‘My passion is driven by solving tech issues’

Olaide Kehinde is the CEO of Kenny’s Tech, one of the leading mobile phone technicians in Ibadan, with over 10 years experience in the profession. In this interview with ADEKUNLE SULAIMON, he speaks on how passion, and not education, has turned him into a notable name in the tech value chain business.

How would you describe your journey into mobile and tech business?

Mobile technology has always been my passion and I joined a repair shop at Dugbe phone market, a replica of a computer village in Ikeja after my secondary education. As a mobile phone technician, I focused more on micro soldering problems particularly those that are prevalent on Samsung, Huawei and iPhone gadgets because they are becoming the most rampant phones with frequent up damages.

How did you learn to repair apple gadgets bearing in mind that it’s a complicated phone that has all its chips on a small integrated circuit?

Although I started with the repair of simple phones in 2011, but I made an issue to always develop myself on the job, adding some notable phone engineers on social media platforms and joining phone repair pages to get some other basic knowledge. After a while, I began checking YouTube too for different solutions especially when I’m stalked while repairing. One day, I met a group of engineers from US, who suggested that many of us seeking knowledge join a group created by them and I paid to learn some basic faults in iPhone and Samsung gadgets through the platform. This was what led me to save up to buy basic tools that are mandated to perform well in the job. I also connected with some Chinese folks whom my then boss, a phone repairer order tools from to suggest me to phone technicians they know. They did and from them, I learnt so many things that I now enjoy today, in fact, most of the time, when clients bring damaged phones for repair and I don’t have an idea what is going wrong after several experiments on it. I immediately engage them to help with a quick Do It Yourself (DIY).

What have you done to improve your knowledge as a mobile phone technician?

Actually, I don’t have tertiary education because I don’t want to deceive myself by going to school to learn what I don’t have passion for. With several attempts to get a phone repairing school in Nigeria, none proved successful, I, therefore, spoke with those my Chinese friends who I paid in dollars to put me through the process of registering in a phone repair school, they suggested many and I had to choose the one that teaches in English in most of their class activities and that really was a turnaround for me on this job. Aside from this too, I have learnt to know the common faults of iPhone gadgets, I could tell the issues that iPhone 6 to 12 usually have. This helps to ease my job even before disassembling the gadget.

What are your challenges in this field?

Firstly, the money involved in buying equipment to work is so huge that many of the people run away from the profession even after learning and knowing it well. Another is some other technicians trying to tap ideas from your skill not knowing what you have put into consideration to acquire it. Then, the major challenge is the volatile economy that has affected the price of accessories we get from China; it’s not about the Chinese currency, but we always change the currency to dollars before trading and when we tell customers about this situation, it always end in unhealthy arguments considering the situation of things in the country.

How do you think the government can come in?

The government should help us with the stability of naira and dollar dichotomy. It will ease the mode of getting accessories and it will greatly help people to save a little while repairing their gadgets.

When was your best time on this job?

I grew up to learn about phone repair and it has left me with several questions, one of which is if the job can go into extinction, then I realised that it won’t because more gadgets are being produced and people are getting to love the functions of those smart phones. While most of the gadgets develop faults randomly, others are caused. Honestly, there’s no time I don’t enjoy doing the job because I get to either learn new thing or try new method to a solve a problem associated with the gadgets. I just want to be able to deploy 1000 ways to repair a fault so I don’t stop learning.

What are you doing differently among other technicians?

I don’t only learn to repair phones; I also learnt the major components on the panel to be able to troubleshoot faults when the need arises. I get equipment for the little process of repair that most engineers haul basically to make my work more professional and neat. In fact, one of the reasons why I’m patronised by some of my other engineers is because of my state-of-the-art tools, most of which I knew about why training in the Chinese school of phone repair. So, when I repair, I make sure that the gadget is just as neat as it is brought or even neater.

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