Tech is changing everything – including how we write, create and connect. To unpack this, we caught up with Patrick Ndifon, a seasoned Product Manager with hands-on experience in product management and strategy. He shares his journey into tech, the challenges faced and the trends shaping the future.
We also get into the sweet spot where writing meets tech – how writers can use digital tools, stay ahead and even break into tech content creation. If you’re a writer curious about tech or techie who loves great content, you’ll love this one. Let’s get into it!
PERSONAL AND CAREER JOURNEY
Oparawhyte: Welcome Sire. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey?
Patrick: Alright. My name is Patrick Ndifon. I am a founder and a startup that I run. I also have a non-profit organization. My startup is called Hack51 Africa. My non-profit is called PSIFON. Ultimately, I am focusing on helping to build the Tech eco-system in Africa. I am very passionate about African innovation and how technology can help us to drive that. Also, my focus is particularly on what they call “Secondary cities” – Cities that are not like Lagos state which is a primary city. These cities do not have much spotlight. So, my work is focused on helping to illuminate them, bringing the spotlight on them whilst uncovering the genius of African innovations within them.
My journey into tech started in my childhood, as little as 4 years. My father was a Scientist. He had a PhD in Agriculture and lectures as well. He was passionate about Agriculture but in a very different way. He used to invent his own Agro products. At one time, he created his own sausage, showing how much, he was into science, innovation etc. Eventually, I picked that love of science from him. Growing up, we were free to think about what we wanted to do. No one was forced us to pick a career role. A very innovative kind of family background. My parents exposed us to a lot of science and things related to it. So, I grew up having this scientific passion. In fact, I wanted to become an astronaut, at a time. I loved the computers too. Had my first at age 7 and from here, I kindled that passion. Here I am today.
In short, I got into tech going from one thing to the other; messing around with computers as a kid, then, pursuing a degree into computer science and eventually, started building products.
Here I am.
Oparawhyte: What inspired you to pursue a career in tech?
Patrick: I would say my inspiration came from the household I grew up in. Like I said earlier, seeing my father experiment with animals and then, his passion for science and all that he did, I think that was the very first time that I fell in love with anything science and technology. From then on, it evolved year after year as I learnt about more about technology as a whole, what it encompasses and the opportunities available therein. Nevertheless, it primarily started with seeing my dad doing these things and from a young age, I found the passion and picked up the enthusiasm for it. We spent a lot of time talking about the universe, astronauts, computers and all those things. So, being in that environment where, more often than not, the conversation was always around science and technology, the possibilities and the rest, it created in me the desire to want to know more and build with my own stuffs in technology with that knowledge.
However, as I got older, those childhood dreams became more refined as I learnt more about science and technology. I started to pick my path within the vast industry which began with hardware and its repairs. Today, I am more focused on product management and building, providing services for people. Basically, that’s how I got inspired to pursue a career in tech.
Oparawhyte: As they say, clarity comes in the doing. Beautiful growth and evolution. Well done, Sir.
So, on this journey, were there any major challenges you faced while building your career? How did you overcome them?
Patrick: There have been challenges. One of the first is believing that what you are doing will be profitable. This is something I almost struggled with, although, I wouldn’t say I did. I ended up doing a lot of things in this phase. I used to be a rapper, thought it was going to be one full-time. I also played the basketball and even football. In fact, I did a bunch of things alongside being a lover of computer and technology as a whole. However, I guess subconsciously, I was trying to figure out which is going to pay off well. I used to dance as well too. The goal was simply to be very good at them and be successful too. But along the line, I focused more on tech and the more I learnt about it, the more I realized that this thing was the future.
The other challenge is finances. It was a great one. Even though I was born in a well-to-do family, I lost my dad at a very young age of 9/10. My mom was left with four children to take care of and I am the eldest. It was a really heavy burden that my mom had to bear. Resources were limited. She tried in the initial phase of these years. Before then, we had the pleasure of travelling across the world. But as we got older and we needed more resources; each of us has to go to the university and all of that, it became heavier on my mom. Eventually, this reduced how much resources we could draw from her. None was going to stay home. Everybody had to go to school. So, it restrained how much she could spend on each person. This meant I didn’t have access to enough capital to get the kind of learning I wanted and will give me an advantage. I just couldn’t afford it. Expensive courses, programs etc. As a result, I tried to use the most of the free resources available. I consumed them a lot. Funnily, that is still a problem now. Though I am able to afford a lot of learning, I need to go for the higher courses. I can risk paying for something that is N200,000. But back then, I remember having to pay for course of N65,000. At that time, I paid N30,000 and it took me two years to pay the balance of N35,000. It got to a point where I was almost charged to court for the outstanding fee.
