Hey guys,
Words alone can’t describe what being a Google Student
Ambassador has done for me. But I will try! Being involved in this program is
by far one of the finest experiences I have had. It came to me at a point in my
life when I really needed something to uplift me, something to distract me. And
to be honest, I think it did more than that.
I expressed some of it in this post here
and every time I read it or think about it, it’s as if a giant chopped onion is
tossed in my eye! LOL! But they are definitely tears of joy. I have had fun as
a GSA. And most importantly, I have learnt a lot. More than I ever expected. One of our most memorable events on campus was the Going Google Awareness Campaign. And my journey as a GSA became better and better since then! To
pass on what I learnt through the numerous events we held and attended will always
gave me great pleasure. And the fact that I am now an alumni will not stop me
from continuing to do the same.
This program allowed me to grow, make friends, and exercise
my leadership skills. This program helped me be to be the best version of me that I could be, crazy Gangnam Style videos
and everything hehe! I will be forever grateful.
Once a Google Student Ambassador, always a Google Student Ambassador.
GSA, Kenya.
Bonjour,
Last year, I was selected as Google Student Ambassador. It has
been a great experience full of happy days, great event, challenges and
learning! As a GSA,
I learnt that there is a joy in helping people achieve their objectives. During
events on Google Drive, Google Docs on campus, my mates and I knew how to
improve team work and learning. This helped us in our class presentations, tests,
exams and we all passed with good grades!
By
helping the university to achieve some objectives, I got the support of the
Vice chancellor of my university and we did zero budget event for all GSA activities
on my campus. I also
learnt how to work in team while I held events and how to manage problems during the events using creativity!
I
found a family with the GSAs from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya,
Tanzania, and Uganda. I'm
grateful to Google for teaching me how to Do Cool Things That Matter in order
to impact positively our universities, our communities…
We're
the new Generation and we'll change Africa positively. Let’s use creativity,
technology and Google apps to bring change in our universities, community and the continent! Being
GSA was a good experience for me…I'm
leaving that Red T-shirt with good memories!
Long
live to the GSA program!
GSA, Côte d’Ivoire
Hey,
Being a Google Student Ambassador represents by far one of the best experiences I've had. At the beginning I thought it would be complicated as to combine several professional and community activities parallel to my classes and my memoire, I was afraid of running out of time. I deeply believe that this program comes fully within the social framework.
Being a Google Student Ambassador represents by far one of the best experiences I've had. At the beginning I thought it would be complicated as to combine several professional and community activities parallel to my classes and my memoire, I was afraid of running out of time. I deeply believe that this program comes fully within the social framework.
Our
mission is to participate in the development of our continent through
technology, Google products help us impact positively the social and economic
future of our country, by providing all people in our campus, tools than can be
used today as life easier, and later in their professional careers. This program allowed me to
develop my leadership and improve my managerial skills.
But more importantly, I
learned to exceed me.
GSA, Senegal
.jpg)
All the
best and lets definitely make this year even bigger
All was just due to the great work of the Unilag Google Student Club and I have chosen to attach only our group picture with this post. To the new GSAs, I love you, and I look forward to you guys doing very great things. +Busola Marcus +Ifegunni Obiajulu +Philip Onyia +James Uzoma
I've always had a passion for learning and for teaching and being a GSA helped me achieve my passion for training/teaching others. I always enjoyed training others, so much so, that I would learn new things to teach others. I could train for hours on end and the students would more often than not enjoy it.
I've learned a lot in organizing events from small scale to large ones. Several mistakes were made, many of my own making but the value is in the learning and adapting to new situations based on past experiences and mistakes. One has to learn how to deal with large impatient crowds, no shows by many students, zero excitement students, non-responsive students as well as those that are super charged and fire off questions that leave you wondering what to say. One even has to learn how to take disappointment and soldier on knowing that things will get better
Dealing with administration is always an experience with interesting and strange procedures. Things don’t happen as quickly as we would like. But sometimes they can surprise you and give you more than you asked. The trick is to work together and find ways of getting to the goal while adjusting the route.
I’ve always been a default leader in my own circles, but being a GSA helped me improve on many of the leadership skills. I’ve met interesting and wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful) people that have helped me develop myself as a person.
