How to be an Oppurtunity-Driven Developer - Umar Kabir Dan Anini at Google I/O 2022

 

How to be an Opportunity-Driven Developer

Let me start by sharing a Short Story, 

8 years ago while I was still a student at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto , believe me when I say I am not a first-class, not even close, but I scored A's in all my programming Courses, I remember very well whenever am having a programming exam, I will enter with two pen blue and black, one to write my code and the other to document each line of it.

 

After taking a java course, I started getting curious about building apps for mobile phones, and I was lucky Java was the official Android Programming language then. Hence, it was easy for me to navigate through the course.

It was during fasting that I first built an app that really solves a problem; it was an Emergency App that allows users to report incidents to the nearest security office via SMS or Internet attaching their registration information and GPS coordinates for easy navigation.

I was so happy debugging the Code that I delayed breaking my fast several times just to debug my code.

and that was when I realize I have a passion for mobile app development.

and that was how I exactly became an android developer.

My Name is Umar Kabir Dan Anini a software developer who has trained up to 30,000 Nigerian youth on various digital Skills virtually and physically to improve their lives and business.

I am the head of unit software and system solutions at Sokoto State ICT Directorate and also the IT coordinator for the Center of Entrepreneurship development at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto, the same school I graduated from.

I am the founder of Dan Anini Digital Solutions, an international digital service-providing company registered in Nigeria and the United State.

Am also the founder of myleader which is a platform that keeps track of the achievements of our leaders in images, videos, and text among others.

am also the founder of ciabinci.com which was commissioned earlier by His. Excellency Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the governor of Sokoto State and launched by Director General ICT Sokoto And the  Permanent Secretary SOSMEDA Hajiya Turai Hassan.

This is among many other failed businesses and yet-to-be identified or published ideas.

Mobile app development is more complicated and complex than web development because anything you need as a web developer, you also need it and more as an app developer.

for web, you build once and it runs on all devices while on mobile apps you will have to build separately for each of the platforms.

This was why, when I started android development, I had to visit my friend Mudassir Adili who is an advanced full stack developer to help me with bootstrap pages because I don't know how to do it.

I knew I have many ideas I want to build, and many opportunities I want to explore so for how long am I going to continue disturbing Adili.

It was those opportunities that I saw that motivated me to become a web developer and that was my first step to becoming an Opportunity-Driven Developer

Who is an Opportunity-Driven Developer

An Opportunity driven developer is the developer who continues to learn and acquire skills depending on the available opportunities in his or her own locality in order to remain relevant, make an impact, and profit.

Why would you want to become an opportunity-driven developer?

1. Attract Opportunities: The more skills you have the more opportunities you would be able to attract.

2. Irreplaceable: You become hardly replaceable by your employer because if someone is employed has more skills than you, your salary would become charity work, but if you have other skills even if he's better at some skills you will still remain relevant because of the other skills you have.

3. Unlimited Jobs: The more skills you have the more difficult it will be for you to stay broke for so long because if you are not paid for one skill, you will be paid for another.

4. Save Cost: When you learn all the skills you need to deliver, you save the cost of hiring another developer if you are running on a budget.

5. Build Fast: Even if you have money to hire a developer, you will be faster if you can build to some extent alone after learning the skill.

How do you become an Opportunity driven-developer

1. Personal Branding: You need to package yourself very well as a developer, have a portfolio, know yourself, know your skills, know the number of projects you have done, own a personal website and custom email address.

2. Communication Skills: Learn to communicate in layman's language, communication is very important because with good communication you can easily sell yourself out.

3. Presentation Skills: You need to know how to present your ideas in such a way people would understand, mastering your craft is important but knowing how to attract clients is also important.

4. Networking: Know as many people as you can that is because the more people you know the more opportunities will be knocking on your door.

5. Curiosity and Research: You have to be curious about everything and always try and do research on new ideas and projects to find new opportunities to explore.

6. Never stop learning: Never stop learning because no matter how good you are there is still something you don't know.

7. Prioritize Problem Solving to Code: No matter how many programming languages you know, or how bigger your code is, if it's not solving any problem it's useless, people care about the solutions, not the code, when you do I will open your eyes automatically to many opportunities.

Conclusion: Your relevance is directly proportional to the number of problems you can solve in your current locality and the available opportunities. So Try Something Today!.

Thanks a lot for reading, My Name is Umar Kabir Dan Anini, an Opportunity-Driven developer.

you can reach me at Salam@dananini.com