2022 in Review – What Happened To Me Last Year

“Alhamdulillah”

Wow! I can’t believe we have just survived another 365 days. Here’s to feeling thankful for the year behind and enthusiastic for the year ahead. This is a moment I use to reflect, and do an assessment of what happened to my life in the previous year. This helps me improve and manage my progress and I’m hoping it inspires you.

There is a familiar saying: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Recognition

Last year my project Skills.GM was selected for the MSII SDG Challenge Incubator Cohort 2. An initiative to support teacher-changemakers in sub-Saharan Africa and out of over 1,700 innovative projects from over a dozen countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Skills.GM project was selected to be among the 25 projects to be part of the program. This cohort includes training on various skillsets to improve on our projects. Our projects were selected based on originality and inventiveness of our ideas.

The goal of the MSIISDG Challenge is the provision of high-quality, gender-responsive education to students – particularly girls – in the most deprived regions of the world by empowering and supporting teacher-changemakers with the skills, networks and resources they need to lead innovative and impactful community-based projects which cut across various communities in Africa.

Our Training Hub

Our skills development hub Skills.gm Digital Skills Training has been doing fine in nurturing young Gambians on various skill-sets on Graphic Design, Video Editing and Web Design. In 2022 we were hired again by Tech4All Gambia organisation after a successful training in 2021 where we trained 15 young ladies on multimedia. Last year we trained 24 young ladies.

The initiative was sponsored by the US State Department through the US Embassy, Banjul. The 4 months training was geared towards adequately equipping young girls with “Lifetime Digital Skills.”

Other Activities

Technology, Education and Skills/Personal Development has been among the areas of my focus last year.

Staff Training On ICT User Skills

As the Head of Information Technology at Nusrat Senior Secondary School, I decided to conduct a day long training on ICT User Skills for the Nusrat SSS staff. This will help equipt teachers and ancilliary staff to use technology to do their work effieciently and effectively.

Digital Marketing Training

I had the chance to train dozens of Poultry farmers from the provinces on Digital Marketing using Facebook and WhatsApp Business. The training was organised by Global Youth Innovation Network (GYIN).

WONMA Tech Camp 2022

The annual Wonma Tech Camp was done at Botrop where I gave a 2hr lecture on Introduction To Video Editing.

Interviewed by MTA TV

I was interviewed on MTA TV by Musa Bah on Education and Skills Development. We also talked about Skills.GM online Skills Directory.

GAIN Investment Day Event

The SKills.GM team attended the GAIN Investment Day Event to showcase our project to potential investors.

A Lecture On Personal Branding

A session at the DevFest 2022 where I talked about Personal Branding process as young person.

Business

My company Faalen Technologies has been doing fine, especially in Web Design services. We designed 6 websites last year. With over 42 websites in 7 years which has built us an impressive portfolio to brag about. Faalen Technologies is one of the top web design agencies in The Gambia.

Family

It is amazing to see both Ibrahim and Muhammad learning the holy Qu’ran and practicing how to pray. Muhammad who’s now 4 years old has started going to Nursery school with his brother. I’m also happy to announce a new member of the family called Abubakr, my third child.

Finally, don’t forget to visit my blog faalictacademy.com and my YouTube channel to find useful tech resources.

Wishing you a prosperous new year ahead. Thanks for reading.