UNVEILED, 9-YEAR OLD EMMANUELLA OZIOFU MAYAKI, NIGERIA’S YOUNGEST ICT CZAR

BY SAM NWOKORO I Friday, July 27, 2018

IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Throughout Nigeria’s remarkable history, one of her problems has been ineffective management of her impressive human resources. Although regarded as the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria relies excessively on foreign professionals to execute certain professional tasks and this has affected the labour market within the country.

Our youths, as has been generally observed, are not strangers to (pardon the paradox) some quite intellectual crimes on both local and international terrains. These are minds that could have developed the country if attention had been paid to draft them to the side of the law and not allowing them stray against it.

One area Nigeria is currently making up for her loss in industrial technology is in the IT information and telecom industry. In fact Nigeria is fast breeding the next generation of IT experts from the nursery schools. And a reference point to this is the captivating story of little Emmanuella Oziofu Mayaki who has been recognized by no less a personality as Lagos State Governor as a promising star that is off immense value to the nation. Her devotion to the passion of solving problems with human thinking faculty obviously catapulted her intuitiveness into solution provider

As attested to by her father, Mr Joseph Mayaki, an NGO worker in civil liberties and Good Governance advocacy, ”I discovered she developed a passion for laptop even while she was very young. I allowed her and now she has already started solving problems and designing all manner of IT apps,”, he said.

When Emmanuella demonstrated all her newly designed application to a curious assembly of Lagos media penultimate week, the question on every journalist’s mind was “would Emmanuella’s parents guide their genius ward so that she continues on the track and not be distracted by the fancies and catwalks that occupy the minds of youths of today? Would the Nigeria institutions and even the private sector that are in dire need of young entrepreneurs with fresh and innovative skills locate Emmanuella and help her nurture and retain the passion for the sake of the innovative needs of Nigeria’s economy and intelligence-based solutions. Other journalist pointedly asked the parents of the young genius if they are already working on moving her out of the country in search of better environment to make more success out of her passion. It appears the girl will determine the course of her life.

What astounded the audience during the demo presentations of Emmanuella’s newly created works was the striking link those apps have on our everyday living. For example, one of the apps helps junk food eaters to know the dos and don’ts about fast foods , the contents, health benefits and hazards of abuse of a litany of many junk food and the numerous local fruits and vegetables in Nigeria.

Despite being young in age, Emmanuella has done enough to prove that she is in possession of a big brain and a sound mind. Her incredible penchant to create something new, with a view to solving problems in Nigeria, is eye catching.

She says enthusiastically: “I intend not to change course. I still have more things I want to do. The next area I am thinking about now is in the area of artificial intelligence. I dream of a future whereby every problem in life can be solved by thinking out new methods that would be less tasking.”

Miss Emmanuella was born on the 7th of January 2009. She is a Grade 5 student of Skycrest Schools. She enrolled at Mikon Institute of Information Technology, where she graduated and bagged a Certificate in Basic Training – Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint – and later on, a Diploma in Desktop Publishing in 2016.

Thereafter, she enrolled at Complete Computer Technology Institute (CCT), where she studied Web Design, graduated in 2017, and bagged a certificate in Web Design.In 2018, she furthered her career, despite her routine class work and enrolled to study Web Development and Graphic Design at NIIT. Emmanuella went ahead to enrol for Mobile App development at Tech24 and developed her personal mobile app, as well as designed and hosted her own website, known as Emma’s ICT Academy.

She is knowledgeable in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, WordPress, PHP, Mysql and Graphic Design. To that effect, Emmanuella in April 2018 successfully completed and bagged the following online certificates from SOLOLEARN, California: Certificate in HTML Fundamentals Course, Certificate in PHP Tutorial Course, Certificate in CSS Fundamentals Course,Certificate in SQL Fundamentals Course, Certificate in JavaScript Tutorial Course.Certificate in JQuery Tutorial Course.

She was a pupil of Fortune Schools in Benin City, Edo State but later travelled to Lagos where she has been a student of Skycrest Schools, and has not let the fact that she was born just 9 years ago disillusion her into thinking time is on her side. She already has the drive and presence of mind of an adult, effectively discovering and adequately honing her talent in web development.

Her journey into the multi-faceted terrain of Information Communication Technology commenced when she was just 7 years old, and now, two years on at 9, she already has a diploma in Desktop Publishing, Advance Excel, Adobe Page Maker, Advance Power Point and Corel Draw. Emmanuella has, after carefully working out a plan, succeeded in designing a website.

At an age where most girls would prefer to have all things handed over to them, this particular young girl is picking things up by herself.Emmanuella calls her creation “the Food Website”, and this quite plainly understates its purpose, which is a beautiful testament to the young lady’s humanity. She designed “the Food Website” to encourage people, including parents and their children to imbibe a culture of eating healthy local and international dishes. Her aim is also to help people cut down massively on harmful junk-laden diet

Emmanuella is not just stopping at developing her website, she wants to do something more; transmogrify the website as an app on Google Play Store and launch it before her 10th birthday in 2019.The young girl, who studied web design at the Complete Computer Technology Centre in Benin, is bent on having her website set up to meet with standard practice

.Emmanuella, the young ICT guru, does not think knowledge should be hoarded. She has also revealed that she would in future help to teach young children about ICT and also broaden her knowledge about the field. Summing up her intentions, Emmanuella has asserted that she wants to break certain records before she attains the age of 14.

Without a doubt, there are lots of young girls and boys like Emmanuella with incredible talent around Nigeria, but who need some form of encouragement. They need an adequate enabling environment to function properly and hone their skills better to produce incredible works of utter genius.The Federal Government is urged to go about creating a truly enabling environment to help children at a very young age like Emmanuella to learn ICT and grow in it.

It is noteworthy that young children in places like China are doing awesomely in the field of technology because they have been given the enabling environment to function. The Nigerian government can do the same by creating good ICT infrastructure in schools around the country and encouraging young kids like Emmanuella, who have a desire to delve into technology, to pursue their dreams.

Emmanuella celebrated her success while speaking with reporters about the project at her 9th birthday in January. According to her, one of her objectives on the path to making the world a better place was to become a professional web designer and she has now accomplished it.