Ollys: Money, Skills & Habits for Young Africans

After going through layoffs, I asked myself one question: how can I become independent and employ myself? That question led me to AI training work. This guide covers what the work is, what it's really like day to day, how the pay works, and how to avoid scams. It's written from my own experience in Nairobi. The short version: AI training means helping AI systems get better by labeling data, comparing AI outputs, and checking quality. Pay and rules vary a lot between platforms, and accuracy matters more than speed. What is AI training? AI systems learn from examples that people check and label. AI trainers, also called data annotators or evaluators, do that checking. You might mark objects in a video, compare two AI-generated images, or rate which answer is better. The goal is to make the AI more accurate and more useful. The kinds of tasks I've done The work depends on the platform. In my case, it has included: Video annotation and comparison: labeling video c...

Hey there! Ever wondered about this digital magic called cryptocurrency? Well, buckle up because we're about to take you on a wild ride through the thrilling world of digital money! Picture This: Money Goes Digital Imagine your regular cash, but think of it living inside your computer, smartphone, or tablet. That's what cryptocurrency is – your money in a virtual form. It's like having a secret treasure chest hidden in your digital world. Exciting, right? No Banks, No Rules: The Freedom of Cryptocurrency What sets cryptocurrency apart is that it's not controlled by any government or big banks. Nope, it's managed by a community of tech-savvy folks just like you, making it super democratic and open to everyone. No long lines, no paperwork – just you and your digital wallet ready to conquer the financial frontier. Meet the Rockstars: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and More! Now, let's talk about the big shots of the crypto world. You've probably heard of Bitcoin – the OG, ...

 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most exciting and rapidly developing fields in technology today. From self-driving cars to personalized medicine, AI has the potential to transform many areas of our lives. But what exactly is AI, and what are the benefits and risks of this powerful technology? What is AI? AI refers to the ability of machines to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as recognizing speech, understanding natural language, and making decisions. At its core, AI involves building algorithms that can learn from data and improve over time. There are two main types of AI: narrow AI, which is designed to perform a specific task, and general AI, which is designed to perform any intellectual task that a human can do. Benefits of AI AI has the potential to revolutionize many areas of our lives, including healthcare, transportation, and finance. Here are just a few of the many benefits of AI: Increased efficiency: AI can perform tasks faster an...

Making money online has become more of a buzzword it sounds like the new trend in town to get into yet as simple as it sounds making money online is just like any other career out here. It requires discipline, commitment, and passion (yes it's that serious) in whatever it is that one is doing in exchange for those cha-chings. Updated November 2026: I’ve added practical ways to earn online today, including AI training work So before we go into how to make money online? let's put some basics down about making money online  1. It's not a get-rich-quick trick Think of it this way making money online has a seller and a buyer just like a typical marketplace, only that here you are not meeting person to person the difference or advantage though is that here you can sell to anyone as long as they are online. 2. it is not an easy escape Just like any other career making money online entails doing something or selling a product or service of value and getting paid for it. So just lik...

 Have you ever tried to create or form a habit? well if you have you know how hard it is to start a new habit leave alone sticking with the habit. This six-letter word can take you to unimaginable heights in the aspects of what you can accomplish and in the same way it can drag you to the gutters of life with bad habits. we cannot equate every aspect of our lives with habits but you will agree how we live our lives is for the most part controlled by habits. Talk of the kind of relationships, food, business, and life in general that we lead. Habits; are gained practices and molds systematically pursued until they turn practically unintentional. With this definition, look at the words "practically unintentional." This means that the habit is ingrained in you it is relatively uncontrollable. Concerning bad habits like procrastination, watching porn, junk eating, and so forth, it is so destructive. But with positive habits, this can be really, really good.   Basically, positive h...

 Hey, have you ever thought that the reason you are struggling with certain things in your life is because of something else other than you? Maybe how you are brought up affected how you view relationships, how you were treated in certain situations has made you change the way you view things, maybe a breakup made you declare there is no love out there, and so forth. I am sure almost every one of us has. Surely what any of us has gone through affects how we view and define these "things" in our life. Talk of relationships, money, and life in general. I mean it is only natural, We are wired the way our brains are created to be for us, to protect us, and thus if anything happens against what is expected it is a cause of alarm. In other words, if for instance what you have done before failed, it's only natural that when you have a chance to do the same endeavor you become alerted and you end up hesitating to do it, or not doing it at all. These "things" that do hap...

  Have you ever thought of achieving something? obviously, almost every single human has. Anyway if you have then you might know a thing or two about winning and what his brother called failure. Certainly, people who have tried to win have either won or lost.   Winning in anything either sport, business, goals, and so forth has one thing in common losing . Look at a winning team, a winning business, a winning individual, and the like. With a little bit of investigation, you will come to find out that they have lost in their practice and I might add they might have lost big time. Let me give you an example the successful company called Amazon, in 2014 produced a phone called the fire phone some analysts believed it would turn out to be a revolutionary type of product but a year later, the same phone was pulled out of production. Long story short it was a failure, and guess what was the cost? a whopping $170 million. Now as much as that sounds shocking the founder and CEO o...

