My 2019 journey with the Google Developers community and ALC 4.0.

It has been over a year since I joined the Google community. For the record, I was on Facebook when I came across an event of the GDG Bassam which interested me a lot and I signed up. After that, I received a confirmation email the day before the event, which coincided with a relaxing outing for which I had prepared myself. I had to make a choice between the organized training and my exit. In the end, I chose the training. I never imagined that this choice would allow me to have so many opportunities.

When I started in the Google Developers Group community, I only wanted to learn. In the beginning, I did my best to participate in community events. On the one hand, I had to get good marks at school to honour my parents. On the other hand, I had to find time to participate in Google community events. In December 2018, I joined the DSC Agitel and I got to know Google Cloud Platform whom I liked very much. After my discovery, I made the decision to master this technology which was new to me. My first obstacle was the English language. All the resources available to learn this technology were in English. Despite this, I didn’t give up and started using Google translate to translate the courses I received. As for my second obstacle, it was time. Since I am a student, I am in class Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. The only way I could continue my Google Cloud Platform training was through sleepless nights (11 p.m. to 3 a.m.).

Subsequently, I became organizer and trainer of Cloud Study Jam for DSC Agitel in February 2019 and led my first session on February 23, 2019. Here are a few pictures:

My first Cloud Study Jam session.

As an organizer and trainer, I joined the DSC Sub-Saharan Africa training program sponsored by Google Cloud EDU. This allowed me to obtain a certification in core Infrastructure and another in bigdata. As I progressed, I facilitated training sessions and my love for the community and the cloud computing did not cease increasing. My second Cloud Study Jam session 👇 — DSC Agitel.

Then there was the I/O Extended 2019 — GDG Bassam & GDG Cocody. That day, I presented the different serverless services of Google Cloud Platform.

I/O Extended 2019

In April 2019, I signed up for the Google Africa Certification Scholarship program. During all this time, I continued to follow my online courses on the Google Cloud Platform despite the difficulties I was encountering. This allowed me to obtain a specialization in Architecting with Google Compute Engine, a specialization Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine and a specialization in Data Engineering on Coursera. And two professional certificates, one in Cloud Architecture and the other in Cloud Engineering.

Everything was fine until June 4, 2019 when I was officially normalized GDG Organizer 😊🔥. It was from that day on that I became co-organizer of the GDG Bassam.

On June 13, I received the selection message from Google Africa Certification Scholarship. I was too happy to have been selected to participate in this program.

Then I applied for the Developer Student Clubs program in July 2019 and like magic ⭐ I was selected. From that day, I became the lead of the DSC ENSIT of Côte d’Ivoire. So, I went from co-lead of DSC Agitel to lead of DSC ENSIT.

Right after my selection, I had the chance to participate in the SSA Community Summit which took place in Accra from September 11, 2019 to September 15, 2019. During the summit, I learned a lot about: leadership, functioning of a community, web development, mobile development, Google Cloud Platform and artificial intelligence. I also met other DSC lead and GDG lead from sub-Saharan Africa with whom I had a good time.

DSC Summit in Accra.

Upon my return from Accra, I was chosen as a keynote for the presentation of the Google Cloud Platform at DevFest Côte d’Ivoire in 2019.

DevFest Côte d’Ivoire in 2019

When I think I’ve always had the phobia of speaking to an audience. Today, thanks to my community, I can speak in front of more than 300 people. A big thank you to my mentor Armel Yara and my manager Diabate Ibrahim who help me and encourage me to overcome my phobia. Thanks to you, I speak in public despite the stress. “DevFestCIV 2019 was great”.

As for the Google Africa Certification Scholarship, I took online courses on Pluralsight and participated in several challenges for 6 months. I was not able to reach the certification phase of the program, but despite this, I decided to pay for the Associate Cloud Engineer exam myself to get my certification. And as if by magic, I passed my exam. If you are interested in the Associate Cloud Engineer exam, I suggest you read this article I wrote.

In September 2019, I started an online training course to master Google tools and obtain a certification from Google for Education. As there were GSuite courses in my training, I took the opportunity to take the Google Cloud GSuite exam and passed😊.

Many of you are wondering, what’s my secret. Well, here it is.

• I always put God first in everything I do.
• I love what I do. As H. Jackson Brown said, “Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.”
• I work a lot, especially at night when it’s quiet.
• I’m persistent in everything I do. No matter what obstacles I encounter, I don’t give up.
• I make myself small wherever I go to learn from others. Humility is one of the most important things in the world.
• Finally, I love to share what I have learned with others. In fact, that’s why I got involved in the community.

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

In January 2019, I was just a simple student passionate about technology who wanted to learn and know new technologies. I had no idea about cloud computing. The first time I heard about the cloud was during a Cloud Study Jam session organized by DSC Agitel and moderated by Armel Yara. After participating in this session, I started by researching this technology and I was always present at the sessions organized by the DSC Agitel, the GDG Cocody and the GDG Bassam.

Today, I’m DSC ENSIT Lead, GDG Bassam Lead, trainer certified by Google For Education, certified G Suiteand__certified Associate Cloud Engineer. I am very happy to have been the 9th person to be Google Cloud certified in West Africa😊.

Here is my story 😊😊😊.