I could not enrol at university
My family was poor. After secondary school, I could not pay for university.
For years my plans stopped there, against a wall that had nothing to do with my work or my results. Merit was not enough. It never is, on its own.
Then I met someone who knew
In 2015 a mentor showed me how scholarship applications actually work. Not encouragement: a method. What a panel is really looking for, how to target the right programmes, how to build a coherent case, how to hold a calendar.
I won a scholarship. Then another. Then another.
What it produced
More than 20 scholarships, awards and grants. More than 100,000 dollars. A PhD in genetics and plant breeding.
I crossed Africa and Europe without paying a cent of my own. I was received at the FAO in Rome, at IFAD, and at the European Commission in Brussels, where I shared what I had learned about applications with an international audience.
I now live in Germany and work at IPK, the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research.
Why Unlock It Now exists
Between my blocked years and everything that followed, there is one difference: someone who knew, and who was willing to tell me.
I invented nothing. I was lucky enough to meet that person. Most candidates never do, and they give up believing the problem is them.
Unlock It Now exists so that it stops being a matter of luck.
What I am not
I am not a funding body and I award no scholarships. I guarantee no admission, no funding, no visa: those decisions belong to the institutions and to nobody else.
I do not write applications for candidates. I bring strategy, structure and a demanding eye. The work stays yours, as it was mine.
Verifiable
You do not have to take my word for it. Here is where these grants and awards are published, by the bodies that awarded them.
I could not enrol at university
My family was poor. After secondary school, I could not pay for university.
For years my plans stopped there, against a wall that had nothing to do with my work or my results. Merit was not enough. It never is, on its own.
Then I met someone who knew
In 2015 a mentor showed me how scholarship applications actually work. Not encouragement: a method. What a panel is really looking for, how to target the right programmes, how to build a coherent case, how to hold a calendar.
I won a scholarship. Then another. Then another.
What it produced
More than 20 scholarships, awards and grants. More than 100,000 dollars. A PhD in genetics and plant breeding.
I crossed Africa and Europe without paying a cent of my own. I was received at the FAO in Rome, at IFAD, and at the European Commission in Brussels, where I shared what I had learned about applications with an international audience.
I now live in Germany and work at IPK, the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research.
Why Unlock It Now exists
Between my blocked years and everything that followed, there is one difference: someone who knew, and who was willing to tell me.
I invented nothing. I was lucky enough to meet that person. Most candidates never do, and they give up believing the problem is them.
Unlock It Now exists so that it stops being a matter of luck.
What I am not
I am not a funding body and I award no scholarships. I guarantee no admission, no funding, no visa: those decisions belong to the institutions and to nobody else.
I do not write applications for candidates. I bring strategy, structure and a demanding eye. The work stays yours, as it was mine.
Verifiable
You do not have to take my word for it. Here is where these grants and awards are published, by the bodies that awarded them.