People are still anxious about fairness and access since digital technologies change how people learn and work and the marketplace. While some communities thrive on connectivity, millions are still shut out.
Michael Uanikehi thinks that the talk isn’t only about new ideas anymore. It’s about inclusion.
“Having technology isn’t a luxury. It’s their right.” Michael, a Lead Cloud DevOps Engineer from Manchester, said, “One of the few ways to get out of poverty is to climb this ladder but only if they can get there.”
His point of view is shaped by a mix of professional knowledge and personal experience. Uanikehi has led DevOps and cloud infrastructure teams across Europe for the past ten years.
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He has helped businesses grow securely and effectively. But his main argument isn’t about tools or systems. It is about what technology makes possible when more people are able to participate.
He was quite interested in things as a child in Nigeria, but he didn’t have many possibilities.
He remembers taking apart radios to discover how they worked, going to cybercafés to learn basic coding, and working as an IT support person to get some real-world experience.
He became ready for his current job at Techchak, where he is in charge of cloud-native projects that are used in banking, transportation, and other fields.
“I saw someone in a small Nigerian town learn Terraform and Kubernetes on YouTube and then land a global role. It’s the infrastructure, the guidance, and the faith,” he said. “We don’t lack talent.”
He often mentors those who aspire to be engineers, especially those from underserved backgrounds, to figure out what to do with their lives and how to improve their technical skills.
Michael Uanikehi helps African tech professionals get jobs in DevOps and the cloud by giving them one-on-one mentorship and online training.
One of my favorite projects was migrating a CI/CD workflow from IBM to GitHub Actions.
There needed to be greater technical planning, better communication with stakeholders, and a change in the way teams worked. It wasn’t just scripts or servers.
We need to think about how people do things, how things work, and how the system operates. DevOps is all about building tools that can evolve with the times.
“It wasn’t just about scripts or servers. We had to think about culture, consistency, and how people work. That’s what DevOps is really about—building systems that support change.”
When asked what banks and other groups can do to close the digital gap, Michael doesn’t hold back.
“Remove the gatekeeping. Let people in. Data, devices, and freedom to learn. The next big digital enterprise may not be from London or Berlin, but from Aba or Kaduna. But we need to create conditions for that to happen.”
People recognize Michael Uanikehi for his leadership and technical depth. He has certifications from HashiCorp, Microsoft, and AWS, and he has created safe systems across public clouds. He does, however, underline that the most important task is just starting.
“I never thought I’d have the options that technology gave me. It’s important to me that other individuals have the same chances. That’s the future I care about building.”