Nsisong Okon's shares his journey, from his early struggles in Lagos, Nigeria, to moving to Portugal, where he works remotely and now giving back to his home country.
Before moving to Europe, Nsisong Okon experienced firsthand the hustle culture in Lagos, Nigeria, learning to write code and build things from scratch. Even though some of the early ventures he tried his hand at failed, he wasn’t discouraged. After the birth of his son, he moved abroad in search of greener pastures. In his voyage so far, he has contributed to the EU tech ecosystem and helped shape certain infrastructure development. Not only that, but he’s also building a community back home to support less-privileged children, helping them learn STEM skills that can provide an escape route from poverty. In this edition of Techpoint Diaspora, we follow Nsisong Okon’s journey from his early struggles in Lagos, Nigeria, to Portugal, and his generosity in giving back to his homeland via his STEM initiative. Early Life and Background in Tech I was born in a village in Akwa Ibom State, and I attended primary and secondary schools there before moving to Lagos in 2006. I started my tech journey from the database side before I moved to Java. I attended NIIT to acquire the necessary skills, and in 2009, I became an Oracle-certified expert. Prior to this, it was the big boys from eTransact, Interswitch, and Chams that ruled the market, until Google came in and opened up the tech ecosystem in Lagos and Nigeria. Luckily, I was one of the few candidates selected for Google’s Get African Businesses Online (GABU) initiative, a program that leveraged Google’s technologies to help some businesses go online. After this, I attended the University of East London from 2011 to 2014, earning a degree in software engineering, before returning to Nigeria for my internship. The decision was based on my mum’s advice. She was fond of saying, “You need a certificate; even if you don’t use it, keep it.” I was part of the team that deployed a system for Lekki Concession Company Limited (LCC), but when it came to the automation of the toll gates, we weren’t qualified; they had to bring in expatriates because there was no local content at the time. Because I’m also good with business automations, I became a consultant for a company, and later on, I was invited to join in building Mr Taxi in Lagos. I worked with them, and I developed the system, but the startup shut down. Later on, a group of guys invited me to join them in building a voucher platform, but the startup failed. Then COVID-19 hit, and a lot of things happened. First, I diversified. I had to do other things because if you’re in tech, you have to do so many things. Victoria Fakiya – Senior Writer Techpoint Digest Stop struggling to find your tech career path Discover in-demand tech skills and build a standout portfolio in this FREE 5-day email course However, it was time to leave Nigeria when I had my child, because I didn’t want to raise him in that environment. So I moved to Portugal, and I’ve been working remotely since 2020 after getting a job with a Dutch firm. Why Portugal? I chose Portugal because it’s cool. I also needed an environment that is convenient for my child, and Portugal remains one of the best countries for that. Last year, we started a company called Fancybox. We have two products: the first is for the EU market, and it serves logistics companies. I used to think you could make things happen in Nigeria if you wanted to, but over time, I realised that, unless you want to venture into politics, you can’t make much impact. Since politics isn’t something I’m interested in, I had to migrate. The second product under Fancybox is STEM4Kiddo. STEM4Kiddo STEM4Kiddo homepage I run an NGO in Nigeria, and we used to organise training for the youth. But we had to pivot after realising that a lot of youth need money at the end of the day; many of them don’t want to learn, they just want money to start something without knowledge. So we changed the scope from focusing on youths to kids. We’re targeting children because the aim is to get young people to save the future of Nigeria. The best way to save Nigeria, and Africa at large, is the young people. While wealthy people have ample resources to safeguard their children’s future, the average child lacks access to quality information. This lack of access explains why the social media space in Nigeria differs from what’s available elsewhere; many Nigerians spend time on social media hoping to make money there. In Nigeria, because we have gatekeepers of quality information, we see our young girls online doing so many things. It’s sad because these young minds will serve as role models to their siblings and others. To combat this, we created an NGO to give scholarships to children; we partner with local schools offering top-quality educ...
