My DSN Impact Story
by Ekle Ocheme Anthony
My name is Ekle, Ocheme Anthony, a graduate of Bsc Mathematics Computer science from University of Agriculture, Makurdi. Not so long ago, using the pivot tables option in Excel was the upper limit of my skills with numbers and the word python was more likely to make me think about a dense jungle or a nature program on TV than a tool to generate business insights and create complex solutions. I have always had a strange passion for Mathematics and analytics. Although I never knew how this could be accomplished. At some point in my undergraduate studies I went into website development, but along the line I stopped.
It took me half a year to leave that life behind and start feeling like I belonged to the exclusive world of people who can tell their medians from their means, their xbars from the neighborhood pub, and who know how to teach machines what they need to learn. I started seeing the usefulness of most mathematical formulas that seem weird on campus. Formulas like linear regression, logistic regression, uniform distribution and the list of others. It was really fascinating to understand in detail the usefulness of correlation in data preprocessing.
In January 2020, I relocated to Kaduna for my compulsory 1 year NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) which was the stepping stone into my AI journey. I was informed by a friend about the six (6) weeks free AI in cities in the kaduna branch organized by DSN. Wow FREE! I EXCLAIMED This was intriguing and fascinating. I dived into it wholeheartedly. I got to meet wonderful instructors and motivators who gave us the foundational basis and all resources needed, the training was awesome and one of its kind.
The transformation process was not easy and demanded hard work, lots of time, dedication and required plenty of help along the way. It also involved well over hundreds of hours of
“studying and also Online courses in data science (UDEMY)”
in different forms and an equal amount of time practicing and applying all that was being learnt. In short, it wasn’t easy to transform from being a novice to an expert, but I managed to do so while going through a terribly busy work schedule as a corps member with a very tight work schedule in my place of primary assignment.
After six months of training and practicing, I participated in AI BOOTCAMP 2020 competitions organized by DSN. And after the series of preparations and competitive sessions. I made it for DataScienceNigeria Bootcamp 2020 participant No: 442 (A huge success to me since that was my first attempt). I own my progress so far to DSN who has introduced me to the AI world. And I am certain that there is still a lot to be learnt and many exploits to be made.
