160
out once you're done um January 7th I
00:11:59.600
flew out of Nairobi went to
00:12:02.680
Barcelona and it had been Sunny the
00:12:06.079
whole week from the 1st to the 7th it
00:12:08.920
was sunny the day I land in Barcelona
00:12:12.040
and I get off the plane it started
00:12:14.720
raining cats and dogs and I was like I
00:12:18.839
had to take trains to get to the center
00:12:20.839
of the city and when I
00:12:23.959
finally like got to the last
00:12:27.160
stop um and I could I just knew it was
00:12:30.600
like a stretch that I had to walk to get
00:12:33.040
to the school and I was soaked I was
00:12:35.920
dragging my suitcase and I was laughing
00:12:38.240
and crying at the same time and the
00:12:40.040
beauty was because I was being rain on
00:12:42.680
no one could know that I was crying and
00:12:45.440
the tears were rolling down my cheeks
00:12:46.959
and and yeah all the rain and then I
00:12:49.600
walk into the building um and people are
00:12:52.800
in class cuz it's around 9:00 in the
00:12:55.160
morning and it's like this woman
00:12:59.720
dragging two bags soaking wet entering
00:13:02.920
from the like lifts and the admin person
00:13:07.959
just looked at me it's like you must be
00:13:09.639
Nigeria I'm like
00:13:11.440
yes and that was like a classic entry um
00:13:15.240
into into school and into
00:13:17.839
Barcelona fast
00:13:20.160
forward uh that was January fast forward
00:13:23.600
six weeks in beginning of March guess
00:13:26.920
what happens covid hits and Barcelona is
00:13:30.920
smack in the middle of the covid
00:13:34.040
pandemic because of all these people who
00:13:35.680
are coming from holiday um in in
00:13:39.399
uh uh in other parts of Europe I think
00:13:42.120
it was Italy I can't remember which
00:13:43.600
country had the biggest like started
00:13:45.720
with the whole um
00:13:48.199
pandemic and two weeks
00:13:51.480
in they announce that no more going to
00:13:55.360
class because they're reducing the
00:13:57.639
number of um people like being in
00:14:00.480
together in public spaces and I'm
00:14:02.880
sitting there and I didn't know what was
00:14:04.399
going to happen um I wake up one morning
00:14:07.560
I go to look for food um in the
00:14:11.120
supermarket and the first aisle I walk
00:14:13.399
in is like the toilet paper is and that
00:14:15.360
was all empty and I'm like wait people
00:14:17.480
are sick why are people buying toilet
00:14:19.360
paper anyway didn't it didn't click in
00:14:21.519
my head so I went got my food um and I
00:14:25.959
kept thinking if they're locking down
00:14:27.959
the countries how I going to get out so
00:14:30.720
I spoke to one of the lecturers that she
00:14:32.680
was like if you can't get out just get
00:14:34.639
out because we don't know how long this
00:14:36.040
thing is going to take so I started
00:14:38.560
looking for my ticket it took me three
00:14:40.560
days to get a flight out of
00:14:43.199
Barcelona um this was I think it was
00:14:45.839
around the 15th of March and I get a
00:14:49.399
flight early in the morning it was a
00:14:51.240
Saturday morning I leave for the airport
00:14:54.279
there's a connecting flight through
00:14:56.120
Qatar I leave and by the time I Landing
00:14:59.440
cat which is like maybe 4 hours after I
00:15:01.440
left I opened my WhatsApp on the air
00:15:04.440
Wi-Fi on the airport Wi-Fi and I'm just
00:15:07.040
seeing messages asking me did you get
00:15:08.560
out did you get out I'm like yeah I'm
00:15:10.120
actually in Qatar and they're like the
00:15:13.040
airport was locked down at at at 12:00
00:15:17.600
in the afternoon I left at 8 in the
00:15:19.440
morning so there was lockdown no flights
00:15:22.279
out I'm like okay we had I had a layover
00:15:25.639
so I
00:15:27.040
traveled um I stayed there I traveled I
00:15:29.759
was getting to Nairobi Sunday morning
00:15:33.079
I'm tired because it's been a dramatic
00:15:35.040
week with not being in school and trying
00:15:37.199
to get a flight out I come in shower and
00:15:40.519
I black out and when I wake up at 5:00
00:15:43.160
that evening our president had announced
00:15:45.720
the lockdown so no flights were leaving
00:15:48.160
so it was just
00:15:49.880
like by flukes that I actually got out
00:15:53.639
anyway
00:15:55.440
so what happens after that um and is I
00:16:00.480
graduated I finished um and one of the
00:16:04.920
things that I went on to do is I was too
00:16:09.959
scared to look for jobs as a developer
