Saturday, December 31, 2016

Six Questions with Dotun Longe

 A portrait of TheDean as a young man:
 
0.  A brief history
Oludotun Williams Longe attended secondary school at St. Gregory's College, Lagos, and recently graduated from Bells University of Technology (Electrical/Electronics Engineering) in Ogun State, where I was one of his teachers/lecturers/professors.
So he's twenty-ish.  
He was once an anime-geek, and he spent a lot of his time in uni either making beats or writing code.
https://www.facebook.com/realdotunlonge?fref=ts
Let me translate/expand that for the old people to understand hehehe - 
he liked these cartoons/animations in secondary school and basically clustered with fellow fans, 
he loves music and creates electronic music and sort of looks like Wizkid lol
and he makes software applications like videogames and stuff. 

---
1. What is the most perfect thing you've ever done?
 ...the only answer I have to this is school-related. I got fed up with not living up to my potential one semester, so I took charge of my life, by removing so many distractions, I stayed away from the internet, from phones, from friends who weren’t helping much, I practically lived and breathed books. Morning to night, books. It paid off because I got a 4.98/5 that semester, only 'cause I got a B in a practical. Very proud of this.



2. Favourite book? Favourite song? Favourite film?

Book - The Dip, by Seth Godin: he taught me how to quit, when to quit and when to put all your energy into something, knowing fully well the difference between a dead end and a very high but climbable mountain.
 

Favorite Songs - Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper  // Con Te Partirò - Andrea Bocelli  //  The Longest Time - Billy Joel  // Viva la vida  - Coldplay 

Film - Citizen Kane.

3. Your top five tips for working with software: 

Always have some sort of plan for how you want the application to look and behave before doing anything.

If you are just starting to learn, then jump right in, even if you don’t know anything ( A data bundle + google will take you a long way. )

Always try to make a project, instead of just doing examples you see in textbooks or online. When you have a project in your head, preferably a small one, you learn so much more than a 1000 page textbook can teach you.

Once you get stuck, you google.

You will never make a good application in your first trial, I usually start with naming my application something like app1 and end up having a decent looking app, still with a lot of bugs, ..on app45 or something. (Not Exactly Good Practice, But gets the job done).
  +1  I use rails most of the time, so I find recreating the application far easier than debugging sometimes, especially when the debugging process is taking longer than a day or two. (Don’t Judge Me).

4. What do women want?

I don’t know o, Teach, What Do Women Want?
  
5. The best and worst things about school?
The best thing about school?
Freedom from life’s constraints, you don’t really have to worry about money unless you paying yourself through school. You have complete creative freedom, you get to experience a side of life that only lasts 4 -5 years, where you can focus yourself into anything and everything you want for the fun of it.

The Worst thing about School? 
The increasing rate of unemployment seems to defeat the purpose of school itself.  This might sound very simplistic and might have a little sprinkle of exaggeration, but in this country a so called good education, only seems to make your English better.  You Forget 90% of everything you learn, so I stand by this.



Get email updates.
Order Big Girl and Big Boy.

Friday, December 23, 2016

The business of Information Technology services in Africa - Under-40 CEOS

I recently discovered this fantastic series of video interviews.

Here are two that you should watch (or have your kids watch) in order to develop the ability to become a technology-business leader par-excellence. 

FAB interviews Farida Bedwei of Logiciel.



...and Wole Faroun of Netplus.

Totally awesome.  Worth discussing. 

Enjoy the holidays, and come back for MORE.

Get email updates.
Order Big Girl and Big Boy.

Previously on UpNaira

 

Followers