Those were some the challenges. The capital constraint also affected my access to internet and laptop usage which are all challenges that I had to somehow overcome.
So, I took on menial jobs working in all kinds of places. The earnings I was able to gather was used to purchase some gadgets and devices. I also got support from family, beyond my mom. My uncles and aunts were present too. I had an uncle who gave me a laptop. Then, from time to time, I get data. Although I acknowledge these things as help, they weren’t always constant. I remember sleeping in my office for a year plus because I didn’t want to stay too far from the city, Calabar. I didn’t want to stay in Akpabio. I didn’t even have a place to stay or the money to pay rent. It was my uncle’s office I slept. So, I work for him in the day and then, sleep over in the night, learning how to code and do all of that stuff. Overtime, I grew my value. I learnt a lot to improve myself, understanding my value and how to communicate that value as well. Eventually, I got a job that paid a very huge amount about $3000 and from then, I started getting better roles. Today, I am quite comfortably well, although, I want to earn more because of the responsibilities I have. Nevertheless, it is ten times more than what I used to earn ten years ago.
This draws the curtains to the challenges I have faced and I think holistically speaking, the ways to overcome these things is to constantly learn, improve your own value and learn how to communicate it too. Also, never shy away from reaching out to people for help. Be persistent too.
Oparawhyte: Learning, improving values and reach out to people for help when needed. Key things to note. Thank you, sir.
Throughout this journey of yours, who would you say is your mentor and what makes them stand out for you?
Patrick: So, funnily enough, I didn’t find a mentor until three years ago. At this point right, I am already sure of where I am going. The mentor that I have now is more or less a “scaling mentor” and this is what I mean. His role specifically is to help me do times a hundred of what I have achieved so far. He is not a mentor in the sense of guidance and counselling. I never had that. I never had a mentor to tell me what to do or where to go. I had to figure out on my own. I had to learn from people I would call “role models.” Bill Gates, Elon Musk, the startup founders in Silicon Valley and across the world. Those were the people I was always excited about reading, following up the latest update in technology and being really excited about them. However, there wasn’t anyone that was a mentor I could reach out to ask for help. I didn’t have that. It was until later on. As for the mentor I mentioned having now, he isn’t even a tech mentor. He has a leadership and business background. He is not exactly providing me guidance as an entry level person trying to figure out his way but it is more of “me reaching a point” and having to scale more than what I achieved. This is why I asked him to be my mentor.
I will repeat this. I can’t say in that early stage of my journey there was a mentor I had. Inspirations came from so many places, existing in technology, founders in the space that were doing amazing things. It wasn’t one particular person. But I think that one of the things that kept me going was the friends I had. They were all enthusiastic about technology. We were all learning and sharing with each other. We had debates and arguments from the latest mobile phone technology to the global space and where the trend is going. We were always engaging in those conversations and arguments. From time to time, new persons joined our space. They were very sound and we hear them out.
So, for me, it wasn’t a specific person just supportive people. Right now, for the past 4 years which is since 2021, I met an amazing guy who, not in tech. He is building a business and has had several amazing achievements in the leadership space. He even ran for presidency in Nigeria. We got talking and were both impressed with what we have individually accomplished. This is when I asked if he could be a mentor to me, completely outside of tech. At this point, I was already aware of my path: what I am doing, what I am going to do and succeed at.
ACHIEVEMENTS AND LESSONS
Oparawhyte: Now, let’s talk about achievements and lessons. What accomplishment are you most proud of and what did you learn from it?
Patrick: When it comes to achievements, there a lot! But let me start from here.