00:16:13.720
so I comfortably went back to things
00:16:15.759
that I knew um I got a job again in
00:16:19.160
digital media marketing but six months
00:16:21.319
in I Quit I was like no this is not why
00:16:24.440
I went to Barcelona this is not why I
00:16:27.959
almost got stuck in Barcelona for God
00:16:30.800
knows how long um so I quit we were in
00:16:35.120
the middle of covid so was people are
00:16:36.600
still working remotely um and I just
00:16:39.360
started building my portfolio
00:16:41.399
online
00:16:44.040
um oh yeah I forgot to click on this so
00:16:46.880
this is just about my endurance and yeah
00:16:49.319
loving how to running and stuff and this
00:16:52.160
just keeps me going should have weed it
00:16:54.440
in nicely into the story but I'm sorry
00:16:56.399
for that anyway resolution so what
00:16:58.560
happened
00:17:00.040
um I quit got
00:17:03.959
uh Built My Portfolio someone had Hunted
00:17:07.360
Me based on the things that I was doing
00:17:09.079
from L him just sharing how I'm learning
00:17:11.520
online sharing what portfolio I'm
00:17:13.880
building and I got head hunted by an
00:17:16.760
organization in the US was offered a
00:17:19.600
freelance position and lo and
00:17:23.439
behold 3 months
00:17:26.280
after that position my my former
00:17:29.600
employer who had I had quit reached out
00:17:32.600
to me saying we have a front end
00:17:34.360
developer position available you want to
00:17:36.440
join us or shall we advertise and get
00:17:38.679
somebody else and I'm like hell yeah I'm
00:17:40.520
joining and so I I joined I joined them
00:17:44.160
um so I went back to the job that had
00:17:45.760
quit six months later um and it was a
00:17:48.960
wonderful warm welcome so um six months
00:17:53.400
into that I was head hunted for my by my
00:17:55.760
current organization and I've been there
00:17:58.000
for the last two and a half years I've
00:18:00.600
gotten promoted three times in this
00:18:03.200
organization and and yeah I'm not
00:18:06.559
complaining they're paying me well um
00:18:09.760
they took me to school I've done a
00:18:12.280
product management course so in addition
00:18:14.360
to being a
00:18:15.600
developer and all of
00:18:18.600
this uh was
00:18:21.039
because I think for
00:18:23.080
me no
00:18:25.159
worries Manu um I'm not not afraid to
00:18:29.760
share and learn in public I'm not afraid
00:18:32.360
to say you know what I failed but I'll
00:18:34.080
try again um and so if I go back to my
00:18:40.559
story uh by telling my story one every
00:18:44.600
time I tell my story in any space I've
00:18:46.640
inspired other people to move um I've
00:18:50.320
gone back to my boot camp more than five
00:18:52.480
times just talking about my journey and
00:18:55.039
people always sign up to do the boot
00:18:56.919
camp based on my story
00:18:59.720
people reach out to me on my LinkedIn
00:19:01.520
I'm very active on LinkedIn they're like
00:19:03.039
oh tell us we you know you transition
00:19:05.080
how did that go um and I'm always open
00:19:07.919
to to doing that and one thing that also
00:19:10.520
came out of me being confident to share
00:19:13.159
my story last last year in October I
00:19:15.799
spoke at my first Tech conference that's
00:19:18.400
how I found out about uh this community
00:19:21.120
uh I was at uh frry Al and then after
00:19:25.919
that I was at
00:19:27.520
the um
00:19:29.400
rails conference in Amsterdam and this
00:19:31.240
is because I was not afraid to talk
00:19:33.120
about my failure my struggles and my
00:19:36.240
journey um yeah I'm sorry we we're out
00:19:38.760
of time but I think to wrap it up um for
00:19:43.640
me these are the elements of the good of
00:19:45.440
a good story who you are what are the
00:19:47.799
things you've gone through what are the
00:19:49.600
conflicts and hles you've gone through
00:19:51.120
and how do you how have you overcome
00:19:53.640
them and what are the lessons that
00:19:55.280
you've learned um I think that's very
00:19:57.640
important um and I'll just I'll share
00:20:00.240
the slides so this just summarizes the
00:20:03.120
elements of a good story based on Snow
00:20:06.320
White which many of you must be um
00:20:10.720
familiar with bottom line be authentic
00:20:14.320
we all have to dare to be ourselves
00:20:16.320
however frightening strange that self
00:20:19.039
might prove to be um and to Tinder means
00:20:24.799
the story is over thank you very much