Updated October 2026 Starting a new habit is hard. Sticking with it is harder. If you're a student, a young professional or a freelancer trying to build a better routine, these five morning habits are a simple place to start. They're the ones that have worked for me, and you don't need all five on day one. Why mornings? Your mind is usually at its freshest early in the day, before messages, work and everyone else's demands arrive. Small wins in the morning make the rest of the day easier. Remember that you're building habits, not ticking off tasks. Each one just has to become normal. When you make great habits, they take care of you. Quick summary: the 5 habits Wake up early Drink water first Make your bed Plan your day Add some music 1. Wake up early Are you a morning person or a night owl? We love putting ourselves in one of two boxes, but I believe we become who we choose to become. Here is what matters: you can never manage time....

 Hey, every day is an opportunity if you are up you have this opportunity at your disposal to do whatever you want with it. Now how you do it or what you do is your choice, for the most part, you have to maybe, go to work, do this and that, and so on and so forth. The fact is every day is an opportunity, this opportunity has a limit though for one it has 24 hours in each. Each opportunity comes with that limit you can not take more or less that's it. One person puts it this way "it is not the number of hours, it's what you put in those hours." Now surely I am not here to give you a miraculous formula for the 24-hour day opportunity we have, but I am here to tell you there is a way of dealing with this opportunity and that is it is not the number of hours you work per day, it is working doing what? it is not how busy you are, it is busy doing what? because let us face it you can be busy the whole day and still be doing nothing and you can be busy for an hour and be doi...

 Hey, what a year! surely if you have been in this year, you have seen some shit and I mean it, this is the kind of year that ends, and you say thank you to your God. I mean this year has had its highs and lows but something that will stand out is that it has taught us all some pretty important stuff. I remember vividly how 2019 was coming to an end and how I was looking forward to this year with all the aspirations and vigor to indulge in my activities and endeavors. I set the resolutions and boom the year started.  It picked off well until the pandemic was on our borders and now we had a master at our doorstep and environs dictating how we were going to live from thereon. The pandemic hit out of nowhere and soon what actually mattered the most mattered the least. People had plans to travel, take vacations, do stuff, this and that, but when the pandemic hit it was all about taking care and preserving the precious life they had. Perhaps this was to show us how we have taken wh...

 Hey, surely pandemics have always been with us right?, and as I should also say they are going to be with us. Let us face it there is another virus somewhere waiting to happen and I don't mean to scare anyone but to show what is actually reality. To be honest with ourselves the pandemics that do happen or will happen are usually 99% our faults caused by our negligence, carelessness, and so forth but also through good intentions like trying to experiment with a bunch of drugs to find a better one. Anyway, it should not be an excuse, as pandemics bring all the negative things that we all know yet funny enough through pandemics man has come out more capable and better with a drug to kill that virus and keep the virus in its place so to speak. But as much as pandemics come packed with all the negative stuff we should not forget all the good they come with. what do I mean you ask? pandemics come with their fair share of good talk the Covid 19 pandemic for instance I would say has come ...

Hey, change happens, as they say, "change is inevitable" but there is a transition that we all have to get involved in for it to survive. They say that "people are like sand they either nourish you and help you grow or stunt your growth until you wilt and die." Every one of us wants something good with our own intentions yet it is so evident how easy it is to forget other people are getting theirs too. what am I saying? change will never happen whatever that change is if we are not willing to step up and embrace it with all its shortcomings. Change is for every individual yet it is innate to us so much that it is difficult to accept it. Call it the truth that needs to be faced the ego knows this you want to know the truth but it is afraid of the truth. So often people say "change is difficult" but the truth is it is not, the resistance by our egos and fears is the one resisting to accept of the change. Recently I saw some African countries undergoing some ...

 Hey, now I have heard a very interesting day during my usual escapades on the internet and to be specific "Quora website" I came across I don't want to say dumb question(but I did) where the guy is asking what is the best hack to live your own life the way you want, and still achieve your dreams/plans/happiness/success and so forth? First, let us face it and you can take this to the bank and cash it "there is no shortcut to success" there is however a road to success and a price to be paid which every successful person has paid or rather will have to pay to achieve whatever success one seeks. Consider this example, I do not know if you are familiar with MotoGP racing, if you are not basically it is just a bunch of guys competing in motorbikes going at lightning-fast speeds. Anyway, long story short the competition has had some very good bikers but one that has stood to be the greatest is the Italian Valentino Rossi. During an interview, he was asked how does he...

