Impact Masters Podcast
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Impact Masters Podcast
#33 - DANIEL MWANGILA
When Daniel Mwangila speaks, you can't help but be transported to his childhood in Itiki, Tanzania, where his curiosity and love for technology first sparked. His journey is a testament to the power of nurturing talent and the importance of diverse forms of intelligence, both of which have been pivotal in his rise as a Scala maestro in the African tech scene. From tales of avoiding extra duties at a strict boarding school to self-taught coding sessions on a laptop with a broken screen, Daniel's anecdotes are a delightful blend of personal growth, laughter, and the occasional disciplined hustle.
In our heart-to-heart with Daniel, we uncover the layers of personal challenges and how they can fuel an intense professional focus. It's about finding the nexus between emotional setbacks and pouring that energy into work, something many can relate to but few discuss openly. Daniel's high school escapades, his clever avoidance of additional tasks, and the entrepreneurial spirit among his peers paint a picture of a vibrant, enterprising youth. Moreover, his reflections on navigating the expectations around academic success, juxtaposed with a burgeoning passion for programming, resonate with anyone who's ever felt the tug between societal labels and personal passion.
Amidst the laughter and shared memories, there's a serious undercurrent of support for the open-source community and the creators who lay the foundation for the tools we use daily. Daniel's candid discussion on the ethical implications of AI in development and the financial support for developers offers a glimpse into the complexities of the tech world. We also celebrate the contributions of women in tech, as Daniel warmly acknowledges the influence of his mathematically gifted sisters and mother. Listening to his story, one can't help but feel a surge of pride for the robust Rwandan tech ecosystem and the untapped potential across the African continent, eagerly awaiting its moment in the global tech spotlight.
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3, 2, 1. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes.
Speaker 1:It's another beautiful day, we're blessed to be here and we are Impact Masters podcast and Africa's Talking Podcasts. Bring you another awesome guest. We are covering tech ecosystem in Africa. We are telling stories that are never told and we have an amazing, amazing guest who, actually, we are honored to have today in this sitting, because African stories needs to be told by Africans and we understand the journey and ensure that we are building on that journey to make sure that we are self-sustainable, we are thriving, we are building scalable solutions and we cannot speak about these without actually covering the people who are movers and shakers. And today we are blessed to have Daniel Mwangila. Daniel Mwangila has done amazing stuff from the days of Andela to the days of APIs. The dude is like crunching Scala, like nobody's business. I think I'm talking to a guru here. So, daniel, how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're good, yeah. So welcome to the podcast vlog and it's brought to you courtesy of Africa's Talking. Africa's Talking provides SMS, ussd time data bundle, among other solutions, including Ilyrian, which is a customer data platform, and we ensure we're covering African stories by Africans and we are building on that to ensure that the tech ecosystem is growing In partnership with Impact Masters, which is showcasing impact of masters across Africa, people, especially in tech, who are building solutions that are scalable, a solution that are solving day-to-day problems. And I think, with that said, we'd like to know who is Daniel. He said the CV.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 3:So can you just consider me like a software engineer, Because before I discovered software engineer, I was that guy that was like I liked looking at complicated problems.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:I liked understanding complicated problems and find a better way of simplifying them. So during the days when I was still in secondary school I usually saw my sister doing computer science, because both of my sisters did computer science. So one day I just checked the content my sister was given in the university to some PHP Java code they were doing during that semester. So since I liked the complicated stuff, my sister actually challenged me. She was like okay, since you think like you're a genius.
Speaker 1:No, dude, you're a genius. But before even we go to your sister in computer science, where are you born?
Speaker 3:Daniel, I'm actually Tanzanian.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. Which village is that?
Speaker 3:So I was born in Itiki, in Manioni, manioni.
Speaker 1:Why is that? I've never heard of that before. The origin is the Singida.
Speaker 3:Because, like most people that are outside Tanzania, only know two places. Which is Arusha and Darisara and also Zanzibar. But some of us who are in the maybe a couple would know about the Doma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Doma is familiar because now it's a capital city.
Speaker 3:So I'm from Singida, which is part of Central Tanzania.
Speaker 1:Now I get what you're talking about. At least I have an idea.
Speaker 3:So it's like where I live is like four hours from the Doma, so usually it's like we are being overlooked. But that's why we are out here trying to make a change, because every person that I've met in Rwanda is like are you from Dar es Salaam? And the funny thing is I've never been to Dar es Salaam, even once in my life.
Speaker 1:In your life. How have you survived? The chief, my friend.
Speaker 3:First big city I had been to was Ambeya city, and from Beya city it was straight to Kigali.
Speaker 1:So you went to your. Is it Kidudo or Vidudo?
Speaker 3:Kidugatin. Yeah, we have a great school called Dura Fee.
Speaker 1:Is it a public?
Speaker 3:school, ah nice, a private one.
Speaker 1:Private school. So that's why you went for your Vidudo. Vidudo is like a primary of Kidugatin. You know, when you hear someone say in Africa, kidugatin, that's a cool kid. Yeah, so, chief, you went to Kidugatin.
Speaker 3:But anyway, after that one I went straight to government schools, which I was. I went to Itigi primary school. I came there from first year to primary six what did they? Say and from there. I just switched schools.
Speaker 1:I went to Pemba school. What did you switch?
Speaker 3:So my mom is a teacher, so she actually transferred when I reached to primary six.
Speaker 2:So we had to go with her.
Speaker 3:Now, sometimes, as kids of teachers, you have to go with your parents.
Speaker 1:Oh, because of a transfer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most of the time the parents would like to take the kids, because sometimes you find that this like once they leave, they feel like you'll be bullied by his other teachers or other students. So they have to keep a close eye on you. So, when my mom transferred you transferred with her.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, fair enough, and you transferred in classics.
Speaker 3:Yeah, P6.
Speaker 1:P6, primary six yeah.
