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About · Mr Iridescent
I am David Akpoviroro Oke — Mr Iridescent, the Creative Renaissance Man. I work as a growth hacker and growth partner to individuals, brands, and companies, with public relations and reputation management, content and film, and digital product delivery in the same practice. I am based in Lagos and work worldwide.
The range is intentional. I am an abstract conceptualiser and divergent thinker by temperament: I look for the pattern beneath the brief, generate options other people skip, and then build the thing. Engineering, design, narrative, security, art, and business stop pretending they are separate.
The long version
I have been online since 2002 and building for the web since 2004. My first years were spent freelancing across Nigeria, learning the fundamentals by shipping real pages for real clients — and learning that a good relationship is as important as a good build.
In 2015 I founded Iridescent Internet Solutions. The company was incorporated in 2017 and grew into a studio delivering web and mobile applications, secure systems, and digital strategy for startups and established organisations.
Between 2017 and 2019 I worked as a Digital Project Manager at ITChef Nigeria, translating client objectives into delivery plans and leading cross-functional teams. Later roles in SMS marketing, SEO, and email marketing added a growth lens that most engineers never get: the discipline of measuring whether the thing actually worked. In 2024 and 2025 I worked as a Growth Partner at Helpman Analytics, where data and positioning met the harder question of how a brand earns a room.
From 2021 onward I trained through Cisco Networking Academy and NITDA in CyberOps, ethical hacking, endpoint security, cyber threat management, and — in 2026 — network defence. That training changed how I build: threat models belong in the first design conversation, not the last sprint.
Alongside the engineering, I kept a parallel practice in image and story: writing, photography, video editing, shooting, and directing scenes. Dance and movement trained the timing I use in an edit; six languages trained the ear I use in a room. I am an art lover and appreciator, moving deliberately toward collecting and curating — looking longer, learning the history, and building an eye that can tell the difference between fashionable and true.
Today I work as a growth partner and Digital Product Delivery Architect through Iridescent Internet Solutions, helping people, brands, and companies find the angle, tell the story, and build the system that ships. I chair the Board of Trustees of FEPAR.africa — Festac PanAfrican Renaissance Initiatives and/or diaspora foundations, under the brand FEPAR.africa — and I studied computer science at the University of the People from 2024 to 2026. The chapters at Zandbox and Helpman Analytics have concluded; they stay in the timeline because the lessons did.
The through-line is not a job title. It is the habit of learning the domain deeply enough to find the real lever — and of leaving the place better than I found it, in code, culture, and climate.
The practice
The range is not a claim to be good at everything. It is a set of capacities that make the same outcome more coherent: the angle, the story, the system, and the taste that holds them together.
I find the angle, enter the new network, and protect the public record — for individuals, brands, companies, and institutions.
Writing, photography, video editing, shooting, and directing scenes. The content and campaign system that makes the growth visible.
Architecture, full-stack products, AI, automation, and security. A polymath coder who still ships and can explain the trade-offs plainly.
Art, aesthetics, and curation-in-progress. The references and judgement that make a brand feel inevitable rather than assembled. Collector and curator in the making — a way of training the eye, not a service I sell yet.
Experience
The roles, turns, and detours that produced the current practice.
Iridescent Internet Solutions Limited
Founded the studio in 2015 and incorporated it in 2017. Growth partner, architect, and delivery lead for full-stack products, AI systems, security work, brand platforms, campaigns, and the content that carries them.
FEPAR.africa
Building Festac PanAfrican Renaissance Initiatives — a Pan-African creative-economy incubator — and leading its board through public fundraising and programme design.
University of the People
Computer science fundamentals alongside full-time engineering work: Java programming, digital electronics, operating systems, databases, computer networks, machine learning and AI, and big data. Dean’s List, Term 5, 2024–2025 (CGPA 3.50–3.84). Programme dates June 2024 – August 2026.
Zandbox
Delivered fintech product work for a global user base. The engagement has concluded; the work remains part of the record.
