From Intern to Industry Leader: Oluchi Enebeli Career in Tech
Oluchi is Nigeria's first female blockchain engineer and the founder of Web3Ladies, a leading non-profit Web3 community in Africa with over 15,000 members.
GNCrypto: Oluchi, you've left me stunned with your immense expertise and remarkable achievements in the blockchain and Web3 world! Your contributions are countless. Could you give us an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at your journey — how did you get started in this field, and what inspired you to become a blockchain trailblazer?
Oluchi: I am a senior blockchain engineer passionate about products, users, and building world-class technical solutions to real-life problems.
Experience working with several Blockchain startups at different growth stages, building products and networks across various areas of blockchain, such as DeFi, Crypto, NFTs, governance, integrating various blockchain networks, developing smart contracts, and creating business applications across multiple platforms.
I started my tech career as a web development intern in 2016 at Crenet TechLabs, a company dominated by women. I enjoyed the sheer strength of women's creativity, resilience, and passion for work. Here I built websites and web applications with languages such as JavaScript (NodeJS, Express framework, Jquery, and angular), PHP (FuelPHP and Laravel), HTML, CSS, and HTML5Canvass.
One significant thing I did during my early two years in tech was being very intentional about tech events and hackathons. I would attend a lot of tech mixers, workshops, masterclasses, and hackathons.
One of hackathons I attended was Decade of Women #HackQuantum 2018, where I first heard the term “Blockchain”. It was a hackathon to build different projects on the Blockchain, even though everything was new to me. I needed to be more knowledgeable about the technology, it caught my interest, and my journey into the technology started from this point.
Since then, I have worked in both engineering and product capacities across top brands, such as Liquality (incubated in Consensys), Nestcoin, Crypto.com, Binance, Bundle, and Sterling Bank.
GNCrypto: What inspired you to become Nigeria’s first female blockchain engineer?
Oluchi: I got interested in Blockchain and smart-contract development early enough when crypto trading was the popular use-case of Blockchain in Nigeria. I loved the tech and the solutions it can provide and wanted to make a difference.
GNCrypto: What challenges have you faced as a female engineer in Nigeria?
Oluchi: I can’t remember any significant challenges aside from the fact that Blockchain was a new technology and there weren’t so many female engineering role models one could probably run to for advice. Navigating the space was tricky, but I’m glad I could pull through.
GNCrypto: You are the founder of Web3Ladies, the leading non-profit Web3 community in Africa with over 15,000 members + audiences in several African countries and platforms.
— Tell us what this community is and what are your goals?
We are on track with producing generations of female industry leaders that are set to create, nurture, and expand a sustainable Web3 industry. One of our most considerable laurels is that we are the most empowering, sought-after Web3 community of women in Africa. Our track records in inclusivity, diversity, accountability, and fostering a sense of belonging are evident in the composition and operation of Web3ladies.
We are committed to building and growing a community of outstanding, driven, and innovative women in the African Web3 space who can collaborate to challenge the current status quo and provide effective open-sourced solutions. We are interested in women's growth in all professional ramifications.
We aim to recruit and train the next 100,000 women with the technical skills necessary to succeed in the Web3 industry over the next three years.
GNCrypto: What programs to support women in the web space are run by Web3Ladies, and can women from around the world join your community?
Oluchi: Our programs, for now, include: Smart Contract development, Product design, Product management, and some Web2 training for ladies just starting in the tech space.
The only requirement to join us is to be a passionate lady ready to learn and thrive in the space. The community accommodates ladies that are interested in the Web3 space. We wish to have more women in the Web3 space; therefore, continent or region is not a barrier.
GNCrypto: What progress has your organisation made so far in its existence?
Oluchi: So far, we have onboarded over 2,000 ladies and trained over 200 in 3 cohorts of our quarterly mentorship program. They have been armed with the necessary skillset and mindset and are positioned as potential industry leaders.
A total of 821 candidates enrolled for our last mentorship training, but only 396 qualified for the program. The program began with the pre-mentorship phase, also referred to as the blockchain fundamental phase and went on to the learning, bounty and project phases.
It was sponsored by Polygon, keen to see more technically enabled women build real solutions on the polygon blockchain. We had 14 projects created by 14 groups of ladies from the mentorship. See some of the top projects below:
We have also provided work tool assistance to ladies in the community who needed one to continue their web3 journey. We gave out laptops, Mifis, and Inverters to see these ladies thrive in their niche.
Some of our ladies have been able to secure employment in the web3 space with the experience they gathered while contributing to the growth.
We currently have a combined community (Discord + Slack) of over 3000 ladies across several African nations, including Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and many more on discord.
GNCrypto: I know you have been involved in various areas of Web3 and Web2 as a mentor, participant, and volunteer. You have worked on initiatives such as the Binance Africa Developer Masterclass, the Techpoint Africa Blockchain Summit 2022, and the Filecoin Lagos Conference 2022.
— What have been some of the most rewarding aspects of your career in blockchain engineering?
Oluchi:
- My first salary as a Blockchain engineer blew me literally.
- The financial literacy learned working in the space helped me make informed decisions about my career and take control of my funds (Not your keys, not your money).
- The excellent networks I have built in the course of my career, the ability to network without boundaries.
GNCrypto: What advice would you give to other women interested in pursuing a career in blockchain engineering?
Oluchi: Never be frightened. Stay audacious and passionate about whatever you’re learning. In everything, always build competence because we need you, and the younger generation also needs you.
GNCrypto: What do you think are the essential skills for a blockchain engineer to have?
Oluchi:
- ability to infer technical concepts from codebases;
- understanding of the EVM;
- understanding of Blockchain Architecture;
- understanding of data structures and data management;
- networking is an essential skill to have as well;
- problem-solving skills.
GNCrypto: How do you think blockchain technology can be used to solve problems in Nigeria?
Oluchi: The most common problems in Nigeria are corruption, poor governance, and poverty:
- DeFi will solve many financial problems in Nigeria and Africa at large. Beyond speculating, Cryptocurrencies represent our hope for a more secure and prosperous financial future.
- Decentralised Finance will increase everyone's independence, comfort, and control. It will offer succinct solutions to a range of fiscal issues that many African nations are currently experiencing.
- Blockchain will also help more Nigerians build borderless products to access global wealth and reduce poverty.
- Blockchain technology adopted in different public operations will introduce transparency and accountability to help curb corruption.
GNCrypto: What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment so far?
Oluchi: My career as a Blockchain engineer is one of my most outstanding achievements, especially the fact that many ladies are inspired by my story. Of course, what I’m building at Web3Ladies is no pushover. The aim is to give hope to an average person that wasn’t raised with a silver spoon in their mouth, and that is precisely what my life has been to people, so yeah, my life is my most outstanding achievement.
GNCrypto: And finally, my traditional question, who and where do you see yourself in the next 3-5 years?
Oluchi:
- I happily married my B with two lovely, excellent, competent, and spiritually aware kids.
- Making an impact in blockchain and tech in general through technical leadership positions.
- Inspiring more ladies to be female principal engineers in the blockchain.
- Helping more people discover purpose and live their innermost dreams through blockchain and tech.