In the course of the work I have been doing over the years, I have helped a lot of people to go from point zero to a hundred. I have extremely shy people become bold and audacious, going on to become global leaders. I have also helped people raise funding for businesses. There is a lot of people that I can point out to and I can say that I was a part of their journey, from a certain level and right now, they are enjoying tremendous success today. A great part of that success is me being involved. That is something that I think is a very big achievement. I remember one time I helped someone build a startup, earlier in the days. I was very instrumental to them raising 30,000 US dollars for their business. They had reached out to me that an investor had contacted them, and they needed my help. It was a challenge at the time, because I just finished my Executive Master’s program in Business Administration. So, I took it as an opportunity to apply what I learnt. At the end, they were successful in getting that funding. I was really proud of myself.
Another example I am going to give is my MBA program. I used to suffer from writing projects, the big ones. I would struggle with how to start, put the words together and how to finish. In fact, I almost tried to, you know, trick my way out of not finishing my final project for the Masters. But my lecturer, who was also my supervisor, was like, “Look, you have to get this done!” With his help in corrections, I was able to complete it. I was able to run from a 2/5 to a 4/5. It was really remarkable achievement.
Honestly, with the right help and support, something you can’t achieve, you will.
The third achievement I am proud of is my startup, Hack51. From the moment I had the idea, my intention was to build it as a startup and take it from Idea to Launch in 31 days. And I did! I was blown. This act was inspired by someone I saw on the net who had built 12 startups in a year. This means that every month, he was building a new startup. I think one day, I’ll do that. I’ve done one now. Maybe I’ll do one every year, you know. Anyway, this startup recently won a 5-million-naira investment. The way we had dealt with it, it looked so unassuming. It seemed we wouldn’t win anything. However, we got into that competition and we sold ourselves, leading us to the win.
So, here is it. From all of these things, I realized that there’s nothing impossible that cannot be achieved. I always try to look at the positive and ask myself, “What do I need to do to achieve this thing?”, “What are the skills sets or competencies that I need to achieve something?” and that’s much easier with AI, right? With AI, you can get the guidance or instruction needed to build whatever competency is required for achieving something.
In summary, it boils down to this.
Look at the positive, find out what you need to earn and be courageous enough to take on those opportunities or chances. You now, the world is run by people who are courageous not necessarily smart. But if you’re smart and courageous, then, you have an extreme advantage.
Oparawhyte: Can you share a moment when you faced failure or rejection? How were you able to handle it?
Patrick: Yeah, I can. There are a lot of moments. But the one significant moment I recall was the first startup I built before now.
The founder reached out to me, a year before around December, saying he wanted to build something. Eventually, I was brought on board as the co-founder. At that time, I brought in an investor and the funding. By March, the following year, we launched the startup. We even brought a team and got some money too. For 18 months, we worked on this startup and raised a little over 1.5 million naira. However, we were only able to generate a revenue of about 40,000 naira. So, we had a loss of 1,460,000. All the while, an investor was with us, as we experienced all these. Thankfully, we were a test subject to him and by the time we got to the end, we sat down with him and tried to find out what happened and why we didn’t get some things right.
Then, we told him that we were going to raise another money if he is willing to invest with us and it will be more than we had lost. At that time, we were looking at 10 – 50 million naira to raise. He just looked at us and said he won’t be investing in us because we lacked experience to build basically. This was one of the feedback he gave us.
So, we didn’t get any additional money to build the improvement we had envisioned and we had to shut down. That was the end of it. It was really painful. The rejection itself was in terms of he not willing to give any other funding. This was a rejection. However, what was more painful is the fact that we had burnt 1.5 million naira and nothing left. It took me three years to figure out why we failed. I had to ask myself a lot of questions, read more and reset a lot. Nevertheless, I was grateful for the opportunity to learn from this mistake. I knew that I couldn’t make this mistake again. This was a very interesting journey. In the process, I also watched a lot of videos. As at that time, I was a full stack web developer. But as I began this journey and why we failed, I stumbled on product management and fell in love with it. It was here I realized why what had happened. So, I reached out to my friend, the founder and told him, “Look, can you imagine this? This is why we failed!” I started showing him notes I took and explained to him. The mistakes we made that had informed me; how I should manage a business and startups. It is also a principle I adopt in the current time.