More so than anything else, I strongly believe that we have made an impact in JKUAT. That we have added and built on top of what the previous GSAs did at JKUAT. We believe that communication has been made easier, collaboration has been widened, people reached out and integrated into the mainstream university activities and that students have benefited from the exposure to the amazing Google technologies and services.
Thank you guys for reading. It's always a joy having your audience.
Always Doing Cool Things That Matter!
#HappyDays
Hello,
The
journey has ended but lots of lessons have been learnt. After jetting off to
Kenya, learning almost all things humanly possible about Google in the space of
3 days, squeezing in some fun during that time, jetting back home with plans
and ideas for the year ahead and finally introducing Google to my campus in the
sweetest way I could think of, I can definitely say it has been a fun ride.
Of
course as the first GSA to be chosen at my varsity, it was challenging, but it
was refreshing to find an overwhelming interest in the things I would be up to
in my tenure. It was also great getting the opportunity to work with some of
the GSA from around RSA again during Google's Big Tent. Time management, People
skills and Leadership are just some of the core lessons you walk away with
after such an experience. Perhaps the greatest thing we all walk away with is
new found friendships forged across the boundary lines that are our national
borders. Going forward I am glad to be handing over the reins to a guy I met at
my very first event on campus +Stan Sibiya and the lovely +Lucretia Ringane.
GSA, South Africa
Hey there,
Being a Google Student Ambassador has helped me in a great
way, I learnt a whole lot and I got to meet a whole lot of great people. I am
happy to be a graduate of the Google Student Ambassador Program. +Adesoji Bello is just a very awesome partner. To
talk of the success stories. There
are a bunch of them, but just to pick the most interesting ones (with good
metrics).
- The GSA resource website we built for our campus now has more than 12,000 page views currently. And guess what? I built the site without having a single knowledge of programming (That's the power of Google Sites).
- I can remember, from the summit, we were required to hold 8 events, but it’s very interesting to know that 20 events were held on the University of Lagos Campus. 17 events from the GSAs and 3 events from the Google Developers Group. Check out here. Then I featured in about 5 events outside my university.
- As at this time, the PhotoSphere pictures we created at our Map-Up Season 2 currently now counts 33,617 total views, check out here.
- During our YouTube 101 Work shop, we had 4 awesome Googlers in attendance... The country manager herself, +Lanre Aina (Head of Business Development at Google Nigeria), +Bayodele Olotu (Program Manager of the Education Go Digital SSA) and who else would just love to chill out with us but the very awesome +Jeminatu Alabi-Isama :)
All was just due to the great work of the Unilag Google Student Club and I have chosen to attach only our group picture with this post. To the new GSAs, I love you, and I look forward to you guys doing very great things. +Busola Marcus +Ifegunni Obiajulu +Philip Onyia +James Uzoma
GSA, Nigeria
Hello,
Detailed
Highlights from our Journey So Far as Google Student Ambassadors University Of Nigeria Nsukka. If you love info-graphics look at
the visual story here. Becoming a Google Student
Ambassador was indeed "Heaven Sent".
It is an experience we will never to forget anytime soon. Many things, I
mean many things happened during this unique 1 year experience as Google
Student Ambassadors. +Orakwe John
Before the GSA Summit in Kenya: I can sincerely
tell you that before the summit in Kenya that we barely knew less than 10
percent of Google and its great offers for students. Even at our University, little is
being spoken of about Google (Only Google Search).
During The Summit: Our GSA journey started in
Nairobi, Kenya with a Swahili proverb "Akili ni Mali" meaning
"Knowledge is Wealth". Our mindset was redefined and filled with
Googleyness. Learnt a lot about Google, improved our communication, technical,
leadership and personal skillsets. We
took home from Kenya some unique lessons and this became our motivating
G-Factor “#DoCoolThingsThatMatter"
We strongly believed in one vision, one mission
and one purpose as we came back "To Impact our campus community and
redefine the way Google Technologies can change "totally" the lives
of our students and immediate environment.
.jpg) |
| +Success Maake {GSA, South Africa} and +Aneke Chimdindu Google respects culture |
After the gSummit: We experienced the bad and the Good "The journey
was never as smooth as we taught. Setbacks, challenges and YES!!! The
awesomeness later appeared in its Glory."
