My name is Emmanuel Ekpo Okon and I am a second year student at the Cross River State University of Technology in the Department of Electrical/Electronic engineering. I hail from Akwa Ikot Efffanga community, Akpabouyo LGA in Cross River State. My community is one of 10 communities hosting the Lafarge Africa Plc, one of Nigeria's largest cement manufacturers and suppliers of high quality cement.
As part of the Company’s corporate social responsibility to it host communities, a few students from my community and other communities are selected annually to benefit from an educational support programme of the company. This support programme covers tuition, books and other levies which leaves very little for personal use. Although I was lucky to be nominated and selected to enjoy the support, I had thought on how the little I saved from the financial support could be used to bring more money to take care of other financial issues at school.
I have been in the programme for 2 years now. In the first year, an entrepreneurial and life building skills workshop was organised by Gede Foundation – the Consultant managing the education support programme for Lafarge. From the little I grasped in the 2day workshop, I thought outside my field of study and identified a problem within my institution which I could proffer solution.
At the end of every semester graduating students and students in dire need of quick money, go from one hostel to another with an intent to dispose or sell off their used laptops, fridges, electronics, personal effects and also to advertise their services such as event managing, catering, salon services and so on. I saw this as an opportunity to come up with an advertising platform within my institution. I knew for a campus such as mine, the best platform would be an application that can be accessed on an android, laptops, java phones and any devices with internet connection, but I have no skill in computer programming, so I shared the idea with a colleague in the computer science Department. From the little I saved from my financial support from Lafarge mava.ng was born.
Mava.ng is an online advertising platform where students within my campus can place advertisement for their goods and services. It has a unique interface that enables a user to create an account, upload up to 12 pictures of 2.5MB limit of each picture. It also enables a use write about the product and can also chat with me or my partner on the platform. Mava.ng uses zara class theme written in php and hosted on whogo host server. Mava.ng was launched on May 26 2017 and it is accessible with android, laptop, java and other internet devices. mava.ng is not yet an application, it is a website which my partner and Iare still working on in the hopes of developing it further to an app that is downloadable.
This is just a start up for me but with formal training in computer programming and graphics, I will be able to birth more ideas to create wealth within my sphere, and also be a role model to young students from my local community.
Written byEmmanuel Ekpo Okon
200 level student
Electrical/Electronic Engineering
CRUTECH