Hillary’s story

How it started

I trained as an artist first. A B.Ed in Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Nigeria, then eight years teaching art and creative writing to teenagers. Somewhere in those years I founded ThinkArtz Africa, a virtual teaching group for young creatives in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, because the students who wanted more were never only in my classroom.

Witugo

In 2021 I founded Witugo Media in Asaba and ran it as creative director for three years. We did brand identity, websites and content for business clients. I built the company’s own identity, directed the client work, and trained the team to write and to build and manage websites until they no longer needed me in the room. The company is still active. I stepped back from the day to day in 2024.

Publications

I have worked on technology publications since 2018, as a content manager, an editor and a writer. At TechAnnouncer I wrote the editorial strategy the whole team worked from. In 2025 I founded StrideNote, an independent research publication that tests AI models and tools on its own hardware and publishes the evidence. I own its editorial, its brand, its product and its distribution.

Immersive technology

In 2026 I finished an MA in Applied Immersive Technology at Teesside University, with Distinction. My research was a quantitative study of micro-facial expressions in MetaHumans: study design, survey instruments, statistical analysis and real-time character work in Unreal Engine, defended at viva. It taught me to measure what I make.

Things I love

Ink. I draw ideas about the human condition in line and colour, and the drawings live at Lineoften. Words. I write and perform poetry, and spoken word is where my sense of rhythm comes from. Light. I walk the Thames estuary at Purfleet with a camera, and a photography series about the container yards there is in progress.

How I work

Verify, do not trust: a verdict comes from using the thing, not from reading about it. Specify, do not gesture: exact parameters beat “make it look good”. Build the system, not only the output: the taxonomy, the rules and the conventions, so the work is repeatable and legible to the next person. Stay the principal: tools draft and execute, I direct and judge.