Mother of Four in Tech: Ugochi Nwokonko’s Story

The Woman Behind the Tech

There are lines the average person chooses to cross when it comes to sacrificing for knowledge and upskilling. It becomes admirable when that person quits their job and separates themselves from comfort and family, all in the quest to pursue a dream.

Ugochi Nwokonko’s taste for education began in childhood. Having both parents who were educated and being the first of five daughters, Ugochi grew up with a strong and independent mindset, often stepping in for her parents while they were at work. She realized at a young age that nothing should be a limitation, and she felt excited carrying out tasks that made her think.

Ugochi initially wanted to study a course in engineering, which was a booming job at the time, but eventually, she found her way to studying computer science. After university, she got married and went to the East, and got a job as a part-time lecturer at a polytechnic. In 2019, she got another teaching job at a university. However, she could not find the satisfaction, the right motivation, or the necessary materials that could help her upskill and keep up with the fast-evolving tech world. She felt stuck.

The Semicolon Intervention

In 2021, her brother-in-law, who worked with Semicolon, told her about the program. She did not want to leave her family and work to move from the East to Lagos, so her younger sister who had fewer commitments went instead. Ugochi realized the seriousness of the program when her sister no longer had time for calls or discussions with other people.

In 2022, after a university strike that resulted in her staying at home for seven months, Ugochi became annoyed, and her husband encouraged her to enroll in the Semicolon techpreneurship program. She initially hesitated. She was a woman with four children, the last of whom had just stopped breastfeeding, and in her ten years of marriage, she had never spent a day apart from her husband. She recounts, “I did not come to Semicolon in my own way; I was pushed into my future.” To make things work, she relocated her children to her mother’s house.

The Effect of Leaving Her Family

The program was a struggle for Ugochi. She remembers walking in on the first day and seeing mostly young people as peers. In a short while, she soon realized that the class contained mature minds, irrespective of their ages. Coping with the separation from her family, one early morning, she got a call that her lastborn, who had just turned two, had stopped relating and responding in class. She realized he had felt abandoned by his mother. That morning, she wept by the stairs until a young lady came to comfort her.

During the holidays, she faced her greatest challenge learning Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). She spent weeks studying but could not figure it out. In desperation, one day, she sat in front of her computer from morning until night. She remembers her mother calling her sister and saying, “Your sister has a toxic relationship with her system; please tell her to push it away.”

Ugochi had noticed that her kids played adventure games that were fun but not educational. So during her capstone project phase, she chose to develop a game that would be like a combination of Subway Surf and Scrabble. She knew she was stronger at the backend, so she deliberately took on more roles in front-end development to ensure that she developed a versatile set of skills.

The most notable obstacle her team faced was the realization that a programming language they had not yet learned, C#, would be better suited to creating the game. Confident that the background knowledge from previously taught languages would aid them, they took up the challenge. Ugochi began with a seven-hour video course, studying to understand the new language. Ugochi shared that during that period, she was always unkempt, coding most times from night into day and night again.

Two days before their demo, their game stopped working. She remembers feeling helpless and frustrated, and a friend of hers who saw her dropped a sticker on her laptop with the inscription, “Mummy, don’t give up; you can do it.” She instantly felt motivated.

The Eventual Triumph

Now that Ugochi is done with the program, she has had an experience that made her feel ten years younger. Even as a professional with prior background knowledge, she has had a massive mindset shift. Her advice to the women who are married is that “it is never too late to find yourself. It is who you are that will determine the kind of children that you will raise. Remember, part of motherhood is finding yourself, and you cannot be a good mother to your children if you do not find yourself. There is beauty in a woman with brains; look up to the skies and reach out for your goals.”