Speaker 3:Actually our system, I think, is a little bit different from Kenya.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Kenya is class.
Speaker 3:It was P6. So, once I went to Pentagon I did P6 and P7. Then I graduated from there and went to St Carora's secondary school, which is a private school, a great school actually.
Speaker 1:St Carora. Is it a Catholic school?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a Catholic school.
Speaker 1:So this one. You finished your primary and did you do all the subjects or do you have to select some, as you almost graduate and I was studying at, so in primary I think it was nine subjects.
Speaker 3:Once you do the nine subjects you do even the national examination on the nine subjects. I can say like my academic career was not as if it was lacking.
Speaker 1:I was good. You were good with the numbers, with the literature, so you didn't struggle to get what is being taught.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like for me it was normal stuff.
Speaker 1:Did your parent be a teacher or you were?
Speaker 3:just smart, I'm just like one of those guys that you know. So the history with me in the academics was like when, I was doing primary one to four. I was just an average performing student and later on my mom was like okay, you are my kid right, at least you have certain standards you have to meet. And my father actually told me the same thing you cannot keep on with this grade because you're basically embarrassing your mom. So once I had that conversation, actually it actually hit me. I started actually studying harder.
Speaker 1:You started putting your best foot forward.
Speaker 3:So from primary four to up to I finished, I was like from ten. You will always find me around. One to five. Basically, one to five is B. I was actually. Since then, I was like the fourth one time, which was when I moved to the new school Penta. Gondi like smarter guys, like people actually put in the work.
Speaker 1:You are asking yourself I came from number one, now I'm number four. That was frustrating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course they actually needed to give me like, and I didn't have like what we call time to like adapt.
Speaker 2:So I had to adapt real quick. And I only had like two years and you know, in primary seven you can't like.
Speaker 3:It was like the final years. I was more focused on my national examination and making sure that I passed all my marks in the districts, whatever, yeah, nice, nice.
Speaker 1:So it was an experience for you because, either way, you're not struggling. Your mom is a teacher and they were not pressurizing you to perform. They knew your potential and beyond that, you know, were you a playful kid? Were you engaged in activities?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which activities.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:so when you meet me, I'm like this I'm very social, so most of the time Social, as in you know you want to talk to people or making trouble.
Speaker 3:It depends on how you look at it Because I could actually talk to anyone and anyone who felt comfortable talking to me, so I had like a lot of friends and you know like my mom was like treating, so my mom was a teacher since 83. So all she knows is classroom and how to treat students.
Speaker 3:So we find that she even takes the sentimentality back home and I had, like a lot of friends, so whenever they come to my house my mom will be like like the way she is. She'll be like one of those people that are serious and shouting. But if you're not used to her you'll feel as if she wants to like spank you or something. So people are like really afraid that coming to my crib. So, usually whenever I finish all my tasks at home.
Speaker 3:I will just go play football or just go work with a friend somewhere or just join someone if she wants to start here or she wants to start out, just joining in and start with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Just basically me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was your childhood, growing up, so did you play any games or?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I used to play football. Oh football, yeah, a lot of football.
Speaker 1:So a typical boy child, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Are you good at it? I can say I was good at football as much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which position so?
Speaker 3:usually since I was a big guy, since I was a young kid they always put me like a centre back.
Speaker 1:Ah yeah, is it next to the defender, after the defender, now the guy who distributes the football?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and sometimes I usually play like a defender.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:So also usually my position.
Speaker 1:Ah nice, Do you still play football Now? There's not much time.
Speaker 3:You have seen the body.
Speaker 1:Relaxation. Do you say yeah, so, yeah, so. I mean now you graduate from primary school. You do really well according to you know how you describe your positions and you join so.
Speaker 3:I go to a private school so I had actually. So you know, the government actually takes like those kids that have performed well in primary school. So for me, secondary school choices were, it was not a big thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Because I was already selected to go to a good school.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But my parents wanted me to go to a private school because my sisters also have been to a private school.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Most of my brothers studied in private schools.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:So that the private school ecosystem is much better for me. So they took me to a private school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so which private school is this? It is St Carol's, yeah, which is in Meisunas in Kido Meisunas, so it's not far away from home, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I'm like, I'm from like, I'm not from this, let's say the city. Yeah. I'm like basically in the suburbs, if you can say that, or in the district areas right. So it was like a two hour.
Speaker 1:Or two hour drive.
Speaker 3:It was like two to three hour drive on a bus. Yeah, you go there. Once you go, there you go. It was a boarding school.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you stay there for a couple of months and then, once you have a break, you go back home. Yeah, oh, nice, nice, nice. So I was boarding school for you. You get bullied or something that is ice cream right.
Speaker 3:You know, like if there's one thing about me, I'm not easily bullied.
Speaker 1:I'm like the big guy. He's bullying involved. You are on the other side of the bullying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, some people can call me a bully. I'm one of those people like when things are not going in. You know like I'm a bit a stickler for the rules.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, if you see that people are not like going on a straight line, it's like because if you get into trouble, I also get into trouble.
Speaker 1:But also you do it from the point of like it can be done better.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not like you want someone to feel down and all that. Yeah. Did you bully some guys joining from one? I don't know.
Speaker 3:Is there from one there or yeah, we have from one to four. Did you bully them. I can't say it's like bullying because I remember when I reached from three to four hours, perfect food perfect. Yeah, and I was very strict because, like when I just go to the job and I didn't expect to get the job the first year, so the first year my performance was okay, but second year I went through a phase. You know those were just doing adolescence.
Speaker 3:So I went through some troubles, like it reached the time that even the headmistress was like hey now you're becoming too much.
Speaker 1:Do you get suspended? Do you get expelled?
Speaker 3:Yeah, when I was actually in form one, we actually the whole class all the boys got suspended.
Speaker 1:What did you guys do? Did you burn the?