From this experience, I can say that I don’t think that anybody should get upset about rejection and failure. Yes, it is painful and it hurts. But what makes it good is what you get out of it. Generally, you need to see your life as something bigger. One occurrence should not derail you or stop you from pursuing the things that you want. As long as you have breath in your lungs, you can be anything that you choose to be. There’s no failure that you can’t bounce back from.
A perfect example is Donald Trump. You know, a lot of people don’t like him but there’s a lot of lessons that he has that can teach people. He’s lost billions, multiple times. At one point, he was in great debt, counting from millions to billions. And when he came back from that experience, he became history. In fact, he’s known as “The comeback king.” You can also see that from his presidential campaign and victory.
So, when you see failure and rejection as a learning curve, it becomes a stepping stone where you, not just learn and take lessons from, but also advance yourself.
Oparawhyte: To become a successful young person in your field, what would you say are the routines that has kept you diligent and focused on your goals for its achievements?
Patrick: I think the most important thing is to constantly keep learning. Stay up to date with whatever is happening globally. Look beyond your environment. Find out what’s happening around the world. What’s the latest technology? What’s the latest trend? Then, find out what you can do to leverage that trend. Use it to create something easy. Build something. Don’t just be a learner, reader or a consumer of information. Be an appliance! That’s funny, right? But yeah, be somebody that applies knowledge. Apply it. Whatever you learn. Try to build something with it, you know? The more you apply, the more mastery you gain and the more possibilities it unlocks for you. I believe this first two are habits I’ll recommend.
Another I will add is this. Have a resilient mindset. Train yourself to not allow failure or discomfort to weigh you down. Find a way to turn it into fuel for your advancement. It’s tough right now. In fact, I am going through a very rough patch. So rough that I’m like I shouldn’t even be going through this right now. But I am, you know, and for almost a week plus, I was just dealing with depression and trying to just build myself up. But over time because I have been through situations like this, for even longer periods, a part of my subconscious keeps reminding me that I am tougher than this. It has been engraved in my consciousness. So, it keeps telling me that I can’t even stay in that mood for too long. I may fall into it occasionally, but I pick myself up and keep pushing. And as I keep leveraging on that part of my ability, eventually, I just forget the problem and start figuring out a solution and finding a way out of it.
In summary, build a resilient mindset. Start now. Keep telling yourself you’re going to go through this. If you have a challenge, figure it out and find a way out of it without losing composure. If you keep doing that, you will eventually become successful and achieve the goals that you intended to.
INSIGHTS INTO THE TECH INDUSTRY
Oparawhyte: Thank you for sharing these tips. I bet they are very helpful. Let’s get your insights in the Tech industry.
With the fast-paced nature of tech, how do you stay updated and relevant in your field?
Patrick: I stay updated through Google search. I search “what’s the latest trend.” Google has this thing called “Google Alerts.” So, you can get notifications or updates that are happening in specific areas of interest. I also follow top guys in the field on LinkedIn and on X (formerly Twitter) so that whenever they drop updates, I am able to see some of the things that they are conversing about. However, LinkedIn is one of the places I really get to find out a lot of things but one of the things I do is this. On a weekly basis, I just go through my feed. And because of constantly trying to build myself in my own field, I am literally on the beat, so to speak. As I am learning, I am also finding out new stuffs and the things being developed. This is the consequence of constantly staying up-to-date. So, as you’re learning and trying to apply what you learn, you’re going to constantly run into road blocks. While trying to figure out how to solve these road blocks, you are able to discover new trends and things that are happening.
And yeah, that’s really the way it is while following specific persons in your field, who are leaders therein, on different platforms. They could be companies or even products, keeping yourself updated with new releases on a regular basis.
Oparawhyte: What major trends do you see shaping the tech industry in the next five years?
Patrick: AI is one of those trends that is going to shape the industry in the next 5, 10, 20 years. It is gateway into a new era of technology – a new different world. This is because it is the Age of Intelligence. It has brought the superpower that we possess as human beings into the realm of machines. As machines do not have the physical disadvantages of human beings but with the ability to think like human beings, they are going to allow us to do things that were unimaginable centuries ago. AI is a very critical part in technology. It isn’t going to affect the AI space alone. It is going to transcend and affect every sector in tech. Tech, itself can’t affect almost every other sector in every industry. So, AI just amplifies that.
