Why This Is The Most Important Campaign Of 2024
Names have meaning. They have power (look up the term ‘nominative determinism’). They paint a story.
My name, Ndubuisi, derives from my Igbo, Delta State, Nigerian heritage and means ‘health is wealth’ – mainly given to me because I was born with, and live with, a genetic condition called Sickle Cell disease.
Carrying the name, Ndubuisi (don’t ask me to use phonetics because it doesn’t work) in the UK has provided hilarious, frustrating and tiresome moments. On the school register with supply teachers, you’d put your hand up to save yourself the embarrassment of another remixed version of your name. In any establishment that asks for a name, you give them your moniker – mine’s Andrew.
I’m someone who makes light of most situations, but sometimes—mainly when people openly choose to not listen or are willingly ignorant—it’s disrespectful. As per the examples of a hospital continuously typing my name incorrectly during a recent sickle cell crisis episode.
I know that I’m by no means alone. 41% of names given to babies in England and Wales are ‘incorrect’, according to Microsoft’s English UK dictionary.
Technology should be an enabler for societal improvement, but when a red squiggly line comes under your name, technology is doing the opposite. When the three letters you use to try and make life easier, Ndu, gets autocorrected to Andy, it’s a daily, unnecessary suggestion, that ‘you’re different’, ‘you don’t belong here’.
The #IAmNotATypo campaign is therefore not only extremely pertinent due to all the reasons explained, but it underlines the need for technology to do better. It’s not about diversity, it’s about inclusion, human truths, human insight, and human understanding.
This was executed to perfection and that’s why it won Campaign of the Year, as voted for by me.
Big up to the creators Lee Freeman, Alex Cooper, Cathal Wogan and all involved! Finally to Zara Bryson and the supremely talented Andrew Hudson for the beautiful gift they gave me recently to remember the importance of my name.
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