Speaker 3:school Actually, so the reason was like. Our quotas were not like up to par, they were not that clear.
Speaker 2:They got fed up.
Speaker 3:They were like okay, pack your shit and go home. Yeah, so when I went back home now my mom always find this is more stuff like we had. Where are you home? What did you do when I tell her this is what we were told that we were not keeping our quotas clear?
Speaker 1:So you're not doing the, you're not taking care of the responsibility that you're supposed to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because, like when you start, when you are at St Colour, there is something we call duties, where it's like you are given a certain plot of land or you are given a to take care of the hostels that are still there. Right yeah, like when you wake up first thing in the morning, when you wake up, you have to make your bed, it has to look proper. You have to organize your locker.
Speaker 3:You have to maybe take a shower and if you have like as a given you a small plot of flowers, you need to take care of it, then you have to do that. Yeah, now, when you're not doing that, that's where we talk about punishment.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Some classes because you have to go and do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:If you are one of those guys that likes studying and you don't want to miss certain subjects it was really actually taking a hit on you.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see Taking a hit on your performance, yeah.
Speaker 3:Now you find that there is that time where you find that the teachers are like every teacher is on your case until it's like Now you have to go home and decide what you want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need to refresh. He ate refresh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they kicked us and for like a week.
Speaker 3:Then we came back all of us, yeah. They accepted us back then. Everyone was like in the fold.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like everyone understood what is supposed to happen.
Speaker 1:You knew there is no joking around here. You have to do your duties. Yeah, you have to do your duties.
Speaker 3:But now when I eat her, when we I went for form tour like I had a lot of, I don't know what happened. I think that year was not my year because I was always getting into trouble. I was everywhere getting into trouble.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But punished by teachers. You did sneak out of school. I never did that stuff. I'm one of those good kids.
Speaker 1:But how did you get into trouble?
Speaker 3:I'm just a victim of circumstances.
Speaker 1:Every other person you live in jail. You go to prison and ask those prisoners what did you do to get here, or to get 10 years or five years? You know I'm a victim of circumstances, so no one considers himself, you know, being on the wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well for me there are some times I could admit that I was you said abscoding duty.
Speaker 1:What else did you do? Like one case, yeah, so you know.
Speaker 3:St Kauwaz was an English medium school, so you're supposed to speak English remain English, like you're supposed to be British, when you enter the school.
Speaker 1:And that was trouble time.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you're talking to someone you're not getting the proper vocabulary that you use, so you just switch back to Swahili.
Speaker 1:The easiest thing you know. Your cut Before I joined the power. I hated the power. The power everywhere. It was a way of escaping all this trouble.
Speaker 3:Like you find someone who names you and does something. And you know, sometimes when somebody writes you a name you try to threaten them a little bit like yeah. I would kick your ass or something. Now what you do is this person? Remember, we are all kids there right. So you find that person will go and tell the teacher or the class teacher. Yeah, you find someone is generally afraid and they will tell the teacher and whatever.
Speaker 1:And you're just trying to scare them away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because sometimes, like you found, like in one month, I'm like it's typical Swahili speaker and I'm like but I'm good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's the problem? Why am I always here?
Speaker 3:Like I feel somebody was like on my case even on days. I didn't speak a leak of Swahili. I was like, the next day I was there. I was like is this guy trying to fill a coat or something? Actually, the teachers got fed up. I went to some. I was always getting in trouble with teachers. Even my performance went to.
Speaker 1:But do you think people should be forced to speak English? You know, because I don't think that in the US or UK or English speaking languages, people are forced to speak Swahili. Even that I don't think. Even they're forced to speak the English.
Speaker 3:It's a Kenyan? Yeah, you guys are at least, even if you are ghetto you know a leak of English. We, like you know, in Tizi, we have like too many tribes. You find someone to grow up around speaking his vernacular language since he was like three years old. Then he goes to school. He learns Swahili.
Speaker 3:Remember, no one liked English no one liked Swahili, so no one was actually speaking Swahili or English. And remember, this is a public school, no one speaks it. So when you go to an English school, they try to create that as your new norm, even in a situation in the future, like if you are put in a situation where you are supposed to speak English you are able to speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a good thing. Yeah, it's a good thing.
Speaker 3:Because, like I'm seeing it now, because I've been through the process and I've done it and I've seen the benefits of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the people who can't speak English, how much they are disadvantaged in the ecosystem.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but if you came to me during that time, how Like?
Speaker 1:I passed my exams. What was the problem with you people? But do you think being smart? Also? Because, also, I find it really that most smart people always get in trouble. I don't know if it's because they are smart and they are bored and they want to do something different.
Speaker 3:Victim of circumstances.
Speaker 1:Or smart people are victim of circumstances.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, you find it. Let me tell you something. Yeah, the way from my experience, the way I grew up no one liked a smart guy. No one like asked a lot. Like no one liked a smart guy. So you know that, like if you know you are smart and you know you know a lot of things, you have to dumb it down to the level that at least people can come to you. You can have a conversation, a normal conversation, where the other person is not feeling as if he's less than you.
Speaker 1:Ah, I see, I see, and that's really killing your brain, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because, at the end of the day, if you are too smart, you find yourself. You only have like two or three friends. You can have a conversation about certain stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, psychological. Is that why most smart people are introverts?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Just trying to avoid all this.
Speaker 3:Because, like, it reaches a time, like if you know something to be true and you are telling someone like this is true, and that person does not accept it. You have to, like take too much energy to just convince this individual like this is true, and this person is still saying, no, why would I be around you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I'm already stressed, just trying to convince you that this is true. Yeah, no, I mean, I get it. I get it. So in high school you just survived from from the renault got serious, I never did high school.
Speaker 3:Actually, I never did high school.
Speaker 1:So because, like, what I mean you know when I say high school you'll forgive me for mixing things up. I know that there is all level, a level then high school, a level is in high school, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then there is a university or technical colleges, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but technical colleges. You can even move from all level to technical college.
