Country of Residence
Nigeria
Age
19
Project title
Civil Tech Hub
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Reducing the gap between classroom and practical field knowledge
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chika-asogwa-4439b4374?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app
Project Category
My project is a brand new / emerging idea
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I was in my room one day wondering Enginering in Nigeria don't get to practice due to some limitations but the resources to sponsor every undergraduate's internship or practical work will be too much for me So this Idea just clicked what if you could create a platform where students can learn what is going on in the country and and abroad with regards to their field and learn from those who are already practicing by engaging in webinars and also many other channels which started entering my mind as I kept thinking about it
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
What am optimistic to solve is reducing the gap between the classroom taught theory and field knowledge very significantly Now in Nigeria and the Modern World it is sad to know that most Engineering students who are being taught in the University graduate without prior knowledge of what their field requires in the practical aspect some require knowledge of certain applications, some knowledge of the ongoing innovations, some knowledge of the already existing technology being used and many more and this has caused a huge challenge to students and the nation at large. Students are constantly graduating without having most of this knowledge and civil Tech Hub intends to solve this problem.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Civil Tech Hub solves the problem of unequal access to modern engineering knowledge by delivering it directly, daily, and for free, through WhatsApp — the platform Nigerian students already use every day. In practice, this works through a structured content system. Every day, I research and design a "Daily Engineering Brief" covering four rotating series: Engineering Marvels, Infrastructure Projects, Futuristic Innovations, and Breakthrough Materials. A student scrolling through WhatsApp sees a global mega-project explained or how AI is changing structural design, all in under two minutes. This eliminates three major barriers at once. It removes the cost barrier, since journals, courses, and software licenses that would normally cost thousands are compressed into free daily content. It removes the access barrier, since no app download or international payment card is required. And it removes the consistency barrier, since students get structured knowledge daily. Going forward, I am expanding this into interview videos with real practicing engineers, sharing what daily engineering practice actually looks like beyond the classroom, alongside short structured courses and webinars that go deeper than a daily brief can. AI will also power short-form video content on civil engineering facts and architecture, and eventually a dedicated mobile app delivering all of this in one place. The solution is not just information delivery. It is building sustainable infrastructure for engineering education itself.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Civil Tech Hub started as a personal response to a gap I felt deeply as a civil engineering student — the disconnect between classroom theory and the real, modern engineering world. I built a free WhatsApp-based daily engineering education channel with no funding and no team, just a phone and a decision to start. Today, Civil Tech Hub has reached over 1k followers across Nigeria, with over 130 Daily Engineering Brief editions published. Our content covers global infrastructure marvels, breakthrough construction materials, futuristic engineering innovations, and how AI is transforming civil and structural engineering practice. The impact goes beyond numbers. Students who could never afford expensive engineering journals, international courses, or professional software subscriptions now get daily, digestible, professional-grade engineering knowledge for free, delivered on a platform they already use. Looking ahead, I intend to scale this into a mobile application powered by AI — generating personalized short video content on civil engineering facts and architectural innovation, automating learning tracks across engineering disciplines, and eventually reaching engineering students across Africa. The vision is simple: no student should be limited by what their classroom alone can teach them.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
What makes Civil Tech Hub different from existing engineering education solutions is where it lives and how it is delivered, not just what it teaches. Most engineering education platforms assume the student already has reliable data, a laptop, and often an international payment card. These assumptions exclude the majority of Nigerian engineering students, including myself. Civil Tech Hub flips that assumption entirely — delivering world-class engineering knowledge directly into WhatsApp, a platform every Nigerian student already has open daily. The innovation is also in the format. Rather than long lectures or dense academic papers, content is compressed into visual, scannable Daily Engineering Briefs designed to be understood in under two minutes. Where I am taking this next is where the deeper innovation lies. I plan to introduce interview videos with real practicing engineers, giving students honest exposure to what the profession actually looks like beyond textbooks — something no free platform currently offers Nigerian students. Alongside this, I intend to run short courses and webinars on specific engineering software and concepts, taught by both myself and guest professionals. I am also integrating AI to automate short-form video generation on engineering facts, personalize content across disciplines, and eventually power a dedicated mobile app with automated learning tracks. This transforms Civil Tech Hub from one person manually creating content into a full-scale, AI-assisted education ecosystem, while keeping everything free and accessible.
How many people are on your team?
1
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
For now I don't have a team apart from me although I intend to change that if given leverage to expand this initiative. This people will be students like me who are passionate about changing the society and are also equipped with at least some knowledge of how AI is being used in the current Engineering Industry, I already have some of them in mind one of them actually helped spark the idea but as I said I intend to form a great formidable team if given the opportunity to expand the Idea.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next three months, my priority is introducing two new content formats to Civil Tech Hub: interview videos with real practicing engineers, giving students honest exposure to the profession beyond the classroom, and short webinars covering specific engineering software and concepts. I also plan to start generating AI-powered short-form video content on civil engineering facts and architectural innovation, testing formats across WhatsApp Status, TikTok, and Instagram Reels. I intend to recruit a small founding team — starting with a graphic designer and a content researcher — to reduce my current one-person bottleneck and support video and course production. Over the next year, the goal is to expand into structured short courses taught by myself and guest professionals, grow interview content into a recurring series, and onboard student ambassadors at other Nigerian universities like UNILAG, UI, and ABU Zaria to grow reach nationally. The long-term next step is building a dedicated mobile application, connecting Claude AI through a higher-tier subscription linked to a laptop to automate content generation, video production, and personalized learning delivery — transforming Civil Tech Hub into Africa's leading engineering education platform.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
Actually making others involved or part of it isn't actually a problem I already have someone who I have shared the progress I have made so far with. He has to be the one who helped spark the idea but for now I just happen to have some other people know about what am doing and haven't formed a unit team yet. But in the future when the resources to expand this idea comes I will make sure that everyone in my department and level of study gets to know of this initiative after I have talked with the Public relations officer of each department and will set webinars to introduce more people and also use my social media handle to reach a wider audience
