ON BEING A GOOGLE STUDENT AMBASSADOR

Yes, this is me

As we wrap up our tenure as Google Student Ambassadors for the year 2013-2014 and prepare to move into another realm, “The Alumni realm” I can only look back to the joyful moments it brought to me. I would really like to thank Google for such an amazing opportunity given us to effect a change not only within our campuses by as far as our imagination and creativity could take us. I learned a very important concept “Moonshot thinking” which I very much implement today when setting my personal life goals. I learnt to work with an amazing team of fellow GSAs and met people from different parts of the Globe. I remember the challenge we had in Kenya in which my group came in second place. Yes, that’s right and how I achieved a little celebrity status when I went hard on the lyrics with my “Google flow”, it went like this,

I say it’s G-O-O-G-L-E it’s Google number one in the search game, yeah! It’s Google repping hard all around the world, I dare say Google is the best you can’t contest whoa! I am standing right here, Google on my chest, it’s the best, it’s the first…throw out the rest! Everybody wanna be like it, they wanna talk, they wanna swag, wanna be like this…it’s Google +1….+1….+1…..+1 it’s Google!

Spitting my Google flow in Kenya

Talk about Surprise! Of course everybody was surprised taking cognizance of the fact that I had gone very much unnoticed up on till the time of the in-house challenge which to me wasn’t strange given that I love to study people and environments before going all out. Kenya was fun! Made new friends with whom I still stay in touch with today. I even had the opportunity of getting into Aso Villa as one of the technical facilitators thanks to Google for the much publicized National Youth Online Summit organized by the Office of the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The event was broadcast live on NTA. I had the opportunity of meeting very two wonderful Googler’s who really got me inspired as we drove off in Black Jeeps like “Bosses” from the Presidency. Can you bid that? Again came another opportunity as a Google Student Ambassador to attend a top profile exhibition event at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja but due to my tight schedule at the office that day, I was unable to make it. Only to later learn that Mr. David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer of Google Inc. himself was there! 

At the Presidential Villa with Ema, Cythia, Titi and David

 Being a Google Student Ambassador gave me the opportunity to organize several other events from trainings on Google Apps, to Adclass, Get Your Students Certified, Tech Talks and much more. I even taught Python programming during the Google sponsored Computer Science for High Schools program organized at my University, the African University of Science and Technology, Abuja, Nigeria. I was thrilled to see the awesome projects my class of Senior Secondary School students came up with. The winner was a 13-year old girl called Regina who blew the judges minds away with her outstanding project. She had a whooping 98/100 while the second person trailed her with an 80 something. The gap was that wide folks! And that is why I support that we should have more Women In Science and Engineering related fields. I have set up what I call the OpenKollabo Foundation to help achieve this. In case you are interested in motivating young girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related fields and Computer Science, please drop me an email at tabotarreytambe@gmail.com and we can discuss possible ways in which you can come on board. 

Our Company slogan

The OpenKollabo Team

Huh! So who are this people? Am sure you guessed right. The OpenKollabo Team. I had been playing around with the idea of starting and registering a company for many years. In 2012, it started off as a briefcase company but thanks to the trainings I had as a Google Student Ambassador and after reading the Google Founders story (Oh yes, I even bought a book called The Google Story), I think I was more inspired to go all out and cast away my fears of failure. This led to the launch of my first company OpenKollabo Technologies which will be the Technology arm of the the group of companies that will be spun off by OpenKollabo group (www.openkollabogroup.com), the umbrella company. I think I mentioned earlier the second arm, OpenKollabo Foundation which will focus on educating girls in STEM and CS related fields. There are 5 more to complete the 7 pillars of the OpenKollabo group, each geared at solving a different problem. The Moonshot thinking session in Kenya with googler, Emeka really paid off after all. That's how I became the Founder and CEO of OpenKollabo group.

The Google Story (A must read for every tech entrepreneur)

I am very happy I got to serve as a Google Student Ambassador and I want to wish all future Ambassadors a very wonderful time in their to be roles. My last words to you are this; Form useful networks of friends, think and dream big (Moonshot style), and don't be afraid to fail. You may end up starting your own company. Check out www.gsa.withgoogle.com and I hope we can read your own story by this time next year. God bless!