Then, one other technology that a lot of people are not aware of is “Quantum Computing.” Talking about this now, I remember when we used to talk about this as a kid, as far back as the ‘90s. This is interesting. This is the stuff people used to anticipate it’s coming. Like we can’t wait to get to this point. Quantum Computing increases the capabilities of computers to process exponentially. Combining this with Artificial Intelligence, trust me, the results will be phenomenal.
So yeah. AI and Quantum Computing, I would say, are the two cornerstones of the kinds of incredible achievements that we are going to see in the next 5 years. But all of these is embedded or rather, dependent on one thing which is, how possible or fast we can make these technologies more affordable. If we can make them both cheaper and all that surrounds it like digital trainings, then, the next five years will be the most disruptive we’ve ever seen.
Oparawhyte: How does AI and automation impact your work?
Patrick: They both impact my work greatly. I’m someone that needs information quickly. I need to be able to learn things faster because there’s a lot of variables that I have to constantly deal with. So, I need to be able to make analysis and decisions quickly as well. This is where AI comes in. AI allows me to do just that. I don’t have to read thousands of articles. With AI, I can find the specific kind of information that I need as quickly as possible and I can digest that information, as well as, get recommendations and suggestions on how to use it for whatever it is that I need to do.
With automation, on the other hand, allows me to repeat or do tasks that are mundane i.e. tasks I don’t really need to do which will waste my time if I keep doing them. For example, in analyzing research data. Once I collect the data, I don’t necessarily have to do the analysis and research myself. I developed a system where the AI can run a research analysis based on what it is I am building. After it is done, I can always look at the output and scan through, then, make my own inferences. With this, I go through a lot of things very quickly like multiple research analysis in a very short amount of time. I can find specific information that matches exact context way better than using it is using google search. I can learn things that I don’t understand without having to look for a mentor to help.
AI is like google search on steroids. It has all that information and whatnot. It has flaws but they are not bad in comparable to its benefits, so to speak.
In summary, AI and automation has a great impact on my work. I am doing things that would have taken me three months and doing them in a week.
Oparawhyte: What advice would you give to non-tech professionals who want to understand or use tech effectively?
Patrick: Firstly, I don’t think anybody is non-tech. I mean we all use technology one way or the other. But I would say, to say someone is non-tech, it would mean that they are not in the tech field or career or doing a full-on tech role, so to speak. The person could maybe be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer or someone who doesn’t necessarily have to go through all of these several full-on technology roles. Right now, for someone like me who is a product manager – it’s not exactly tech, per say. For someone who is not in tech, I would say that you need to understand the technology. I also think that people like this have an advantage because technology now becomes truly a tool to solve problems within their own industries. So, they need to understand that technology is a tool to make things better, easier and faster. It is not something you argue with. Instead, it is something that you leverage its use to your advantage.
One of the issues that most non-tech people face is that technology will put them out of their job. Well, no. Technology, however, frees them to do higher level work such as creative thinking, decision making and all those things. This is because technology itself cannot serve the purpose to itself. It is the user that gives purpose to the technology. It can’t come and tell you what to do. You are the one that wills and directs it to the purpose accorded for it.
So, having that understanding of technology is very important to the non-tech person. If they have it, it is then a matter of time that they can begin exploring what it is they want to achieve within their own space, what in the world of technology will help them achieve that thing, what they need to learn to leverage that technology and the possibilities technology allows them to accomplish.
It is just about being smart and courageous enough to use it. Tech is present to help everyone and make lives better.
THE UNION BETWEEN TECH AND WRITING
Oparawhyte: Now, let’s move onto the next segment. From your perspective, how can writers and content creators benefit from tech?
Patrick: If you want to look out how any industry or anyone can benefit from tech, you would need to look at the value chain of that particular thing. In this sense, writing and content creation has a value chain. So, what’s a value chain?
Value chain is a way of applying the full sequence of activities. All the activities involved from creating something up to the point where that thing captures value – creating, producing, delivery and then getting value back – a value chain is like a framework that outlines the activities which allows you to create, produce and capture value.
