13-Year-Old Nigerian Emerges Africa’s Youngest Certified Amazon Web Services Developer Associate

Joshua Agboola. Image via LinkedIn

Joshua Agboola, a 13-year-old programmer and tech coach, has become the youngest certified Amazon Web Services (AWS) developer associate in Africa. This was after a two-hour examination that tested his knowledge and s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s in troubleshooting, deploying, and development on the Amazon Web Services cloud platform, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported.

Agboola, who describes himself not only as a programmer and tech coach but Future S𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s Activist, said he has been passionate about advocacy for the early teaching of tech s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s to young people. As one who started coding at age 6, Agboola said on his LinkedIn page that he is “quite comfortable” in programming with a number of languages and frameworks including HTML, CSS, Python, Javascript, Java, Jquery, C++, C#, PHP, Bootstrap, tensorflow.js, Laravel, Unity, and Love 2D.

He also has an interest in AI, Robotics and automation, and recently got curious to study more about the Cloud while working on one of his AI projects. It was his father, however, who encouraged him to further his knowledge about the Cloud and take on the AWS Cloud Practitioner test, he said.

“I was initially preparing for the Solutions Architect Associate certification which is the next certification most people take in their AWS cloud journey, but had a change of mind for a tougher developer associate certification due to encouragement from an older friend programmer,” the Nigerian teen told NAN Sunday, adding that he studied for about two to five hours daily for some six weeks in preparation for the test.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise defines cloud services as application and infrastructure resources that exist on the Internet. It says third-party providers contract with subscribers for these services, enabling customers to “leverage powerful computing resources without having to purchase or maintain hardware and software.”

With his recent feat in the cloud space, Agboola is currently looking at being the world’s youngest developer associate. He is also working on various projects including a Voice Assistant and a Swear Word Remover to protect the sanity of kids while browsing the internet.

The tech whizz further owns Joshfortech, a young enterprise that provides knowledge and s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 empowerment services and web solutions to businesses and individuals, his LinkedIn page says.