Speaker 1:So when you say in Kenya, when you say high school, you just mean secondary school? Yeah, so you can correct me anytime. I mix both, but you went to all levels.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's where you are, from one, from two.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so yeah. So from one from two. I had a lot of problems and it reached a time it just clicked Be invisible Say this you know that guy that just shows up, does his thing. Yeah, I disappeared.
Speaker 1:You are there, but you're not visible.
Speaker 3:I swear to God, even the next time the headmistress saw me, it's like I didn't kick you out of school.
Speaker 1:You mean, if you that was the headmistress?
Speaker 3:Like. The only time a teacher could have seen any mention of my name is when they received my exercise book for Maki, Because I was that good.
Speaker 1:How did you manage that?
Speaker 3:Be a ghost, say less.
Speaker 1:Say less.
Speaker 3:Make sure you follow at least, even if you can't do 100%, make sure you do at least 80% of all schools.
Speaker 1:Requirements and don't make trouble. No one will know you exist there. You don't associate too much.
Speaker 3:Only associate in closed areas with people that you know no one will snitch.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a curtail business. I'm telling you people were looking.
Speaker 3:There was a time when people were like once I started being a ghost prefix didn't have a common name. You would find like when you go to sleep at night because we had those night prayers or whatever. So once you are done there you go to sleep. When you are preparing yourself to sleep you find the prefix is moving in there In those windows you have to find people's prefix. So I was 100% English all day. I even dreamed in the thought in English.
Speaker 1:And what made you make a switch. Or you realize that this is serious and equal. It's not beneficial because, at the end of the day, you go back, you bring bad results to your parents.
Speaker 3:Your parents are like but, you used to be smart, that's the statement that I hate the most If you are smart, you are always smart.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm telling you.
Speaker 3:If you are smart, you are always smart. People like to tie smartness to academics.
Speaker 1:Which makes us theory, and ability to cram and integrate what we have.
Speaker 3:A dude can walk out of the streets come here. If he knows how to read, he can claim Like if you are smart you are always smart.
Speaker 1:If you are smart, you are always smart.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm telling you, if you are smart, you are always smart. People like to tie smartness to academics, like cram all the material To the point where if you ask him a question he answers and you call that guy smart. For smart people it just reaches a time when you are just off of the book, you are mind is somewhere else.
Speaker 1:You have to figure out something else. And you can't measure that, you can't test that, because now, that's when you are able to create something new.
Speaker 3:That's why they have IQs.
Speaker 1:So IQ is the proper measure of smartness.
Speaker 3:To some point.
Speaker 1:What is your IQ, Chief?
Speaker 3:I've never tested a man.
Speaker 2:I would end up being embarrassed, I would have IQs of 85.
Speaker 3:In your brain.
Speaker 1:You are like you think you are this genius, you should try it, Maybe off under the table for your own discretion.
Speaker 3:So the way I like to impress myself if I get like 100 in something people won't sleep People won't sleep. That's why I try to humble myself by not doing it.
Speaker 1:But you are good. The guys I've had talk about you. They talk positively in high regard of what you do and how you do it, and actually talk more about that as you go on.
Speaker 3:So if there is one thing I can say about being around me, I like to make an impression. Like anyone out there, you know, sometimes you cannot be that guy that is always on the spotlight, but when you get to the spotlight you have to make sure that you make an impression. It's like a callback effect.
Speaker 1:Now you are coding, you won't see it now.
Speaker 3:But later on when you are cheering, it just hits you. But that guy was funny, that guy was smart.
Speaker 1:He didn't look really smart, but what is this? That's what I am looking for I mean, it makes sense.
Speaker 3:That's what I usually look for.
Speaker 1:So you are this guy who you like people to perceive you like another ordinary guy, but deep down you know, if things get done, you get things get done.
Speaker 3:That's the way I like it. At the end of the day, you have to be able to have a conversation with everyone, because the mission is not just to have a conversation with other smart people, other people at your level. The mission is to have a conversation with everyone. So when I was growing up, I had friends that were smart. I had friends that were average. I had friends that were not low average.
Speaker 1:They were just dumb, they were like, let me tell you something they were like let me tell you something. There is a friend you just know, daniel, I am sorry to say it, but it's just that guy that, whenever you meet that dude.
Speaker 3:you are like, I can't tell him nothing, you can't understand anything.
Speaker 2:It's one of those stones.
Speaker 3:That is very fixed. So you have to start it Speaking stone language, which?
Speaker 1:is stone language.
Speaker 3:If someone will say if you meet someone, Benzema is the guy. You can't even tell him about a mess, you can't tell him about anything. You just have to praise Benzema, because you still need to have a conversation with this guy, because at the end of the day, everyone is useful in his own way. Everyone has something in their life. So even those guys that I didn't consider as a low average, they had something to offer.
Speaker 1:True, true, true. Everyone is here for a specific purpose and that's why I like what you're saying. You should not write anyone at any level, and everyone is important. If you're not important, maybe you're dead or something, because beyond this, god has a plan for each and every person who is alive, and even those who are dead. I think they serve their purpose in one way or the other, or maybe people learn something through them living.
Speaker 1:But I get what you're saying and maybe we need more research on how do we measure people's purpose instead of people's smartness or IQ, because if you're able to do that, then you're able to maximize each and every person's potential in a positive way, because, think about it, the guys maybe we say they're not so learned or so smart they help with other things that are really good, and I'll give you an example. So I think you've gone where there is these flowers which are well cut, well shaped. Every of us should say who did that work? And if you think about that person, you would know that person for someone, maybe who could not really do anything important. But if you're given that work yourself, do you know you could do it really badly?
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 1:And I'm telling you this because I've ever tried to do that work practically. But I was doing community work.
Speaker 3:But for me I would do it good, you would.