Now, let’s look at the value chain of content writing. Where does content writing begin? It starts with ideation and research writing. So, you come up with ideas and research them. Then, you create the content and produce it. Now, you optimize it, distribute and promote it. In some cases, you monetize it next and eventually, generate revenue from that content. After this, you do some analysis and feedback. You can probably scale the content, if you want, or innovate it, so to speak. In content creation, that’s the value chain.
Writing is also similar. It starts with ideas and research. Once you do this, you begin to write and draft. Next, you edit and refine the draft. When you’re done, you can move to publishing and distributing it. You can also monetize it if you want. Monetize the draft, analyze, get feedback and then you can improve it by scaling with the feedback. That’s a value chain. Now, if you look at every of those activities in the chain, you need to ask yourself, “how can technology help me?” Well, tech can help you in ideation. For example, if you look at AI, it can allow you brainstorm ideas. It can also allow create content itself. It can give you some draft ideas for a content. AI can even help you turn your written content into video or audio content. For optimization and formatting, you can use Grammarly. It can help you edit and make corrections. You have other editing tools too. Technology allows you find them. Distribution is something that almost every content writer should be familiar with. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, these apps allow you to take writing and reach people across the globe.
So, in technology, these are some of the ways that writers can benefit from them by leveraging tools in each of these value chains. They can enhance whatever it is that they are doing in that chain. Remember, technology allows you to monetize your writing. For example, my wife sells her books on Selar and she can put them in such a way that people are not able to download but read via the site. Through the same app, she can distribute the books to different parts of the globe and earn in different currencies. Again, these are the advantages of technology that is being delivered to her through a platform that has been built in using tech tools.
So, yeah. It’s easy. First, explore the value chain of whatever industry you’re in. Then, find out how technology can enhance the activities within each of these points in the value chain. Are there existing technologies to enhance or make it better? If they are not, you can even begin to start thinking of technologies you can create enhance activities within the chain
Oparawhyte: Are they any must-have tech tools for writers looking to enhance their work?
Patrick: For tech tools, I am not a writer myself. So, I won’t know all. But here are some I can recommend. Grammarly for editing. ChatGPT can cloud AI to help with draft ideas and even writing some of your stuffs. Medium is a good platform to put your articles out there and reach diverse audience. Those are the some of the few I know. Writers can also go online and search all these things. You can even use ChatGPT and also ask what the best tools for writers are and it will give you a list of them.
Oparawhyte: How do you think AI writing tools affect human creativity and originality?
Patrick: Well, I think this is a very sensitive question and a lot of people have this notion about AI that are very accusatory. They say things like, “AI kills my creativity and originality.” But I want you all to see AI like this, right? Before the inception of AI, how did we get information? How did we get new ideas and things? We researched! We went on the internet and we found new things. We learnt from other people, in a sense. What’s on internet is not created by some inhuman entity. It is people that created these stuffs and put out there. Prior to AI, the traditional way was just keyword search and you will go look for inspiration. Based on this inspiration, you create your own thing. There are other ways of drawing inspiration, though. Like nature. So, the idea or the concept of creativity and originality is grounded on this activity where we draw or copy something by feeding off from people’s experiences or our own. I just hope this makes sense to someone.
The thing about AI is this. AI is just an embodiment. It doesn’t train itself or have its own experiences. It learns from the experience of others. It learns from data out there. It learns from the world. So, it is still the information that we were accessing using keyword search, alright?
Now, when it comes to originality and creativity, what makes something original is that it comes from you. It is your own way of perceiving the world. It comes from your experience, how you see things and what you learn from interactions and those kinds of things. AI cannot live that life for you. It can’t produce that experience for you. It is the same way when you go on the internet and you search for what someone wrote on a topic or issue. That person is writing from their own experience. He/she cannot write for you. It is the same information. Now, when you read up people’s experiences, it creates a feeling inside of you and how interpret that feeling makes it your own original thing. You go outside. You see nature. It makes you feel a certain way. Then, you interpret it the way you feel. The same sunset, we are looking at the same thing. There’s no one that experiencing a separate air from you. It is the same air. But in your own uniqueness, you interpret it differently. For the sun, it is the same information we are receiving. How do you interpret that information? How do you relay it? That’s the idea. It is basically creativity and originality.
