A front-end developer who wanted to build, not consume.

0:00AI want to be the builder. That feeling where you make something and people use it, you have this, this feeling of satisfaction, not just consuming what has been there. So yeah, I would like to be the builder over and over again.

0:13BHello everyone, my name is Ayodeji Awosika. I’m the founder at Hotel Birdie. Over the last five and a half years, we have been training amazing developers in Nigeria and in Africa. Trust me, course twelve was amazing. We had seventy-four guys into the course, thirty-nine guys graduated from the course. They are intense. But then course thirteen is going to be bigger than this twelve course because here we’ve had guys apply from Cameroon, from Togo, from Kenya, from Zimbabwe, from Uganda, and yes, Nigeria is not left out. Trust me, don’t want to miss the experience. Today I’m chilling with Massio and his team at Weeby Media. Yeah, speaking with the guys that just finished from the court, make sure you watch that. As we say here at With the Media, in 3, 2, 1, booyah!

1:04CWhat’s up?

1:05AI’m good.

1:06CUh, thanks for joining us for this. Can you tell us your name, uh, where you’re from, and your tribe?

1:10AOkay, I’m Godswill Udolo, um, popularly known as G-Will, and, um, I’m from Igbo tribe, and I’m a front-end rotator developer.

1:19COkay, and how did you get into Web3?

1:22AOkay, I got into Web3 through a friend of mine. He’s a senior dev and it’s a smart contract editor. So that’s how I got into it.

1:31CAnd what about Web3 Bridge? How did Web3 Bridge get on your radar?

1:35AWeb3 Bridge has been very, very good to me and it’s really an interesting experience and I would like every other person to like want to like tag along and come and experience what I’ve experienced so far. really in the TreeBridge.

1:48CAnd how would you describe your experience here? What are like the core components of that experience that you’d say?

1:53AOkay, before now, I was wondering what’s a smart contract, how to interact with blockchain. I usually thought blockchain was just basically Bitcoin, Polygon, Solana, just those tops of this coin store. But it was more like that where TreeBridge opened my eyes. showed me that this is -- there’s more to these things. So I was taught how to like write this smart contract, make my own tokens, interact with blockchain, and it’s really a good experience so far.

2:27CYeah. And what would you say has been an unexpected highlight of your experience here?

2:32AOkay. I didn’t really expect that I would have this much experience. I thought probably they just want to like, you know, normal mentors, they would just give you after paying, they just give you, um, PDF, just give you normal videos to just go and watch and all of those things. But it was more than that. We have, um, we had practical experience. We had live mentors. They were able to like guide us wherever we have errors. They will be, they were always there to like fix these things for us. So it’s really, really good. It’s a good thing and something -- and I was able to connect with like minds as well. Different devs, those that are writing other networks and all, I was able to connect to them. So it’s really good. It’s a good thing.

3:20CWas it an easy choice for you to commit to coming here?

3:24AThere was no easy choice for me. It was just Web2 bridge or no Web2 bridge.

3:30CI love that. And do you feel like blockchain is important for Africa at large?

3:36AYeah, it’s important. I want Africa to really adopt this new tech because it’s, um, it’s really something good for Africa to adopt.

3:45CWhy do you feel that way?

3:48AUm, you know, other countries, they adopt Bitcoin, they adopt blockchain, they adopt, um, there’s easy way to like write your smart contract. Smart contract is just basically like your lawyer, you don’t need this lawyer. It’s just written down codes that they’ll execute when you just want them to execute legally. So this eliminates the need for, um, normal human -- there’s transparency in a blockchain. So I think in Africa, Africa is really -- they’ve really been in the dark. So you introducing them to the blockchain is like showing them the lights. So everybody wants to see the lights. So I -- that’s why I want I think it’s important for us to adopt this blockchain tech.

4:35CNo, that makes a lot of sense. And I’m curious, on a more personal note, what do you hope to achieve with, like, out of your experience here, coming here, what you’ve learned, etc.?

4:42AOkay, I hope to make my impact in the world. I hope to onboard more users to Web3. And I also hope to build products that are essential for people to use. And yeah, that’s what I hope to achieve.

4:59CYeah, I got that. And I’m curious, when you think about the different sides of crypto and blockchain, where are you most interested in use cases?

5:06AOkay, I want to be the builder. I want to be the builder. You know, that feeling where you make something and people use it, you have this feeling of satisfaction, not just consuming what has been there. So yeah, I would like to be the builder over and over again.

5:24COver and over again. Yes, I love that. And as you see yourself wrapping up this cohort, you guys have been working on projects. What are you working on?

5:34AI’m working on Race3. So in summary, it’s just you connecting founders and investors together. So, you know, founders, they would want to showcase their product. We offer the platform for you to bring your product as a founder, showcase it on our platform, and you see investors. Investors just come in, check, browse through the products that are available, and they invest in your idea. If your idea is making sense, they invest on it based on milestones and all. So basically, in summary, just connecting these, these 2 guys. We know there’s a problem. Everybody wants to build. They have a lot of builders, but builders face challenges. You get, they want grants, they want hackathons, they want funding as well. So we provide the means to make this funding easier for them to get access to by giving them investors. We already have investors that are waiting for them to showcase their products. So this would be like an opportunity for founders to get funding from us.

6:36CYeah, I think that’s beautiful, especially for founders here in Africa who are looking for visibility and looking for people you know, to recognize the value of the products they’re building. I think there’s a lot of longevity in that. You know, I really appreciate you and your roommates, you all let us occupy your room here tonight, which is really nice. I feel very humble. I really appreciate it. And I also noticed in 2 conversations, you know, I shared about We Them Media and you jumped in our Discord really quick, but I also shared about Warpcast and you jumped on Warpcast really quick. And I’m curious, you know, what was the value that you saw on Warpcast and We Them Media that had you take such initiative?

7:06AOkay, the value I saw on Warpcast And it’s, um, yeah, you said it is really, really narrow. You know, on X we have developers, everybody wants to like showcase and all, but there’s a lot of noise on X. But this work class has made it, made it easier for just devs. You know, it’s just like minds. You, you just, you say something and everybody relates to what you are talking about easily. So it’s not just, um, no, it’s not like X whereby you, you make something or you make a post and you, you have people that are non-devs that are your followers, they won’t really relate to what you’re talking about. But it made it easier. And also the community you introduced me to is, um, you know me, I, I’m a big fan of communities. I like, I like joining communities, see what, um, this community is about, see how I can contribute to that community. So it’s Kind of like made sense, but I like it.

8:04CThat’s beautiful. Thank you. And to close out here, We Them Media like to say booyah. This is to close out our interview. So I’m curious, how do you think booyah is spelled?

8:13AOkay, um, B-O-O-Y-A-H.

8:17COkay, you want to count us in?

8:19AOkay, so 3, 2, 1, booyah!