Speaker 1:You would.
Speaker 3:So if there's one thing I like about studying at St Carlos, they give us the duties and the tasks that you work on. In the sense you can even apply in real life.
Speaker 1:So we're also cutting our own fences we're also cutting our own glasses, and everything and ship it like someone's air. Yeah, where it's level.
Speaker 3:My friend. There were some guys that were so good Like even if you work with them, you know this job is going to come out really nice.
Speaker 1:And that's day one, the first time you did that job.
Speaker 3:Actually, when we started doing that job, you have to actually have like a senior in like form two or form three or four To show you how they do it and you find those guys also were shown by another guy Previously. They had already graduated.
Speaker 1:And how long did that take you to get used to like doing it?
Speaker 3:So usually during the rainy season we do that at least three or four times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it would take you like a year to like begin. So do you know what I've learned from those two things? One you need apprenticeship where you can see how things are done. Do them. Number two don't underwrite someone, because of even me. If I did it enough time, I could be good, I'm sure, because practice makes perfect. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:Because, at the end of the day, the more you do something, the more you discover something new.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the more you know, how much you don't know and you can work on that, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's how it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean so where I'm. You're wondering why you talk about cutting things, so where I'm driving with this is that did you start coding at that point, or when did you get interested in computers?
Speaker 3:I was actually. So let me tell you a funny story, please. The first computer I saw. You know my father. My father did grow up around computers but he was like that electronics guy. Yeah, Like this dope dope electrical engineer, dope biomedical guy. So he was a dope plumber.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:My father was a jack of like when it comes to engineering. He was that guy that you call so.
Speaker 1:He's more practical and handsome yeah.
Speaker 3:And even passed it on to me. I did some electrical stuff when I was young. I did even some electronics like fixing radios, creating subwoofers and all amplifiers and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But the first time my father showed me a computer he showed me a computer from, I think, back in the days like 1970, something. It was like the CRT screen that was like green. I knew anything I was looking at it I was like I can't even go to the internet.
Speaker 1:So you're wondering what is this black box?
Speaker 3:But you know, I went to Form 1 in secondary school. Yeah, someone took me to the internet, kev. Then they started showing me website after website. Yeah, this is Facebook. This is Google. Yeah, this is an email. Yeah, this is this. The more they showed me, the more interested they got. Yeah, they were like infinity possibilities.
Speaker 2:There are like millions of websites that you can discover.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know what I started when I was in school. Whenever I pick up like a piece of, I say SOAP, I just took for wwwsomething.
Speaker 1:You know what, I can go and Google it. Yeah, because that was my thing. Yeah, if they don't have a website, you're like, who are these guys?
Speaker 3:I feel like I lost, like every time I went to. I say because we usually at the end of the month.
Speaker 1:And what age were you? Which class?
Speaker 3:I was like 14 at this time. I was like in. Form 1. Nice so like whenever I went out of school, I usually just go and have a list. Okay, I have gone and checked this website.
Speaker 1:So if you see a brand, you write that name down. Yeah, you see, say someone has come with Blue Band.
Speaker 3:Okay, it is free market, that's where now I started looking at different designs Like this website is really like this. It makes me feel good. This website is like mistakes it does not feel any good.
Speaker 1:So that kind of design decode your mind over time? Yeah.
Speaker 3:It was like because it reached the time when you see a website, you like this website. It has the content that you want, but it doesn't look like the previous website that you looked at.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I was like how can you improve this one?
Speaker 2:to look like this one yeah.
Speaker 3:That's the thing that it all started tickling my head. Now, when I was informed to, read right yeah. My sister was doing computer science.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And I got like. I got like my father actually gave me like a laptop that had a broken screen, but it had. We connected it to a CRT screen because back then, like I come from, flat screens came at was it 2012, 2013?
Speaker 2:That's when people started using flat screens.
Speaker 3:So we were using a CRT. Then when I was like, I started like looking at the content my sister was having Because he said, okay, if you want to do that, you can do something like Java.
Speaker 2:PHP.
Speaker 3:So I actually got hooked, but I didn't work on it until I was, and you were still informed.
Speaker 1:One.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was still informed one, so I looked at the content, but I didn't know where to start. And my sister just showed me the basically the slide sheets and all that.
Speaker 1:The LO world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I saw the LO world, saw some screen bling and whatever, but I didn't put too much effort on it. I just continued being that guy that checks different websites and check the difference. But when I was in form three actually decided to do it, I just installed that Java application. I installed Java, installed an editor, that thing that I saw on the slide it gave me feedback.
Speaker 1:I was like wow, this is amazing. This is the shape, yeah.
Speaker 3:Then I wrote a PHP code.
Speaker 1:Ah, you started learning with Java, I started with Java, and then you come on now.
Speaker 3:This way, the same way Come on now, Daniel. I'm telling you my.
Speaker 1:God, you're letting the tribe down. How do you learn? You know, you see how Java is cool and then you go and build something in PHP. Let me tell you something. Yeah.
Speaker 3:My relationship with Java is somehow weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I can't write Java I can't read Java, yeah. But if you come to me and tell me, do Spring Boot, I'll tell you I don't know Spring Boot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Give me one, give me one week. Ah, how to do? You Do your Spring Boot project. Yeah, but I'm not that guy that writes Java.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, say you know, I'm a Java developer.
Speaker 3:Why.
Speaker 1:Is it because of the syntax or?
Speaker 3:I think because I didn't have much work with it.
Speaker 1:So it's all a day-to-day tool that you would use.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and boilerplate wrappers. Yeah, it's too much work you see someone is building an interface Like. But I can say my TypeScript skills are more attributed to Java because when I was writing Java you find, like you do all the interfaces, you do the wrappers you do, the builders you do everything. So you have that certain object-oriented mindset when you're doing stuff. Yeah, so that one later. So when I wrote my first Java code, compiled it, it was running.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm very happy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my sister looked at it. It's just a hero art. She was very magical about it. She was happy that I could do it. She knew that I can't do complicated stuff. So, to them. They saw like okay, if this guy can do this stuff, then it means basically you have as an engineer or a doctor in the future. So people started making plans for me. But in my head when I was informed three, four, I had this rebellious mindset that I had to go and do arts like an artist or something.