AI does not affect creativity and originality if you understand how it works. What affects them is you abandoning your own experiences for the experiences of others, whether it comes through a google search engine or it comes through an artificial intelligence. So, how do you see things? How do you perceive things? How do you interpret those things either in writing or whatever it is? That is your creativity. That is your originality.
You know, the way we make AI look is like it is an exact opposite of a human. It is not. It is not either human or artificial intelligence. You are human and that’s fact. Humans created artificial intelligence. It is a tool that we created. You can’t say ‘Human vs ChatGPT.’ No. It doesn’t make sense. These are tools that we created to help amplify our abilities. AI learns from us as a way to process and generate information as much as it can, depending on the AI we are talking about here. So, if anything it allows us to broaden our scope of creativity and originality. We can access perspectives and combine that together to even create something more unique.
That’s the way I see how it affects us. The only negative effect is when you use AI without critical thought or reflection. You’re just blindly copying something and paste which is something humans have done. We’ve seen people go to exam hall and someone is copying another person’s work, ending up copying the registration number too. A duplicate work. That’s because critical thought was not applied. That’s just it.
Oparawhyte: What strategies would you recommend for writers who want to break into tech-related content writings?
Patrick: The recommendations I would leave for writers is this. Stay connected with people such as the top leaders, who are building. Dabble in the technology experience. If it is AI, use and get a feel of it. Whatever digital product it is, use it and that will give you a first-hand experience of what the technology feels like. So, they need to immerse themselves in the field. That’s what I am saying in general.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Oparawhyte: If you could give one final piece of advice to young people interested in tech, what would it be?
Patrick: Well, I believe strongly in God and that He has put us in this world for a purpose. And for anyone going into tech, they need to think about of how they can be of good to the world. When I say this, I mean, how do you be a blessing? How do you impact the lives of people around you? How do you impact your community, your economy, country etc. Once you start think in that perspective of “how can I use this thing to bless lives, help and make people’s lives better,” it becomes much easier to start thinking about how you can leverage technology. It just opens you to whole bunch of ideas because now, you’re thinking from the problem perspective. There’s a problem in the world. I need to solve it. How can technology solve it? This opens you up to a whole lot of possibilities. And as you keep trying to solve one problem to the other, you’re forced to keep learning and growing. You begin to build and experiment. Those are traits that anyone in tech needs have and imbibe.
So, start with the perspective of trying to help others. Reflect on the problems in the world and think of how you can come with solutions to solve them. Then, think about whatever tech it is that you need, that can solve them.
Oparawhyte: What’s a book, podcast or resource you’d recommend to those looking to learn more about tech?
Patrick: I will recommend two books. One is from my friend, Kingsley ‘Et Abang. He is Nigerian. He wrote this book called “Welcome to Tech – How to get started in tech in plain language.” It’s one of the first of its kind, anyways. His book is something I would want to recommend to anyone that wants to get started in tech. I don’t know how anyone can get a copy of that but I can leave a number that they can call. Then, the second book is “Startup Nation – The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. This is not exactly a tech book. Why I am recommending it is because it really paints the innovative culture of the Israeli people. How they turned their barren land into a technological and economical world power. That book talks about a lot of innovation and technologies that they had to pull through. Israel is a desert country and such country is so bad that crops die. Crops don’t grow there. But Israel has been able to create farms and forests in their desert. This shows their resilience and coming into innovation. And I think that anybody that is into tech should read that book. It’s not just inspirational but very practical.
Oparawhyte: It’s been indeed a pleasure speaking with you, Sir Patrick. Thank you. So, where can people connect with you or learn more about your work?
Patrick: Well, they can find me on LinkedIn – Patrick Ndifon MBA. I am mostly active there. When I say active, that’s my most active platform, not that I post everyday there. You can find and communicate with me there. I also have a couple of communities that I am active in. One of my communities is the one around my startup, Hack51 and then, there’s PSIFON. Anyway, just find me on LinkedIn and connect with me. Also, you can find me on Facebook at Patrick M. Ndifon II.
Thank you.
Wrapping Up!
Patrick Ndifon’s journey proves that innovation and strategic thinking are key to shaping the future of tech and entrepreneurship. His insights on startups, ecosystem building and the role of technology in Africa’s growth are invaluable for anyone looking to make an impact.
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