Olubukola “Bukky” Babajide, founder of Female Techpreneur and a newly appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire, says her Nigerian banking years counted for little when she first looked for work in the United Kingdom.

In an interview she described taking an administrative job because employers did not readily accept her degree and experience from home.

Surrounded by relatives in information technology, she retrained, moved from accountancy to digital work and later built an organisation to help women get tools, skills and a route into tech.

She founded Female Techpreneur in 2020 to close what she calls a gap between talent and opportunity, especially for women who sit outside the networks where capital and jobs actually move. The MBE, published in the London Gazette, still surprised her. She said she did not build the work for honours. Service came first.

For her the title means a starting point does not have to decide where the work is recognised. That is the migrant version of the story many Nigerians already know: a solid CV at home, a reset abroad, and a second career built in public.

Babajide now uses the recognition to tell others the same thing she had to live start again if you must, but do not stay invisible.