The Bad, a blessing in disguise, was a 6 month
strike. When School finally re-opened, we
had just about 5 months left in the 1 year of our GSA programme, which in
retrospect has been pristinely managed to do unique cool things that matter.
Life
turned into brainstorms. Our everyday life turned into idea "thinking"...
We thought of every possible way to Do Cool
Things That Matter on our campus. We
got familiarized and accepted. We formed
the "Google Student Club UNN" who we are forever-indebted to. They
mean everything to us. The ICT Unit on
campus gave us full support to run our biz. Thanks to +Gaius Ebere and +Paul Oranu.
We had 24 major events dished out on campus. Cutting
edge events all geared towards orientating and training students on how to use
Google Technologies to make the best out of School, efficiently and
effectively. It was indeed awesome
teaching students from faculty to faculty. We were even called so many names
like “Mr. Google”, “Oga Google”, “Google+”, “The Google We Know”.
Great Impact Reshared by Google Africa: We trained first year students from one faculty to another.
And one of the events (Faculty of Agriculture) got a surprise reshare and +1 by
Google Africa Community page. The training brought together about 700 students.
We were humbled. In total, we reached
about 3500+ students at our campus.
Google+ Trending Galore: In less than 12 days, during some of our programs we
were trending 3 times in 3 events with #gsaunn #gsassanigeria #unnblog1. It was awesome seeing our
students trend on Google+.
Our Photosphere Adventure: Our Photosphere
adventure in Enugu Capital has and is still producing encouraging views; more
than 30,800 views till date. {See Here}
Vice Chancellor Accepts A Complete Virtual Tour
Of Our School: Our many good works in school did not go unnoticed, and before
long we were locked in a meeting with our former vice chancellor on how to
project the University of Nigeria to the world. The result of these series of
meetings, produced the UNN-UNEC Virtual tour project using Google Photosphere
which was originally scheduled to span between May 15 - June 15 2014; but will
now be handled by the next UNN GSA’s. This here is the video of our presentation to
the VC.
We Participated In Google Cloud Developer
Challenge 2013: Together with one of our Google Student Club member +Nosakhare Belvi Osamudiamen we came 5th in Africa (SSA) and 3rd in
Nigeria with application "Jambites Online Prep School" Airtel Nigeria
also rewarded the winners with some cool cash prize and tablets (from Google).
This application took us to a stage which every developer dream of. {See Here}
Google Summer Of Code 2014: In the midst of all the organized progress, #GSOC came along. This quickly followed with an awareness event for our
students, and fortunately the effervescent Lead-GSA again emerged as the sole
representative from Nigeria in the GSOC challenge. In line with our tradition of doing cool things that
matter, I am currently fighting to eliminate the threat of malaria in the world
today with my winning app Malaria Prevention App in the GSOC program with
Anita Borg Institute.
Drum
Rolls! In recognition of this progress against the malaria disease, I will be
travelling to #GooglePlex, in Mountain View,
California for a Google Summer of Code Reunion Summit with other students and
mentors in the program. Drum Rolls Again!
First Ever GSA Android App For A University: To
cap it all, we came up with an amazing innovation to aid the work of all future GSAs in our school and Sub-Saharan Africa. We launched the very first GSA App in SSA. The GSAUNN APP aims to aggregate all Google and students
communities from Google+, Blogger, YouTube and Facebook into one complete app. Don’t worry
we are planning on extending the app to all GSA schools in SSA. Thanks to our club members who devoted
their ideas and coding skills to make this possible. Kudos!!! This GSA Android Application addresses
to a great extent the problem of creating awareness on campus.
In all this, we learned that Africa’s future is
bright, having enjoyed the rare opportunity of interacting with her young minds
in Kenya, guided and inspired our peers in Nigeria, created more opportunity
for our peers +1 more GSA from our school.
We can only say Thank you to Google for the
opportunity and the support to do so much for mother Africa. Expect the next GSAs from the University
of Nigeria Nsukka to triple the 3500+ students we encountered in our tenure.
