Innovate for Africa: An All Round Worthwhile Experience .

Innovate for Africa is a 4-week training where we were drilled on all aspects that helps us to be start-up ready. The program was a great experience and a worthwhile one, I am basically here to share about that experience.

Just like the picture above, it all started and finished in no time, I guess its right what people say, time passes quickly when you are having a great time. It was four weeks of an eye-opener coupled with great experiences, collaborating, and hearing from people doing great stuff innovatively and every moment was worth it. I want to share a reflective overview of what my experience had been like, yea, "reflective" because that is the only way I could make you experience a little of what I experienced as a thousand blog posts would still do no justice! But here I am promising to do my best to share my experience, stick closely with me as I do that.

Prior to this training, I used to think that the only way to be an entrepreneur would probably be when you are bold enough to own a business or solve a unique problem, but now I realized that entrepreneurs are everywhere even while working for someone, you could be an entrepreneur by owning a project, making it work out in any way you think it possible and being the best at what you do. I used to think that innovation comes from the smartest of minds and you can only solve problems when the problem is really big, but this training helped me realize that problem solving comes from being innovative about the littlest of things and making it work. Identifying a problem is really a part of our everyday lives and making it work is as easy as making it happen and making the problem a little better than you met it. I learned a lot about collaboration, networking, teamwork, and how collaboration can help you see things better from different angles.

Innovate for Africa touched a lot of topics ranging from Problem-solving, Product management, Design Thinking, Personal branding to even applying all of these to solving a unique problem in a hackathon. I loved every bit of this experience.

With this experience, I was able to create a portfolio, learned enough about SEO, and making my personal branding visible on the internet. I also learned product management, the IFA training generally prepared me for an all-rounder 21st-century entrepreneur, equipping me with the skills necessary to excel in the workplace.

Oh well, did I mention the guests already? Yes! there were great innovators and entrepreneurs who took their time to speak with us every single day! I learned at least a thing or more from every speaker every day. the word of Vivian Nwakah, founder of Medsaf, where she encouraged us to continuously build our dreams step by step every day or that of Rehmah Kasule, where she encouraged us to always do things for ourselves and much more resonating words that have really been a source of motivation. However, I really could relate to George Xing, especially because he spoke a lot about my field and his experience motivated me even more.

Moving forward, I would apply every single thing learned, idea built and experience in my daily life building my career and ensuring that I create a positive impact while doing that.

I hope you could grasp a bit of what I experience and are motivated too to want to move ahead at whatever you get at.

Thank you for reading and I hope to see you on the next read!!!

Linda Oranya

https://www.twitter.com/lindaoranya