Nigeria is blessed with young, innovative and vibrant youths who are bringing in a new level of innovation into thier respective industries and career paths.
One of such young people is Yusuf Kamaldeen who seeks to showcase the beauty of Kwara state through his start-up: Tourkwara.
Here is his interview with Attain:
1. Please kindly tell us about yourself?
I am Kamaldeen Yusuf Kehinde, I was born and raised in Ilorin Kwara state Nigeria to a family of 6 (father, mother, 3 brothers and a sister), I am 22 yrs old and dark in complexion. I attended my elementary and high school in Ilorin, currently a student studying mechanical engineering. I am passionate about technology and community building; my hobbies are teaching, coding, traveling and networking.
I am a software developer and digital marketing strategist. I worked at MAL Hub Nigeria as a community advocate, I also worked as a lead developer at D-positive Image Consult, a consulting firm in Abuja, Nigeria. I cofounded a startup with my friend Jamiu Abdullateef called Tourkwara.
2. Tell us about your Vision and Tourkwara?
My vision is to develop a productive network of tech experts and young engineers who can leverage on technology to solve local and global challenges. Also to develop community where access to information about a particular place in their location will be easy and free. Tourkwara is on a mission to showcase the beauty of our local heritage and human resources.
3. When and how was it birthed?
Last year before the fall of 2017, Tourkwara idea started with fun when I and my friends thought of taking people to tour around Kwara, we planned to take many pictures as we can during the tour days to create awareness on social media. After we decided to post the registration banner on social media, we received lots of calls from different people willing to tour with us, that was how we discovered what people want. We started to think around how to start without failure, and then we named it “Tourkwara”.
4. What are the main challenges you faced since you started Tourkwara?
Our main challenges are getting enough information about where to visit, the likely challenges we would encounter during our stay? The kind of food tour members would eat? Will their community leaders welcome us? These are the kind of challenges we face. To tackle this, we the tour guides would explore places ourselves before we take our community members along.
5. What was the biggest challenge you ever faced since you started?
Ever since we started this project, our biggest challenge has been getting a reliable team that shares our dream and is committed towards the success of the project.
6. What do you consider success in your Start-up?
Writing stories about different places is quite tasking, we are happy to have documented over 10 local governments in Kwara out of the 16 local governments, with relevant information and enough pictures for researchers and immigrant, expatriate or even the Government to benefit.
7. At what point did you begin to achieve success in your pursuit of your Vision and how did it happen?
We started having the feeling of success when we began to take steps, ideas will continue to be ideas if proper steps are not taken. It happens after a lot of effort and sacrifice to put some logistics in place, like funds to visit a different place which is currently taken care of by my partner.
8. If you could go back in time, what are the changes you would have made for your Start-up?
The changes would have to be changing the mindset we started with and thinking like a billion dollar startup, like the likes of Uber and Airbnb.
9. What else should we see you doing in the Future?
The future is now, I am a passionate ecosystem builder, my aim is to see every home in west Africa having access to digital technology. Something I have started doing already by giving young kids access to digital knowledge in a low income part of my community.
10. What's your advice other start-ups who want to impact the society?
My advice is simple, never relent in your dream, helping people grow is the best way to live a fulfill life, it is quite challenging, but with your passion and consistency you will definitely excel. The world adore those who add value to another person, it is called humanity service and there is reward for it.
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Amazing profile, this is awesome!
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