 Hey, now as we all know people move with time right? how old are you? how long will this take? how far do we need to go? and so forth. Well, as much as these seem like important questions they are not that important. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know here is what I mean well as much as we should have one eye on the clock and another on what we are doing we should not be dwelling these on types of questions. What we should ask is how can I do it smarter? how can I achieve that? how can I be able to solve that? in other words, we should and we will ask questions but what type of question you ask is the key.  If you want to create/produce/accomplish/achieve/gain whatever it is, you should focus on content, quality, and how to do it smarter. Not self-sabotaging with questions and prejudging with queries like how long will this take? how fast can I achieve this? If you want to write a book for example you forget about the book and focus on one topic and narrow it down to writing 10...

 Hey, today I would like to talk about our games and how they should work for us. I know you are asking "playing our games?" what is this guy talking about? here is what I mean, surely every individual on this earth is different from the other right? talk of different characters, different faces, different fingerprints, and absolutely different lives. Even identical twins end up having different traits. Yeah sounds obvious but bear with me here. I think how an individual ends up and how he/she lives his/her life is determined by a couple of factors that I will not go into. What I will not dare fail to mention is the fact that one of those factors is the mother of all the other factors. In other words, this is a factor determiner of all the other factors and that is your belief of you.  Your belief of what you believe in. Here is what I mean surely you would have to agree that what you believe is imperative. I mean one lady even puts it this way "you become what you belie...

 Hey there, so today I would like to talk about you guessed it the internet. Now as we all know the internet has transformed our lives only in the form of entertainment but almost everything so to speak. I mean I can only imagine what those who lived before the internet era have to say if they had the chance to live in such times( wait are there no people who have lived in both? anyway I am not a historian). Just the other day I was watching some videos on YouTube and I came across this video where an entrepreneur was talking about how the internet has changed how businesses and the world operate and how eventually he predicts it will change even the school system if it has not already. I think the internet has not changed the world but it has revealed to us who we truly are right? think of how there are so many successful internet businesses it has not only become a tool to improve our lives but I think it has made us see how much we are the same than different. I mean talk of all...

 Hey, So recently I recalled a speaker back when I was in high school he walked in and said hi to us and he was very well dressed by the way suit and all I mean the guy was looking sharp. In my head, I am thinking "here we go another boring speaker who probably is going to give us some speech about how it was very difficult in the old days and how we were a lucky lot. But boy was I wrong! but long story short he stood at the podium and asked "which one of you here can tell me what is a six-letter word that can bring you everything you want, and at the same time make you lose everything you want?" The hall was full of silence you could slice it with a knife. "Anyone?" he insisted nobody's hands were up, I am thinking just get on with it. He pauses looks at the back of the hall then picks up chalk and writes on the board (HABITS). Looks at the crowd and everyone's faces brighten with some sort of realization. Like we knew the word we just could not figure...

 Hey, I think following your own trail is the most genius thing people do yet it is not rosy, I mean if you are having high hopes in your thing you know how hard it is for you, and you actually do it because it is the only thing that is giving you joy. If you haven't found anything of the sort you are even lucky what am I saying those who are lost are better than the found simply because there is a whole lot to explore, for the "found" it is a different story.  Let me explain, so very much we are into what is happening, we have the news with us, what is the hot cake of the day (I am not complaining though), I just think the most important thing is our news, our personal news, how are you doing I do not mean to sound corny but just how you feel. It is not going to guarantee any fortunes whatsoever though that's precisely how fortunes come. While you are being yourself and you do not let any destruction that is in the day get into who you are becoming you are going to e...

 Hey, I have used a title from a quote by Seneca("we suffer more in imagination than in reality"-Seneca) with no particular reason other than a frank intention that extensively explains what I want to share with you. It paints a very vivid picture of my massage. Anyway, with no further ado let us get into it. Let us face it we are always worrying, right? what will happen if I do not pass my exams? what if I do not get my diploma, my degree, or my Ph.D.? what will people say if I start a youtube channel? what will people say if I speak about this? what will people say I am not married and I am 35? just worry, worry, and more worry. While it might be fair to say that worry is a part of life and there is no one out there who does not. But what is very evident is that it just that like it is just thoughts on our heads playing over and over. So what is my point? Well as much as we always worry, sorry as much as we have to worry we should not let it dictate our way of thinking and ...

 Hey, do you remember that resolution you made this year? well, whether you made one or not that is not the point. Most of the time we always want to make the right choice, not that I am complaining, in fact, that is the most logical way of doing things yet when it comes to deciding we seem to not make a choice and move on with it and we fall into a pit we call agonizing. Agonizing looks something like this: "Am I sure this is the best decision ?" "what if I did option 3 instead?" "I wonder if I can go back and do it over?" If you have never fallen into such a pit consider yourself unusually fortunate, thank your parents for the good decision chemistry in your brain, and just read for the information. But if you are like most of us you know these are familiar questions. The reason we agonize is that we care for our lives and the lives of others. These decisions we make we know are important and we want to give the future its best possible chance. We want t...