Speaker 1:Do you have girlfriends when you were in high school?
Speaker 3:At that point I didn't have.
Speaker 1:So you wanted to be this popular guy who is well known? Do you think that influenced you, or is this being rebellious?
Speaker 3:I think like so for me when I was in secondary school. That was the time that I was going through my hydrolyzers or that bullshit. When I was in secondary school.
Speaker 1:What inspired you to be like want to be an artist.
Speaker 3:Actually, back in the day I used to write, so I had this girl. I had a crush on her.
Speaker 1:I knew what girl has to be involved. Life goes on I knew, like you saw what goes on the way.
Speaker 3:Like back in the days you don't know, your once in a niche.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Back in the days I was like I had this crazy crush, remember, like back. But that is when I didn't even have the become a perfect or something. I believe if I didn't become a perfect, maybe she could have seen me in a different light.
Speaker 1:Like a leader or something.
Speaker 3:Because when I became, a perfect. I was a hit. I mean because for me I was like a hit. Like when I say you don't speak, you don't speak. You remember I already had the issues with the power.
Speaker 1:So when I got the power, we would go to the power. You misused them.
Speaker 3:I did not misuse them. I used them perfectly to make the school look nice. The school, not the students.
Speaker 2:The students were like to help with you.
Speaker 3:The teachers were like keep on doing that, so I was like aligning with the power. So when this girl turned me down back then, I was always in the blue. Then one day I was like, let me write a poem.
Speaker 1:Papa wrote a poem pass it around, was it in Swedish or English?
Speaker 3:English. You know I was dreaming, thinking.
Speaker 1:Oh, in English. Yeah, you said that.
Speaker 3:All the time I switched back to.
Speaker 1:Swahili. We were doing the Swahili subject. Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:So, okay, I wrote the poem. One of my friends saw it and it was like this is really good. Another friend saw it. So, you had a reviewer. Yeah, like, yeah. Later on I had a guy that was a senior. I was in like form 4. That guy was actually looking at my material and he was like yo you have a talent for this.
Speaker 1:Ah, for writing and putting words together.
Speaker 3:Because each time I wrote when I was in second high school, I wrote nearly 30, 35, even 50 poems, the whole year. No, you find like, so you find when I get inspiration you just find me with the pens, Ah nice Writing down, writing down. I even had. I even started writing an amateur novel.
Speaker 2:I was that novel.
Speaker 3:The first one I wrote. Everyone was like this is a show and someone stole it. Ah, that's when it clicked in my head Ah, this is the future.
Speaker 1:Ah, you need to be a writer, you need to be an artist, yeah this is the future. So this girl, when you write, you wrote the poem, Did you send it to her or did you pass it to her?
Speaker 3:She heard that a lot of poems, but this girl already hated my gas.
Speaker 1:So it was just all in vain, eh.
Speaker 3:Like she saw, like this is like this. The way she saw it was like this persistent fool that didn't know how to give up.
Speaker 2:Eh.
Speaker 3:Eh and then. But you find now the friends of us. They're like around. Oh, you'll get. Ah, you know what? I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:We went to the normal bullshit thing and you know, it's very interesting to know that good engineers, by the way, they have this thing that their heart was broken or you know, someone didn't like them that much and then they focused all that energy into learning something new.
Speaker 3:Actually, for me the funny story is I'm a likable person, but not most girls don't like me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:My personality is like. I have what we call a direct mentality.
Speaker 2:Eh.
Speaker 3:You know there's just like you hide between words, you demise.
Speaker 2:Eh.
Speaker 3:You know, when I was around my parents, they give it to you the way it is. Yes, yes, that's the same mentality, because it's true love yeah, that's the same mentality. To give it to you the way it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so, but ladies don't like that. Yeah yeah, mostly ladies don't. Maybe they are different, I don't know, but they can speak for themselves. Because when I came to Kigali, by the way, we had this conversation and there was a lady there and she I don't know, maybe she it was a possible in ability's kind of approach whereby she said, no, we like it to be told the way it is, but even when you're told the way it is, are you ready to take it? Because Sometimes truth is not that nice right.
Speaker 3:Actually, the truth can make you sleep different. Yeah because I remember I had Like during the time I had a crush on this chicken, trying to get her Remember when I was in a phone, for now the final year. Yeah, my guy. I had bad, I had poor Formals I've ever seen in my career as an academic.
Speaker 1:Did you perform really bad, like really bad. Because of that, I had a lot of different.
Speaker 3:Is this rejection, this leadership? A time I was like In my mind so the way, the way I'm wired is when things like when things get tough, yeah, I Chill, like, relax, don't go like, don't try to solve something until you Basically get depressed. That ain't solving anything, yeah, so I think, when I was in a final year I got to relax when I got to relax. That's when the grades went down. Okay, I tried it to get them back by Then. The funny story is yeah, in a final year got like two suspensions.
Speaker 1:Ah, and you're still a perfect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what do you? Do no more drama which drama is the drama with the chick. There's a drama that I remember when they had me to. It had mysteries, went away with the school, so they usually went to for prayers Place called the king with, I'm not mistaken. So when they go there, prayers each year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The sister that because there were nuns Okay, so the nun that was remaining Actually gave the whole school punishment. And I was supposed to, as a perfect, I was supposed to take charge in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to see people do the punishment, huh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but in form for like final year, after everyone got used to me about my punishments and everything. Yeah because I actually had conversation with some people. Yeah they understood where I was coming from. Yeah like why I was so strict on certain aspects. Hmm because if I was not strict to them, they will be strict to me to true. So I cannot fall into the same, to the same problems I had when I was in form. One form to yeah, I cannot be another victim of circumstances.
