Hi guys, it took me six months to get to this stage, and I’m super excited to move to the next stage.
I have up to 11 pieces of evidence, 3 recommendation letters and my personal statement.
Back story: I started my journey in tech as a web developer in 2012, then I went on to found a web hosting company in 2015 which I later transformed into a infrastructure-as-a-service platform in 2019. After managing the business for three more years, I pivoted to product management, and co-founded a Crypto technology that lets users trade coins using a peer-to-peer system.
Outside of my daily work, I founded a social-enterprise to mentor developers and business owners via Meetup events. Since it started in 2020, more than 200 mentors have benefited from it. I have spoken at tech conferences, had interviews and am currently mentoring developers.
My skills include: Product management | Linux server admin | WordPress Dev | Digital Marketing | Database Admin & PHP Programming.
Application category: Exceptional Talent
Here’s the order of my documents, kindly review them;
Recommendation Letters
RL 1 is from the C.E.O & Co-founder of a Fintech (payment gateway) platform in Nigeria. He has years of technical (programming) and business experience before co-founding the fintech platform.
RL 2 is from the Head of Innovation of a a Fortune 500, S&P 500, and Forbes Global 2000 that provides wireless communication services, fibre and data centre hosting.
RL 3 is from the growth manager of a unicorn fintech platform in Nigeria with over ten years in digital product management
Personal Statement
Up to 999 words; 60% of which talked about my 10 years background, 30% talk about my plans for coming to the UK and 10% talked about my contributions to the UK’s digital economy and future plans.
Mandatory Criteria
MC 1 - I led the growth of a product-led digital technology company; an infrastructure-as-a service platform. I used my technical, business development and digital marketing skills to chart and execute a five year plan.
Evidence includes: screenshots of revenue, bank statements, customer reviews, Google analytics, photos of brand ambassadors used for campaigns, Trello board (KPI & team management), Facebook Ads results, news clippings from industry-related blogs about the company, and a reference letter from the new C.E.O talking about my impact on the company’s success.
MC 2 - I led the growth of a social enterprise; I built a platform that was used to raise millions of Naira to provide palliatives to the poor during COVID-19 lock-down.
Evidence includes: A screenshot of the platform showing my work, news clipping of the platform and its impact, search clipping showing my work, and Asana tasks.
MC3 - Expert role participating on panel & mentoring; I participated in a panel session for a Microsoft sponsored social-enterprise demo day, and mentored their interns afterwards.
Evidence includes: Reference letter from the social-enterprise C.E.O., photos of me at the event, news clipping acknowledging my contributions and interns placement letters
MC 4 - share ownership of the company I co-founded as evidenced by Incorporation certificate and prospectus
Optional Criteria
OC 1 - Evidence of innovation/product development; Crypto exchange platform I co-founded and product managed its development phases. I described how I used design thinking and research to innovate how traders using the platform can deposit and withdraw without direct bank transfer/card to the platform.
Evidence includes: news clipping from industry-related blogs, screenshots of the platform showing user traction and design interface, and PRD I created for product development.
OC 3 - I led in the development of high-impact digital products; I used my technical and product owner skill sets to lead a team to build an eCommerce app.
Evidence includes: screenshots of the PRD i created, the group team i manage, bug reviews I found, my wire-frame design adopted in the app, the app launch roadmap I created and app store links, and a reference letter from the product manager.
OC 2 - My work outside of my immediate occupation that contributed to the advancement of the sector
i. I founded a social enterprise in 2020 to mentor developers and business owners through Meetup events. So far, 15 events have been organised in different sectors including A.I. Robotics, Cybersecurity and Digital marketing with over 500 collective attendees.
Evidence includes: Facebook link to live stream with 1.8k views, flyers for events, photo ops and news clippings for events organised.
ii. I spoke at a tech and leadership summit, manage a Facebook community where I teach WordPress Development and I was interviewed by a social-enterprise to speak on tech for nation building.
Evidence includes: Video clipping from YouTube, Screenshots of the community Facebook group, letter of invitation and links to recorded sessions.
Kindly share your opinion please.