HOW IT ALL STARTED — My journey to the Azubi re/Start Program

I have always been the ‘Tech guy’ amongst my peers and my classmates for most of my life. Whether it is IT solutions, setting up or troubleshooting phones, gadgets, and IOTs, or gist about the latest tech trends, you will find me in the mix somewhere.

I have had an interest in tech for as long as I can remember; it is almost as if I was born with it. I was also attracted to tech problems and I always seemed to find a working solution to these problems. In the early 2000s, the use of computers, phones, sports watches, DVD players, etc., was on the rise among the middle-class populace in Ghana but very few knew how to use them. Many youngsters like myself who were tech-inclined were always called to set up these gadgets or help troubleshoot them when they were unresponsive to their user’s commands, and these ‘patrons’ never spared us the details of how they got these gadgets, how expensive they were and how important they were to them. As such, they always wanted to be part of the ‘fixing’ process to ensure the safety of the gadgets.

In Junior High School, I was one of three candidates (the only one in my year group) who were selected to represent our school in an ICT quiz. In my final year in Senior High School, I was a member of the entertainment committee in charge of setting up for entertainment; setting up sound systems and projectors for variety shows, movie nights, and game nights.

Per my story, you would think that I would go on to read an IT-related program in the university, which would set me on the path of a career in IT but that life did not allow that to happen. I read Civil Engineering for my bachelor’s degree and I have been working in the construction industry, initially as a consultant and now as a contractor. My work as a construction planner requires me to work with computers and software a lot, however, I still feel that, for not pursuing a career in IT, a part of me is missing. This is why I decided to venture into the tech space.

I searched on the web for a step-by-step guide on how to grow into an IT career in which I had an interest but there was a lot of information I gathered that pointed me in different directions. I asked my brother to make inquiries for me and he told me IBM Digital Nation Africa would be a good starting point for me. I signed up and took some introductory courses to Cybersecurity & Cloud which was good, but I wanted more; I wanted the real action — coding itself! After hours of online research and self-reflection, I came up with a plan; become a web developer by starting as a front-end developer, master my craft, upskill with back-end and become a full stack developer. I stumbled upon “codingwithMosh” on YouTube and took his free course on HTML basics. Now I needed to pay to be able to take the rest of the required courses. I was in the process of coming up with a plan to take those paid courses when my brother got back to me with a link to the Azubi ReStart program. Right away, I knew it was what I needed, and it was free — I had hit the jackpot! I applied immediately, got accepted and it has been an amazing learning experience so far.

I can’t seem to shake off the feeling that this is the start of something greater in my life and I’m all for it. Indeed, this is just the beginning!