Speaker 3:Well, I know I have the power to stop it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so some of them got really cool and even when they were doing that punishment, I was really cool with the guys. Yeah just do your work. Once you do your work, I have no problem with you. Yeah, but now she was like looking for me everywhere and it reached the stage she was looking for me. Then I went in the hide because I was already tired.
Speaker 1:Why was she looking for you?
Speaker 3:Because she needed to give me more responsibilities when they do other stuff.
Speaker 1:Why couldn't she do it herself?
Speaker 3:Actually she was old. I think she was in her 60s or 70s.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, I get it. Yeah, so she wanted to delegate some of that to the prefect.
Speaker 3:Now I was moving around.
Speaker 1:She was looking at me Dodging.
Speaker 3:But later on, when the mistress was back, when she stood there in the interest Me and my, because I was a food prefect. So I had a second in charge. The kids to the dining hall got kicked out. Why? Because the other guy was also doing like. So the guy that the first guy that I was working with that dude was an interpreter. Even today that dude is an interpreter. It was a call. This guy was buying biscuits of 3K and, due to scarcity inside his school, they were selling a piece of 500, what?
Speaker 3:Tanzanian shillings, yeah, so the guy was making money.
Speaker 1:They caught him and it was illegal.
Speaker 3:Because he smuggled the content.
Speaker 1:And do you know, when I think about it by the way, I've done a lot of business in high school when I think about that experience Because we had a canteen, of course, and different clubs ran the canteen Is that these are some of the things that we need to encourage, but now formalize them in a way that they don't create chaos and they don't ride you away from your main responsibility, which is school. But because this thing actually happened, it's just that we try to avoid them and assume that they're not happening. They do happen, but now people go even to an extent of selling drugs and all that Because it's an illegal process. So you do those and you have to sell stuff.
Speaker 3:Nowadays it's that, I think nowadays it does Forex.
Speaker 1:And he has a couple of things.
Speaker 3:From last what I did. He had the Forex trading, because even there was a time when I finished university I was also doing Forex.
Speaker 2:I'm still a.
Speaker 3:Forex trader by heart. Even today, you put me on a skin. Show me a chart. I will still make some money.
Speaker 1:Are you good in math?
Speaker 3:Mathematics I'm good, really good, I'm just lazy.
Speaker 1:What do you mean, lazy?
Speaker 3:I just need to be in a certain mode.
Speaker 1:But all engineers are lazy.
Speaker 3:Now for me it's like for me. I actually lost a lot of love for math when I was in like form 3, form 4. I just lost a lot of love for math. Why? Because I had issues with the teacher.
Speaker 1:Oh the teacher Okay.
Speaker 3:So, there is this event that we are hosting at school, a sporting event. My guy, I was always in the losing team. There were some fouls that the teacher was calling out. I was sitting there. The administration is there, you know, this is a sport. I'm allowed to say some shit. So I would stay there for a conversation with the teacher. The teacher always hated my guy.
Speaker 1:Oh, the way you know, footballers are pointed out and now you like I'm a bad loser actually.
Speaker 3:Now in second grade I was doing basketball and I was really good at it Not Michael Jordan good, but I was good at it. Now you find I was good at volleyball. I was good at basketball, handball is an evil thing, because I already stopped playing football.
Speaker 2:So now, every year I lost.
Speaker 3:The first year I took double L's, I lost on the sporting event. And we also had a literature day, like English day, where we act out the favoured books that we are going to read on form 3 and form 4. So we read them. We created like what we call a theatre production of that book. People were acting, you know, because they were doing that to keep the students interested.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. So in Kenya we call it drama festivals, where we have plays, we have chorobuses or solo verses, we have things to do with the essays. Those are the traditional dancing and songs.
Speaker 3:Ah, yours was more advanced. So for Icy it was about essays, songs, about the theme of that year. We had books that we are supposed to act Now, the first year double L, lost the sporting event, lost the drama festival. Second year I came in like when I came back I was like I can't be a loser all the time. We took the drama but still took a loss. Third year the same thing Took the drama took a nail at the sport.
Speaker 3:Fourth year we had a revolution. I was involved in all the steps Like we really did good.
Speaker 1:And then still you screwed us. Do you think you guys were?
Speaker 3:I think I had a cast, because I never won.
Speaker 1:Any team you joined you had to lose.
Speaker 3:In the third year at least, we moved from the last position To the third position and still screwed us. We were still in the first position.
Speaker 1:Ah, you could not proceed to.
Speaker 3:Ah, I got that thing, pissed me off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean maybe you could try to communicate to you that you know what artistic is, not your line of business.
Speaker 3:Actually, in the arts I was a solid dude, like first, I think. I only lost the first year and I was in second position the last year. But, in the middle I was the first guy. We were always the first Because we put in the work. The acting was impeccable.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this, the Mongela. So which role do you think artistic work Is in engineering? Because I'm here to meet an engineer who is not an artist, oh, or who is not interested in artistic work.
Speaker 3:Like seriously, every software developer has a hobby related to art. You will find there, because I knew some developers that can sing really nice. I knew there are some developers that can play the guitar. I knew developers that can write books. So it's a part of because to be a developer you are a little bit flexible, because you can do other stuff, you can do other hobbies. As developers we are like. All developers are nerds and as nerds we are like.
Speaker 1:We are different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are different Because, like imagine, when I was at Antela I had the best conversations I had. I had the things like I've ever had, the things I was young. Because, when I was young. You find a smart guy like Is that in school? Or you find a smart guy maybe someone from the university.
Speaker 2:You had a conversation with him.
