Building Connections and Fueling My AI Journey

Attending to summits and tech events has not been my thing and for a reason each time I always want to attend, there is always something that keeps me from attending. This is why this event is the first ever tech event that is not within my school campus that I am attending.

I almost did not attend this event because of the cost of transportation that I needed to get to where the event is located. I didn't have enough money on me to transport myself to the location venue so I had to call for support to see how I could add to what I had. I was glad I could get one; this made the journey to the event possible; if not, I would have missed this event just like others that I had missed.

So this event is the Bluechip Data and AI Summit, which is the biggest AI event in Africa, in which many guests from home and abroad were invited to speak and discuss AI solutions in Africa and the importance of data to its community.

One of my major reasons for coming to this event was for connections, to get to meet people in the space, get inspired, and also to build my AI career as well. So I spent time trying to work on my networking skills talking to people I did not know before and also exchanging contacts with them.

I have a confession to make as well. I almost gave up visiting the program earlier on but what motivated me was when I called a friend to ask if he was going and he said yes! I didn't know where the interest in wanting to visit the event came from. I stopped considering the stress of travelling and started thinking more about reasons why going out and partaking in events like this can contribute to my career, such as the exposure, the connections built, and all that.

The People I connected With...

For this event, I was able to connect with 8 people. The first guy I connected with was in the bus while on my way to the program. I saw the shirt he wore; it had ALX written on it and I suspected he would be going to the same event but I wanted to be sure. I didn't speak to him until we got down at the same stop and I tapped him and said, "Hey, I am gifted; I had been suspecting you were going to the same event with me; your shirt said it all." That was how we started our conversation. I got his name, got to know what he was into, and we became friends; we connected. I felt a little spark in our conversation and made sure we exchanged contacts.

The second person was a lady that asked me to take her pictures with my phone and from there on we exchanged contacts and I shared it with her on WhatsApp. We didn't even talk a lot aside from the fact that I helped her but from what I could get from her, she was very new in the tech space as well.

Now the third person we have here is someone I got to meet at the event. His name is Vincent, a final-year student and also into AI. He has been on the field for two years now and been partaking in hackathons; I haven't participated in any yet, but I sure would make sure that I don't miss out on that in the year 2025. I and Vincent connected really well and figured out that we were going the same route after the event was over. So we had enough time to talk, gist and have fun with each other. I believe my relationship with him can get better from here.

I forgot to mention I also met a friend that I knew at the event aside from the one that told me he was coming around. The guy in the whine attire, his name is "Rere." We have known each other for a while but it was recently that I knew he was into AI as well. The picture above is a group picture with one of the speakers at the summit, Scott Taylor.

I encountered more others; there was Favour, who is a lady from a university in Nigeria who is also into AI and a friend of my friend. Also Timmy, who graduated from statistics at the same university as me, and also a friend of my friend and others.

My Friend Won First Place in the Hackathon

In this image above, we have Timmy, Kayode, who is my friend from on-set, me, and Rere. We decided to take pictures together after the end of the event. Kayode is a big genius in AI, and I have taken him to mentor me so that I can grow too. He participated in 4 hackathons this year and won the whole four of them. That's crazy! and grace added to it.

At the end of the event, I got inspired to put in more effort, build projects, push myself out there, participate in hackathons, hope for the best and also prepare for the worst. I hope for the best this coming 2025.