Mrs. Oluwatosin Odudu-Essien is the Founder and Executive Officer of Codelines Technology Solutions, a company that is into training and equipping people with skills in Information Technology. In this interview with IKECHI NZEAKO, she speaks about how the company is empowering people with knowledge in technology and other issues
Tell us about your company?
We are into IT training. We train everybody; that is to say we train women, we train men, we train children in schools and during summer. We are also in collaboration with the Nigerian Society of Engineers to train children in tech during summer.
How do you get into tech?
I actually studied computer science and furthered into software engineering. While on one of my training sessions I got a vision to meet a need in society; at that time, coding for children was not really popular in Nigeria.
So, I sat down and I designed something that was appropriate for children to get into programming.
I wanted them to get into tech at their level; that is the best way they can get into tech.
So I started training them in drone programming, introducing them to programming with blogs, Python programming, web development and other programming skills.
So, my motivation to get into tech was to meet a need in society.
I saw a need and I made myself available to meet that need; to educate younger ones. I wanted to catch them young.
The intention was to catch them young, train them into learning how to key into the future because the future is technology and the future is now.
When did you establish the company?
I started back in 2016 fully.
How has it been over the years?
We started by introducing technology training to schools, most people did not know what it was, but a school believed in us.
I met with the proprietor, and we started off with 36 students.
Today one of the students that we trained finished from a prestigious university in Nigeria as an engineer.
He came back to serve with us. He did not just learn engineering; he is equipped with tech skills. He will be going for his youth service soon.
It has been a beautiful journey. From there we grew from one school to two schools, today we are about 18 and the number of our team members has grown. We have grown to 18 now.
What challenges do you face in running the company?
When we started out, it was awareness; people did not know about coding.
But, as it continued people started to learn and accept coding, even Lagos State embraced coding, and coding spread like wildfire and schools started getting into it.
One is awareness; people are not ready to embrace new things. Another challenge was educating people to learn and see into their future and prepare their children, prepare themselves by learning tech.
We overcame the challenges of continuous campaigns. We didn’t get tired.
We continued to talk to one person at a time, at schools, at gatherings, associations, we continue to speak to people.
We have an awareness programme where we talk to parents during PTA meetings, and then, because most of the parents also work outside, interfacing with tech and getting awareness from other sources, they begin to key into the programme.
So, we overcame that challenge by creating awareness, speaking to people and then continuing what we’re doing. We also make campaigns on social media.
Have you received any support from the government?
No, we have not got support from the government at the moment, no support at all from the government, though we are in talks with some local governments to train people.
We want to give back to communities, because as a company, we give back to communities. We go to schools and we train the students.
We are talking with some local governments at the moment because we want to help train women in their communities at no cost to them. It is like giving back, helping to bring our community to speed.
Tell me about the programme you did for women recently?
Last year, we launched a progrmme for women called ‘women inclusion in tech’.
It was meant to encourage more to come into the tech space. We looked at society and the eroding of culture and morals. Before now, women stayed back at home to train their children but now men go out, and women go out. Everybody wants to go out. Then the children are left untrained. That is the truth. They learn from their peers in school, and from maids.
Looking at where the world is going; since 2020, people have been working remotely from home. We wanted to train women to work remotely from home.
It is a win-win for them. If they learn and work with tech and work with tech at home, they will be able to train their children.
So, that was what motivated us. Being a woman-led company, we look at this problem; we try to see how we can solve the problem.
So, by training the women, we start from the very basics of what a computer is, bring them into Microsoft suite, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and then into data analysis. We empower them, we also empower the family.
How will you assess the programme?
It was encouraging, it is coming up, it is a periodic programme. We are starting another in March.
We want to see what we can do through the local governments to empower those women who may not have much experience in tech; it’s not just making soaps, let’s empower them with tech. Some companies can key into it and employ them; they do their bit and get rewarded.
How will you assess the Nigerian business environment?
It’s very tough because if you look at overhead, talk about power, about even number of students, movement of staff from one training centre to another. The economy generally is not friendly.
What’s the assessment of the tech environment in the country?
It is growing rapidly because the embrace of tech today is fast growing because even in schools, you see tech courses are being introduced.
I was filling out a form for a student and we saw a course in robotics. I said that is good because before now you will not see such courses in Nigeria.
Technology is growing and new courses are being introduced in school and this is because of access to the internet and training centres in Nigeria.
What do you think the increase in telecom tariff will have on businesses and individuals?
The impact will be negative on everybody from top to bottom, because, for instance, what we do here, we also do development.
I’m actually working on a website and we need data to do anything. We need to communicate. So ,the increase in the tariff is going to also increase overhead, and cost of delivering service and also cost of living.
Some people’s lives depend on telecom services. So it’s really going to increase the hardship in the country
What can the government do to make the business environment friendlier?
The government should create an environment where small and medium scale entrepreneurs and other businesses can thrive and compete fairly.
It should make some basic things like electricity, fuel available. The price of fuel is affecting everything. Electricity tariff and availability is a problem.
Most businesses are going for an alternative source of light and this is very expensive. It is not cheap to purchase and it’s not cheap to maintain, it’s just an alternative.
So, policies that will encourage business, policies that will make the environment viable and conducive should be introduced. Increase in tariff is not going to help businesses.
What is your advice to Nigerian youths?
They should embrace tech; and because tech is wide and it can absorb a large number of Nigerian youths.
They should go for knowledge, they need to also be smart with the knowledge they acquire. They should have tech knowledge, no matter what knowledge they have.
In fact, I had training for a group of lawyers. They want to migrate to tech because if they want to take a case that is tech related, how will they do it if they don’t have knowledge of tech.
They need to have at least the basic knowledge. Also engineers, or any field, you need the basic knowledge.
So, I will encourage Nigerian youths to get into tech and other skills that will help elevate and promote and give them an edge over others.
Read the full article here
