Livingstone Are

software engineer | react | next.js | typescript | ibadan, nigeria

Enrolled in university at 15. Built most of what I know from scratch — literally, on an Android phone, no laptop.

I make frontend-heavy full-stack products that solve real problems in Nigeria and beyond. A tax calculator, a scheduling PWA, the first BBNaija prediction market, a subscription platform with 2M+ TikTok views. Also building hardware — NFC attendance for Nigerian universities, backed by Bagel Fund, San Francisco.

15+

Software Projects

1

Hardware Project

$100

Grant | Bagel Fund

2M+

TikTok Views

HARDWARE LAB (THE EDGE)

UNITAP — NFC Attendance System lead hardware engineer

Mission

Replacing slow, fraudulent paper-based attendance registers at Nigerian universities. Tap your ID card against the module, and your attendance is logged instantly.

Grit

Built a fully operational physical prototype in 4 weeks on a strict $100 budget. Engineered it to operate completely offline because local campus connectivity is highly unreliable. Pitching it directly to my University VC next month.

Tech

ESP32, NFC Modules, Offline-First System Architecture.

Backed by a $100 grant from Bagel Fund, San Francisco.

jul 2025 – present

veroboard/breadboard prototype of the attendace terminal

Independent Products & Shipped Experiments

Farida ↗ Founding Engineer · Sole Developer

Dec 2025 – Jan 2026

The Execution: A Nigerian tax calculator that connects 29+ banks with the Mono API to aggregate financial records and calculate liability.
The Grit: Built as a heavy frontend full-stack product with a focus on speed, clarity, and real-world utility.
The Tech: React, Next.js, TypeScript, Mono API.

StudySync ↗ Software Engineer · Contract · Remote

Jan – Nov 2025

The Execution: A scheduling PWA built for students who need class planning that works with limited connectivity.
The Grit: Offline-first flow, OCR-assisted input, and fast class lookup to reduce friction in day-to-day use.
The Tech: React, Next.js, TypeScript, Firebase.

BETBBN ↗ Founding Engineer · Sole Developer

Jun – Sep 2025

The Execution: Nigeria's first real-money prediction market for Big Brother Naija.
The Grit: Live odds and websocket-driven interactions built for real-time engagement.
The Tech: React, Next.js, websockets, live odds systems.

HFLIX ↗ Sole Developer

Aug – Nov 2024

The Execution: A collaborative subscription-sharing platform that automates renewal reminders and splits streaming bill costs seamlessly.
The Grit: Built over 6 months entirely on an Android mobile phone. Scaled organically to reach #4 on Google SEO rankings and pulled over 2,000,000+ TikTok views with an absolute $0 paid advertising budget.
The Tech: React, Local Storage, SEO optimization frameworks.

SoundChat Sole Developer

Live

The Execution: A mobile instant messaging application where users transmit expressive audio memes to each other rather than standard plain text blocks.
The Grit: Built entirely on an Itel A56 Pro mobile phone. No laptop, no desktop, zero specialized hardware. Proof of pure engineering resourcefulness.
The Tech: React Native, Firebase Realtime Database.

VideoShazam ↗ Founder · Sole Developer

April 2026

The Execution: A Shazam-style tool for video clips that finds where a clip came from and returns a confidence score.
The Grit: Built to make clip lookup fast and useful for media discovery workflows.
The Tech: React, search indexing, media matching pipelines.

FastAI Done

Product Hunt

The Execution: A productivity tool that uses generative AI to instantly translate any textual content extracted from an image file. Launched twice on Product Hunt to gather immediate engineering and design feedback.

VerseSearcher Done

Weekend Build

The Execution: A lightweight web application crafted over a weekend to perform optimized song lyric indexing and lookups, custom-built for a friend.