Ahmad
Aminu Idris is the co-founder of Quadrev, an IT company that specializes in
hardware programming, telecom and general tech consultancy. Ahmad is a
passionate programmer and IT professional with experience in embedded systems
and creative computing. The Northern blog had an interesting conversation with
him where he talked about the book he is about to launch and other projects he
is working on.
The
Northerner: May we know you?
Ahmad: My name is Ahmad Aminu
Idris, I am 26 years old. I studied electronics and telecom engineering and I
am the author of the book that is about to come out Introductory to Creative
Computing using Scratch Volume One.
The
Northerner: What is Creative Computing?
Ahmad: Creative computing
simply means knowing how to use the computer creatively, this can be so many
things but in this context it means people becoming creators rather than consumers.
This means you can create the games you
play, create the cartoons you watch, create the music you listen to, and so on
and so forth the list is endless.
The
Northerner: Our readers would like to know what is Scratch?
Ahmad: Scratch is a software
developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is basically a
software for programming, it is an object oriented programming that is so
simple. It is a drag and drop software that allows children to learn how to
program at a very young age. The age I recommend is six (6).
The
Northerner: What do you intend to achieve with the book?
Ahmad: The book is like a
manual that has been broken down and made so easy to understand and follow. We
want people to understand the concept of programming while having fun in the
process. They would be able to animate games and even write stories of their lives
using scratch.
The
Northerner: There is this high barrier of technology
penetration in the north, how does this book help in creating awareness?
Ahmad: It will play a lot of
role like I said it has been broken down to the level that even an Almajiri who
has never been to the class will understand. We worked with child psychologists
to make sure that the content of the book can be easily assimilated.
The
Northerner: You mentioned that even an Almajiri can learn
from the book, does it mean even the lay man would be able to relate to the
book?
Ahmad: Yes 100%, but the only
thing that is so far there will be someone that will explain it to them.
Eventually they should have a basic knowledge of English language. I would
really love it if I can translate it to Hausa or Ajami, I am not there yet but
the ideas have come up a few times.
The
Northerner: Have you worked on other projects apart from
the book?
Ahmad: As a key partner, my
company has been involved in a number of projects. I don’t want to say this,
but I am not holding back this time. We launched a program for young tech
enthusiasts who are willing to push the barrier. We finished training today and
came out with four community projects with each projects headed by these
youths. We are also engaging less privileged kids especially public schools
children to teach them basic coding skills like html and css for building simple
web pages.
The
Northerner: What are your major challenges?
Ahmad: At Quadrev there some challenges,
like many other community based projects we face financial hurdles. All the training we’ve carried out have been from our pockets and even though we have
a goal of training 100,000 coders yearly in Kano.
The
Northerner: Where do you see yourselves in the future?
Ahmad: Well right now we are
doing okay, we have a fleet of drones, they are mainly surveillance drones and
they are not off the shelves drones, we made them. Eventually we will also have
a technology hub, it will be different from the ones we have now because we
would focus on education.
The Northerner: What advice do you have
for people out there who are also trying to change the narrative?
Ahmad: The thing is don’t give
up. Just find a way, there is always a way no matter how hard it gets.
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