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Hope and Inspiration for the Underprivileged Student

It always seems impossible until it is done

Exactly four years ago, on October 02, 2018, this village boy boarded a plane for the first time in his life from his home country Cameroon and alighted at the Istanbul Atatürk international airport.

He was welcomed by the Turkish government scholarship team who drove him to his new dormitory apartment, where a new phase of his life was about to start.

Before then, the closest he’s ever been to a plane was watching it on television.

As a kid, he used to watch planes fly thousands of miles above his head and wondered how big they were up close.

In the sky, they looked like giant metal insects buzzing around and about.

He and his friends, would pluck mango leaves, cut the sides, stick a broomstick through its center, and run around, letting the wind rotate it like a plane’s fan.

He had no one to invite him to an airport just to see planes and wave goodbye.

He couldn’t afford to study abroad at a prestigious university.

All he had was his brain, imagination, good friends, supportive family, and his God.

Today, that same village boy has an MSc in Computer Science from one of the best universities in Turkey — Istanbul Technical University.

He’s currently pursuing in PhD in the department of Information and Communication Engineering in the same university.

At the same time, he’s currently working as a full-time Data Science Fellow with the UNDP’s Istanbul International Center for Private Sector in Development (IICPSD) SDG-AI-Lab, where together with a strong team of experts are harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for sustainable development.

I didn’t write this message to brag. No. I wrote this message to tell the student, who’s reading this right now, that nothing is impossible with God.

To tell him or her, It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Maybe you’re someone who walks for hours through the thick dust, the heavy rains, and the scorching sun just to get an education.

Maybe like the students in the North West and South West of Cameroon, you risk your life every day just to acquire knowledge.

Maybe after school, instead of resting and studying like normal students, you must go to the farm to dig potatoes or to the market to sell puff puff or to the bushes to fetch firewood.

Maybe you’ve got no electricity and every night you have to light the kerosene lamp to read, which burns your eyes, turning it into those of a marijuana smoker.

Whatever your situation is, I want to tell you that you should never give up. Never stop dreaming. Never stop believing in what you can achieve. Never stop having faith in God.

If you have a brain, and the opportunity to go to school, you’ve got everything you need to kiss the moon someday.

Work hard despite what your current situation and environment might look like. Don’t forget to pray hard. One day you’re going to share your story and inspire someone just like you.

My heart is filled with gratitude for the good, and the bad experiences I have had on this journey. It’s been a rollercoaster with God on the front row.

I intend to share my knowledge on how I and four of my closest friends all won scholarships to become international scholars.

My goal is to help students from across the world, especially from the African continent who want to change their life’s trajectory through scholarships to understand the game of scholarships.

So stay tuned. A project is on the way for you.

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