Ijemma Onwuzulike ’19
Meet Ijemma, one of DALI’s former developers who currently works as a software engineer for Squarespace and is the founder of Nkowa okwu, an online platform designed to teach the Igbo language. In DALI’s first alumni spotlight, Ijemma discusses her memories of working and mentoring at DALI, how it prepared her for her career today, and her continuing relationship with the Lab.
Soon after beginning her life at Dartmouth, Ijemma realized her deep interest in computer science. Working at the DALI Lab quickly became an objective.
“DALI was like the premium spot where it felt like everyone who was really good at CS was working — and they were getting paid, so it was always kind of like a goal to be able to be a part of the Lab,” she said.
Unable to join the Lab early in her freshman year, Ijemma found her way into the Women in Science Project (WISP) — a collaborative learning, mentoring, and research program designed to promote the success of Dartmouth women studying the sciences. A separate program from DALI, some WISP interns work in DALI on their own projects. Through her work with WISP, for which she designed an app where students share their favorite dining hall recipes, Ijemma gained greater experience which enabled her to reapply and gain admission to DALI.
Ijemma’s work at DALI began in web development. One project was an iOS app called Heartstrings that “connected music to emotions and memories”; another, a web and mobile college student opinion platform, College Pulse, has grown into a successful company with the help of DALI and later YCombinator.
Ijemma’s greatest interest as a member of DALI centered on leadership. As an upperclassman, Ijemma took on greater leadership roles, becoming a member of DALI’s CORE — the Lab’s central student leadership body. As a student leader, Ijemma focused her attention on WISP, helping to restructure the program and providing mentorship and guidance to the students alongside DALI Faculty Director Lorie Loeb.
“When I became [a member of] CORE, that’s when it really clicked for me that I really had a lot more interest in helping women and people of color get into tech and doing CS kind of stuff,” she said. “When I took on the leadership role for WISPies, it was just nice to be able to get to mentor people who are really interested in CS or just trying to figure things out, and make it a lot less intimidating compared to when I was getting into [tech].”
Beyond gaining a leg up in CS classes as a result of practicing her web development skills at DALI, working at DALI also provided Ijemma with an accurate depiction of what a career in tech would look like, she said. In addition, connecting with DALI’s network of alumni yielded insight into what the day-to-day of a worker in tech looks like. Ijemma commented on how both the technical and non-technical aspects of DALI’s work — such as staying on top of the latest technologies as well as practicing collaboration and clear communication skills — benefited her transition to working as a software engineer for Squarespace in New York.
“The structure in which the lab works — in terms of having … engineers, designers, and [project managers] and having leadership and people working on individual projects is very representative of the structure that I have in my job right now,” she said. “It was very natural for me to be able to go from the DALI Lab over to my current job.”
Beyond her work for Squarespace, Ijemma also founded Nkowa okwu, a technology company that designs learning tools for the Igbo language. While Ijemma was growing up, her parents, who are Nigerian, deliberately did not teach her or her sisters Igbo so that they would all learn English properly. Despite a love of learning languages — Ijemma minored in Japanese — and wanting to learn Igbo, Ijemma found it difficult to assemble an effective collection of resources for learning or teaching the language.
The extra time presented by lockdown periods of the pandemic enabled Ijemma to pursue the project more extensively, creating in September 2020 a dictionary application programming interface on which users can search for a word’s definition information.
“Fast forward to now… [we have] a dictionary out, we have courses, we’re trying to roll out a mobile app. We’re just trying to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to search for Igbo words and learn Igbo without breaking the bank or taking up too much of their time,” she said.
Looking forward, Ijemma hopes to expand her startup beyond its current direct delivery to consumers into partnerships with businesses, organizations, or schools, who would be able to curtail the platform into specific courses for their members. Another goal is to build the platform’s machine learning ability, which would be used to translate English text into Igbo and vice versa.
As the leader of her own company, Ijemma said that she tries to emphasize characteristics of DALI’s work environment, including a strong work-life balance and maintaining an inclusive, welcoming, and casual work culture.
Despite her busy professional career post-Dartmouth, Ijemma has continued to work with DALI. With DALI Lab director and co-founder Tim Tregubov ’11, Ijemma is developing an online course teaching full stack web development — a term that encompasses building websites, servers, and databases, as well as how to scale applications to suit the needs of a customer base. Ijemma’s experience in teaching such skills come from her Youtube channel that she also started during the early stages of the pandemic. With scripts completed, Ijemma and Tim have been focusing this year on filming their course videos, making sure that they are inviting and straightforward.
“I don’t know what I was expecting post-graduation if I was going to be still in touch or connected with DALI, but I would say that DALI is probably one of the few organizations that I’m always happy to be reached out from,” Ijemma said. “I’m always excited to see new and different projects and initiatives being created.”
By Thomas Brown, DALI Lab Writer
