Thirteen-year-old Nigerian-born Emmanuella Mayaki has set a new record as one of the youngest to be accepted into a university in the United States.
Mayaki was accepted into the Programme for the Exceptionally Gifted at Mary Baldwin University, US, to study computer science in the spring.
Mayaki’s admission letter reads, “Dear Emmanuella, congratulations on your acceptance to the Programme for the Exceptionally Gifted at Mary Baldwin University! Welcome to the PEG class of 2026.”
She scored a 91 percentile mark of 1,300 on her Scholastic Aptitude Test.
One of Mayaki’s accomplishments, at age 11 in 2020, was opening an information, communication, and technology academy for girls in Abuja, Nigeria.
The academy was her mission to provide sustainable empowerment for the girl child to acquire digital skills, close the gap in digital literacy, and train and equip youngsters with digital technology.
Mayaki said the academy had a vision of securing the future of the girl child.
The academy, named ‘CodeKid’, which was incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act 1990 on the second day of December 2020, with the registration number (RC: 1741234), was set up to train the girl-child on the basics of computer literacy, from simple Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint functions to more complex skills like programming and coding.
The young tech developer and the programmer have always nursed a strong drive to share knowledge and positively impact people, especially the girls.
This led to her decision to launch Nigeria’s after-school, weekend, and holiday clubs. Mayaki noted that this programming school was influenced by her experience with the United Kingdom after-school club experience, which she successfully duplicated in Nigeria.
Her focus is on the girl child who falls within the age range of 6 to 15, which includes a beginners’ class in information and communications technology.
Here, newbies to the endless possibilities of ICT are tutored on Introduction to Computer, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Desktop Publishing, WordPress, Graphics Design, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL, among others, such as object-orientated programming (Python and Java).
In addition, Data Science Nigeria invited Mayaki to speak at its interactive workshop for kids and teens, which was themed “How to Start a Future in Data Science and AI.”
In May 2022, STEM Kids New York City nominated her as a STEM icon. After researching social justice issues with its target audience for its app, the organisation then named her as its inspiration.
Mayaki was first offered a teaching appointment in the UK when she was 11 years old at Southfields Primary School in Coventry, England.
Her preferred area of study is in the field of computer science.
When she was seven, her passion for information and communications technology began with desktop publishing basics, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Corel Draw.
Her passion and rapid rate of learning the basics encouraged the young Mayaki to take online courses from SoloLearn and Udemy to gain more knowledge about programming languages and augmented reality.
She obtained several courses and certificates in pursuing this preferred career, including a certificate in HTML fundamentals, a certificate in PHP tutorial, a certificate in CSS fundamentals, and a certificate in SQL fundamentals.
She also obtained certificates in the JavaScript and JQuery tutorial courses. She received certificates in logic building, Python, and Java programming.
Mayaki was nominated to be featured as a recipient of Microsoft’s Legacy Project Virtual Museum’s Women’s History Month Experience in 2021.
She was also identified as one of our time’s most influential, ground-breaking female changemakers and an inspiration for young girls worldwide.
In 2021, she was featured in CBBC’s My Life series for International Women’s Day.
