2017 Year of learning
In 2017 I met more people than I could image. 2017 was the first year I had my first international work trip, 2017 was the I was first year I was recorded live on tv and radio. I drove more kilometers in 2017 than my previous stay in UAE in total from 2011-2016.
Just like every year I started 2017 at home in Nigeria celebrating my secondary school’s friend wedding on the first day of the year. I came back to work in Dubai mid of the month with the aim to expand my business and study more as 2016 ended in a good for me. I spent the last month on holiday, celebrating my younger sister as she got married. The first fifteen days of 2017 were well spent visiting family and friends knowing that 2017 will be a long year as the plan was to do more than the previous year. The first project I had in 2017 was to organize RAK education exhibition in partnership with RAK Education Zone. Organizing such event is not an easy task as it require one to find the perfect location, find the right marketing channels and also find the right partners to make the event successful. I was planning to grow the studentsera platform, a student engagement that aims to connect students across the country online and offline through different activities.
In February we decided to launch the studentsera podcast which was the first podcast in the country that focus on giving students a platform to express themselves. At first we started as learning platform to understand students’ challenges during their college lives. We started at Dubai Technology entrepreneur center where my office is located with the aim to collaborate with different Universities in order to set up small campus radio where the university students from that particular university will be employed to do some form of internship in the project. Later on I find out that Infive Center the Dubai Internet city incubator is opening a media zone that will support people working on media so we decided to partner with them in order to have more students participating. Podcast was launched in Febaury where we do two recording sessions in Dubai silicon oasis, we invite different students as guests to share their campus experience. In march our Neymarjrsfive global signature returned as the largest amateur football tournament in the world which was a bigger opportunity for studentsera to grow as a platform. During the two month of NeymarJrsfive I met almost every youth player in the country as the event is for youth 16-25 and we had 15 qualifiers across the country from Ras Al Khaimah to Dharfah.
In May 2017 I attended the Arabnet digital submit where I met lots of Interested Entrepreneurs coming from all over the world. One of my best things at Arabnet was the startups competing in their competition but usually disappointed at the end as usually the startups that looks promising and interesting doesn’t usually win the competitions.
In Ramadan I worked with a Friend to help his company an event Company based in Sharjah (82events) to manage the Sharjah TV Ramadan tournament. I also met local and International players that participated in the event and I interacted and worked with different people that came for the event activation, like Vicky Gomez one of best bikers in the world.
In the summer I had my first official travel, I traveled with UAE winners to represent UAE in the neymar world finals. I met and socialize with the winners from more than fifty countries and we met Neymarjrs and his friends including Manchester City’s Striker Gabriel Jesus. we are a quick tour guides in some famous places in Brazil Including a visit to Pele Museum.
2017 didn’t end very well for as a travel to back home I lost my cousin whom we grow up together. Fourth December is the day I will never forget. I think about him everyday. In shaa Allah we will be reunited in Jannah.
