Meet Nkemdilim Begho, The Reason Why Every Woman Must Learn How To Code
Nkemdilim Begho is the daughter of Chris Uwaje who pioneered the conceptualization Framework and content drafting strategy for the establishment of the National Information Technology Development Policy for Nigeria. But believe me when I say that her father is not really involved in any way towards her success.
This tech entrepreneur built a powerful business focusing on online solutions, e-learning and IT security, and is taking Africa’s tech sector by storm.
She is a graduate of Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) &Technical University Munich (TUM), Germany, where received a BSc. Hons in Bioinformatics.
She started her career as an Application Developer at Max Planck Institute for Psychiatric Research, Munich Germany in December 2002. Here, she developed software tools to aid genetic research, and plugins for Micro-array database in Java such as a chemical compound database called Affectis KemSuite (Java PostrgreSQL) Affectis KemSuite is an in – house developed compound database system with chemical intelligence, which enables company wide data integration. Affectis KemSuite delivers all essential functionalities that ISIS Base, Chem Office or IDBS have, including the support of all data formats primarily used by the pharmaceutical industry.
In 2005 after she returned to Nigeria, she was the Channel Manager for Leapsoft Nigeria Limited, a Java Software Development Company.
In February 2008, she became the Managing Director of Future Software Resources Limited- a website design & web-solution provider located in Lagos, Nigeria.
She faced several challenges when she was handed this position, one of which was finding it hard to build a client base from scratch. Initially, the business did not have a large portfolio of clients to showcase, and therefore demonstrating track record to new clients was challenging.
She went for a slim and lean way of working, initially making the business as small as possible, building a company website and creating a business. At the time of launching the company, she had some savings and she lived on that, ploughing every money that she made from the business back into it.
She normally says: “When you are small, and you don’t have as much money as the big boys, you should be creative and figure out ways to be more efficient, automate your operations and build a strong business team.”
Other services her company offers include online marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), content management system development, online recruitment, graphic design, brand development (logo design and branding), workflow, business and educational software development and IT consultancy services for Nigerian corporate and start-up businesses, as well as the public sector.
Her company innovated the first digital business cards in Nigeria.
She was also among the Research and Development Team, for National Information Technology Development Agency on E-Government Interoperability Framework.
In September 2009, she was part of the NITDA Open Standards Framework on Creation and development of the open standards framework for Nigeria.
She’s one of the Board Members of the World Summit Youth Award from 2010 till date.
She was awarded the Jim Ova Prize for Software Excellence.
She is also a facilitator at W.TEC and Ajegunle.org.
She is a recipient of the Etisalat Prize for Innovation.
She has been featured on several newspaper and magazine publications as an expert speaker on ICT in Africa.
And I will conclude with two of my favorite quotes from her.
1. “Understand that being an entrepreneur means living a few years of your life the way most people won’t, so that you can live the rest of your life like most people can’t.”
2. “Be prepared to sacrifice, and to work harder than you’ve ever thought possible, be prepared to work around the clock, to be laughed at and called a dreamer, and to be told several time
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