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Think
Biggy
: How one Google Student Ambassador in Sub-Saharan Africa brought his community online
March 30, 2012
Introduction: Emmanuel Abiodun Adepoju, otherwise known as “Biggy” on campus, is a
Google Student Ambassador
from University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He is currently pursuing a B.SC in computer science. Biggy’s ability to think “big” has not only allowed him to be a successful Student Ambassador but has given him tools and resources to have a profound impact on his community.
We recently caught up with Biggy and learned more about his journey from a Google Student Ambassador to most recently being named a Google Mapping Advocate for Nigeria.
What inspired you to apply to the Google Ambassador program?
Before I applied, my university was actually not involved with the Ambassador program. In fact, at that time, my university’s internet connection was near dead. If it wasn’t completely down, it was then super slow. It was also only accessible to university lecturers and not students. This was a big challenge, but it didn’t stop me from applying.
I have always believed in making my community better in my own little way. My major inspiration for applying to be a Google Student Ambassador was to do exactly this - to help my fellow peers in the area of technology.
Once selected as an Ambassador, what did you do?
Aside from being super excited because this was a dream come true, it was also a time of deep reflection for me. I became very focused on how I could make the best use of the opportunity that was given to me.
Immediately following the announcement, the Vice-Chancellor of my university sent a congratulatory message from his office stating clearly that he would support me to carry out my functions properly. With all the support and the accolades I was getting, I knew that if I was going to work hard, I could make a big difference on my campus.
How did you help your university community? For example, the students, the faculty, the university as whole?
Immediately following my acceptance, so much changed! Now that I became a Google representative on campus, I changed the way I carried myself. I even started dressing nicer. :) But the real focus was - how I was going to make an impact.
During the Ambassador orientation in Lagos I discovered the
Google Apps supporting program
which I never knew about since my university was not involved with at the time. I knew I had to convince my university to adopt this program as so many students could benefit from these free tools. After some convincing and hard work, deployment of
Google Apps for Education
is now in progress.
In the last couple of months I have led campaigns for a better IT structure at my university and this has yielded great results. They promised to invest more funds into our technology infrastructure and also restructure the whole IT policy. I was also chosen to be a member of the University Information Technology Board, which is the highest decision making body for university technology structure and I happen to be the first student to be on this board since its inception a few years ago.
I introduced
Google Apps for Education
to the university lecturers so they could see for themselves all the free tools available such as Gmail, Calendar and Docs. I have also taken time to introduce lecturers to some of the opportunities Google provides in form of scholarships, research grants and especially the
Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
for women in technology.
After getting all this in place, I realized there was so much more I wanted to do as an Ambassador, I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. So I created a G-TEAM on my campus. In just a few months, we accomplished the following:
We were able to create a geographic mapping of our university online. The map was put on a Google map and now the public can access online. This map was acclaimed to be the world best practice guide of University mapping.
We were able to train more than 40 Student Mappers who are currently impacting their environment by mapping their communities.
We were able to produce a very vibrant team in the Google online marketing challenge. Our team was one of 8 universities from Sub Saharan Africa which placed in the top 100 globally.
We were able to get our fellow students to attend g|nigeria, an annual Google hosted event for developers and entrepreneurs. This year alone, more than 60 students from my university attended as a result of the awareness we created.
How did the Ambassador program give you the necessary tools to help your university?
I was taught how to use the
Google Map Maker
at the Google Ambassador orientation in Lagos. The training has enabled me to also train a group of people which in turn has helped them train others and the cycle goes on and on resulting in more Map Maker users.
The training was a wonderful experience which gave birth to the Mapping party held at the University of Ibadan. Every student that participated was issued a Google Map Maker certificate. This was also celebrated by the school management who in turn organized a dinner in honor of the participants. Today the students can hold their head up high and say they learned something beneficial outside their regular school curriculum.
Before my appointment as a Google Student Ambassador, the University of Ibadan had never attended
g|nigeria
. After learning how g|days are a great opportunity to keep students and professionals up to speed on the latest technology trends and innovations, I convinced the Head of the Computer Science Department to allow students to attend the conference. It was so successful that it’s now a tradition in the department to send students to the conference every year.
How did this have an impact on your local community?
The University of Ibadan mapping exercise has put the University of Ibadan local community on Google maps. Navigation is now an easy thing in the community. A Google business analyst confirmed this when he visited the Computer Science department at the University of Ibadan during the grand finale of the
MIT Accelerating Information Technology Innovation
program, even our MIT visitors used it during their stay here. The
report
we submitted for the mapping exercise has become the leading practice guide for universities. This report was the brain behind
Google Map Makerpedia
- community generated-learning portal for Google map maker featuring lessons, tutorials and use cases around the world, today other mappers now go to the portal to learn from our experience and also also get to share their own experience to the mapping community.
Additionally, after the report was published on Google Map Makerpedia, the Ondo state government in Nigeria invited me to coordinate the mapping of their state. This is still a work in progress.
How has this program impacted your life?
I kid you not when I say this opportunity literally changed my life. I have always considered myself to be quite motivated and entrepreneurial, but for the first time, through the Google Student Ambassador program, I felt that I had the right tools to go out there and make a real impact.
Being a Student Ambassador brought me to a level of exposure that I never thought I could achieve. It opened me up a world where I could ask questions, engage my community and knowledgeable people in the tech industry. I’ve also realized how much I enjoy public speaking. In the last year, I was invited to speak at a dozen conferences in Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana and most recently in Germany. I’ve also been invited to join high-level committees at my university as well as outside my university. And finally, I was just named a Google Map Advocate for Nigeria this month!
All these achievements would not have being possible if I had not made up my mind to apply to the Google Student Ambassador Program. It really has changed my life. I will be forever thankful to Google for giving me the platform to discover parts of me I never knew existed. I now feel very committed to making my community stronger technically speaking...and hope I can continue to teach and inspire others to become more involved.
If you are interested in learning more about Google’s Student Ambassador Program in Europe, Middle East and Africa, please visit our
site
for more information. You can also find more information about this program in other regions on our
Google for Students page
. Finally, if you are interested in learning more about how Google engages with African universities, please visit our
African University Programs page
.
Posted by Marni Merksamer Levasseur, People Programs Specialist - Europe, Middle East and Africa
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