It was indeed a great privilege attending the SOTM Nigeria 2023 conference in Abuja, at the Obasanjo Space Centre.

I was also a participant last year at the maiden edition of the SOTM conference 2022 in Port Harcourt. This participation aroused my interest and I have not looked back ever since. This year my very good friend and sister Hopeful Bafamodei invited me to be a part of the panel that talked about the cultural perception of genital mutilation. Thereafter my co panelist shared how mapping is needed to get data from areas identified as code red, where genital mutilation is being practised and how with the use of these data collected, help can come to such communities. Right there we had a live participant who shared her experience of what she had to go through in the hands of her very own father. I want to appreciate most importantly Dr Victor Sunday and all the LOC who made this event possible, The presentations made by Ian Tobia, Makcron, Eromosele and Hopeful, thought me one thing…….RESILIENCE. My passion for this conference is growing by the day and I am looking forward to more engaging content to be discussed during future events.

My story here will never be complete without mentioning my capacity Boss Mr Sunday Victor,who is the conveyner of the conference and the chairman of SOTM Nigeria 2022 and the national coordinator Unique Mappers Network, Nigeria, Miss Hopeful Bafamodei and Miss Light are part of the reasons I can boldly call myself a member of the Unique Mappers Network Nigeria.

Initially, I did not understand what they were talking about, I thought all they were talking about is cordinates, mapping, maps and all other jargons in Geography, but then I said to myself these two young ladies are not geographers so what is interesting about this network so I decided to settle down to learn. I am not close yet but I cannot stay a day without trying to learn. New things. Fast forward to after the Inaugral Conference where I was asked to be one of the anchor person’s, i was amazed and thrilled at the same time and at the calibre of persons that joined us from overseas and I said to myself this must be a big deal, seeing the likes of Salim,Hajar both from Tomtom, i was begining to get excited that I will have plentyof sweets to share to my village children during Christmas break but I got disappointed knowing that TomTom as a company is far from being a confectionary company, with that disappointed I still continued, till I began to read more, then my eyes opened to diverse opportunities like the fact that as a translator and an interpreter, I wanted to base my research work on subtitling but now, two months to my graduation, I have taken the risk to change my project topic to make my work relevant in open street mapping and also In the field of translation studies. See what OSM has done to me, I pray that with my relationship with you all, Kingsley, Petro, Maman Ali, Chisom, Letwin, Hopeful and Light. I am humble to be learning from you all. With what I learnt so far, i am ready to use my knowledge to reach out to those who need our assistance. How about that!!!!!!