GSA, Nigeria
Hi,
I'm
one of the 3 GSAs in Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology,
the others being +Jacquey Njue and +Elizabeth Akinyi Awino. We've come a long way from the time we left the
summit last year in July and there is much to tell. We've had a
wide range of experiences. Beginning on events:
We've done events ranging from e-mail activation to mapping to even hosting Google I/O extended 2014 .Our audience has ranged from 20 individuals to over 2500. Our reach has gone beyond what has been done before to do events at our other campuses throughout the country ranging from Mombasa at the coast to Nakuru in the Rift Valley to Karen in the leafy suburbs west of Nairobi.
Our events are many and this space might not cover it. So to be brief: We've done more than a dozen events together. We were the first in the region to reach out to other campuses in different parts of the country. We did 2000+ student events, trainings on Gmail, apps, GYSC, mapping, 3 mapping events back to back and a geo walk. We also successfully did the Google I/O extended with GDG. We initialized new initiatives such as online lecturer evaluation in conjunction with Google Nairobi office. We are in talks to get student clubs to use groups, notable Christian groups and to get JKUAT to make apps training compulsory for all. The e-mail activation is also up by a big margin. In addition to that, we have not stopped planning and holding events. One last mapping is going to be done as well as a Google Solve for X event.
We've done events ranging from e-mail activation to mapping to even hosting Google I/O extended 2014 .Our audience has ranged from 20 individuals to over 2500. Our reach has gone beyond what has been done before to do events at our other campuses throughout the country ranging from Mombasa at the coast to Nakuru in the Rift Valley to Karen in the leafy suburbs west of Nairobi.
Our events are many and this space might not cover it. So to be brief: We've done more than a dozen events together. We were the first in the region to reach out to other campuses in different parts of the country. We did 2000+ student events, trainings on Gmail, apps, GYSC, mapping, 3 mapping events back to back and a geo walk. We also successfully did the Google I/O extended with GDG. We initialized new initiatives such as online lecturer evaluation in conjunction with Google Nairobi office. We are in talks to get student clubs to use groups, notable Christian groups and to get JKUAT to make apps training compulsory for all. The e-mail activation is also up by a big margin. In addition to that, we have not stopped planning and holding events. One last mapping is going to be done as well as a Google Solve for X event.
How has my personal experience been? GSA has opened a new world for me that I
hadn't yet discovered. I learned more about new technologies and applications
than I had ever done on my own. From Google drive to groups to mapping to
online courses from Google. I've done a lot and this has been wonderful.
I've always had a passion for learning and for teaching and being a GSA helped me achieve my passion for training/teaching others. I always enjoyed training others, so much so, that I would learn new things to teach others. I could train for hours on end and the students would more often than not enjoy it.
Being
in a team of GSAs has helped me hone my skills in teamwork as well as learn
valuable skills. I admit that I’m not the best when it comes to teamwork and
that I have a lot to learn but it is because of GSA that I have learnt about being in a team and working as a team. I know how to listen more, be more
specific with my words, say ‘we’ more than ‘I’. Hard lessons but something
worthwhile nevertheless
I've learned a lot in organizing events from small scale to large ones. Several mistakes were made, many of my own making but the value is in the learning and adapting to new situations based on past experiences and mistakes. One has to learn how to deal with large impatient crowds, no shows by many students, zero excitement students, non-responsive students as well as those that are super charged and fire off questions that leave you wondering what to say. One even has to learn how to take disappointment and soldier on knowing that things will get better
Dealing with administration is always an experience with interesting and strange procedures. Things don’t happen as quickly as we would like. But sometimes they can surprise you and give you more than you asked. The trick is to work together and find ways of getting to the goal while adjusting the route.
I’ve always been a default leader in my own circles, but being a GSA helped me improve on many of the leadership skills. I’ve met interesting and wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful) people that have helped me develop myself as a person.
More so than anything else, I strongly believe that we have made an impact in JKUAT. That we have added and built on top of what the previous GSAs did at JKUAT. We believe that communication has been made easier, collaboration has been widened, people reached out and integrated into the mainstream university activities and that students have benefited from the exposure to the amazing Google technologies and services.
That’s
a lot and still so much to write. In one word...Extraordinary!
Thank
you
GSA, Kenya
Always Doing Cool Things That Matter!
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