Helpman Analytics and Insights Limited
Partnered with teams on data, analytics, positioning, and growth. The contract has ended; the growth discipline stayed.
NITDA / Cisco Networking Academy
Cyber Threat Management, Ethical Hacking, Endpoint Security, Network Defense, and CyberOps Associate.
Trinitas Foundation
Organic growth and fundraising campaigns for children’s education initiatives.
Michel Holmes Properties
Data-driven campaigns, A/B testing, and lead generation for real-estate clients.
ITChef Nigeria Ltd
Turned client objectives into delivery plans and led cross-functional teams.
Senior secondary school
Taught biology and other science subjects, an early lesson in explaining complex ideas simply.
Freelance · Nigeria
Started building web pages professionally in 2004 and freelanced across Nigeria — static sites, client platforms, and the first years of learning by shipping. Online since 2002; the work became a practice in 2004.
Civic & cultural systems
Two long-horizon projects: one for the roads people use every day, one for the creators who make the culture. Both are public, and both are honest about what is built versus what is designed.
Festac PanAfrican Renaissance Initiatives and/or diaspora foundations, under the brand FEPAR.africa
Founder & Chair, Board of Trustees · In development
A Pan-African creative-economy incubator: an Afro-futuristic ecosystem where art, community, and commerce converge, built to help African creators keep ownership of their work.
FEPAR.africa is being developed in Festac, Lagos as a digital incubator, agency, and community hub. The public fundraising campaign is the first step toward a self-sustaining platform for cultural sharing and economic empowerment.
Public campaignDesigner & engineer · Public repository
An AI infrastructure sentinel for Nigerian roads: computer vision, satellite context, and flood-erosion signals combined into a maintenance-priority system.
The shipped core is a YOLOv8 detection pipeline and an operator dashboard. The repository also documents institutional extensions — a traffic-authority command link, a contractor verification ledger, and coordinated aerial mapping — as designed layers, not finished integrations.
Read the case studyOperating principles
Name the problem precisely before reaching for a framework. Most complexity is unresolved ambiguity wearing a technical costume.
Threat models belong in the first design conversation, not the last sprint. Secure systems are easier to reason about and cheaper to own.
The best product decisions live where engineering, design, and business overlap. I work in that overlap on purpose.
A working system teaches you more than a perfect plan. Put it in front of people, watch what breaks, and make it better.
Every system carries an environmental and social footprint. Build for climate action, cultural sovereignty, and the long horizon.
Attention is easy to rent and hard to keep. Earn it with a clear story, a real offer, and a reason to come back.
Aesthetic judgement is trainable and it compounds. Study art, look longer, and edit harder than feels comfortable.
Renaissance manifesto
Seven Da Vincian principles, three pillars, and a modern Letter of Capability — the thinking behind the practice.
Read the manifestoGreen software & Agenda 2063
A public commitment to Green Software, the SDGs — especially climate action — and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
See the commitmentsEducation
Jun 2024 — Aug 2026 · Still on-going
University of the People
Programming (Java), digital electronics, operating systems, databases, and computer networks, with advanced coursework in machine learning and AI, and big data. Dean’s List, Term 5, 2024–2025 (CGPA 3.50–3.84). ORCID record 0000-0002-6340-2782.
Sep 2007 — Sep 2009
Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech)
A two-year foundation in spatial planning, land use, and urban systems — the origin of my interest in civic infrastructure.
Jun 2012 — Sep 2015
Les Cours Sonou University (LCS University)
Business, management, and people-systems foundations — the commercial literacy behind the delivery architecture work.
Apr — Jul 2017
Institute of Arts Management & Professional (I.A.M.P.S)
Graduate membership in personnel administration and human-resource practice. Teams are part of the system; this is where that discipline became formal.
Credentials
Training completed through NITDA and Cisco Networking Academy. Credential details available on request.
Now
Values
Want the short version, or the version with all the detours?
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