Speaker 3:He came back to holidays the same time as you. Those were the times that I had a good conversation about topics that I was passionate about. So when I was a developer, you had those conversations that you were passionate about, because most developers you would be like typical stuff like music, movies, what you find, some form of artists and you write something like Do you have DJs there at Antela Kigali.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a DJ.
Speaker 3:I remember I worked with someone Christian, he was called Christian Jabiro. That guy is a DJ.
Speaker 1:I think I know Christian Jabiro. He's here in Kigali.
Speaker 3:I met him last year In the same cohort actually.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice, nice, okay, nice. So you finish high school. You don't go to university. So why? Why did you not go to the university? Did you not pass? Oh, you said, in four years you failed terribly.
Speaker 3:As a developer, you have to believe in the tri-catch.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute. Hold your thought. I have something I want to ask you. So all this time you were getting in trouble writing, you were still coding behind the scenes.
Speaker 3:Behind the scenes. I did less code but I did a lot of CMDs With the computer schools or back at home Back at home. I did a lot of CMD scripts.
Speaker 1:Okay, and it was fascinating for you to see the CMD do magic to the computer.
Speaker 3:I remember I heard what they call it when you write a CMD that opens up application all the time. I think they call it like a poem or something. I remember I wrote this script and I sent it to one of my friends that had a computer. I cloned it in Satcho and it looked like a Mozilla program.
Speaker 1:So you wanted to be a hacker or you became a hacker at some point?
Speaker 3:No, it was also a small joys I could do at the college I had. When this guy clicked on it, it opened the computers and the machine crashed. This guy saw me like a god. You see Small stuff like those, those small victories made sense to me and you're still in high school. I'm still in high school.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow.
Speaker 3:So even the issue is when a smart person or anyone has something that he likes and whenever he does it he's happy. You find you put more effort into that. Now, I'm not saying my grades were trash, to be honest but it doesn't mean that I was not studying, because I also like to study, because when you study? I always like to learn new stuff. It's like when the examination comes, I just had some sort of like I imposed. I said I was like in my head you are like you have already lost the glory.
Speaker 3:So just do whatever you have to make sure you have normal grades, that your father can look at it. That was the mentality, but when I was in form for now, it was bad. It was bad, like it was really devastating.
Speaker 1:No one believed you used to be smart.
Speaker 3:When you see me you will just see me like another dumb guy. But when I got to my second suspension I went home. This time my mom was tired of taking me back to school. She complained to my father and he complained to me. Now you know I hate it, like when someone tells me why are you doing this?
Speaker 1:Questioning why you are passing something.
Speaker 3:And you find yourself like a victim of circumstances. So you need help on a certain aspect of it. But during that time I was going through adolescence crashes and everything. I didn't have anyone to talk to so I was like Some sort of stressed out. But once I had that conversation with my mom, my father took me to school. He was like yo, I'm paying a lot of dough here.
Speaker 1:My money is on the line, but one thing I found out.
Speaker 3:My father is one of the most encouraging people, like he just said. Okay, listen, I know you have gotten a lot of suspicions and most of this stuff now is becoming stupid. Keep your head down to the best you can.
Speaker 1:Put in the work.
Speaker 3:And make sure you finish.
Speaker 1:So he was just interested in finishing.
Speaker 3:Because I was already in the final year. If you mess up, it means you started whole year. And you went to school, so I actually lost a lot of weight Because I hated the books, my guy.
Speaker 1:I hated the books.
Speaker 3:Like I hated the books and the dangerous.
Speaker 1:You know when a guy like you says I lost a bit, that insist on the point of what you need to sacrifice.
Speaker 3:Now you see your cameraman A little bit skinnier than that it's known as Oliver.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Oliver. He's a videographer, not a cameraman. But, it's the same thing, but anyway, especially now that we have to put in proper terms.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, if someone comes to you and he calls you, IT.
Speaker 2:You know, when someone calls you an IT guy. Growing up an IT guy is a netwaker.
Speaker 1:The guy who installs Mozilla Firefox.
Speaker 3:The guy that fixes the netwaker.
Speaker 1:That's a disrespect, but I did that.
Speaker 3:I cannot hate on the people I used to do Cisco. I know that.
Speaker 1:Right now, you are a computer scientist, engineer, isn't?
Speaker 2:it.
Speaker 3:Actually, andrea gave me a good title a software engineer. I'm always milking that title. I don't want to be called a software developer engineer, chief, you are very modest.
Speaker 1:Your colleagues precedes you Like I knew about what you do before I knew. Do you know that?
Speaker 3:I think you caught one of those guys that I made an impression.
Speaker 1:So you finished your final year. Did you pass your exam properly?
Speaker 3:Now let me tell you if I installed what happened. So you know, when you finished the examination I still had that doubt Because I was down. But like, remember my smart dude that is always in the top 10 To a normal dude in the 30s? Like I was downgraded to the point but this version is deprecated, like you can't come back to life. So when I finished the examination I felt I did good, but I needed to secure myself. That's why I told you that try catch effect. I said, okay, I tried the examination, but I have to also cover the catch.
Speaker 3:So, what I did is I hit up my father, because when they gave us the school selection, because we have to select the school that you wish to go to. So when they gave us that one, they never told us there was an option to go to college.
Speaker 2:I saw that there was a college there university.
Speaker 3:It was doing computer engineering, I said this is it? Let's give up the artistic dreams.
Speaker 1:Let's just, did they give up or just pause?
Speaker 3:Let's say I didn't. At that time I felt like I gave up. But yeah, I still have those skills.
Speaker 2:You know once you learn something in country.
Speaker 3:It's still around. So what happened was Because, back in the days like my mom, my sisters, my family was like we have an engineer in our family, Like we have a future. This guy can be a doctor.
Speaker 1:So those words still linger in your mind, even when things are not working out. Yeah, at the end of the day, All they wanted for me is to succeed.
Speaker 3:But the day they wanted it, they never asked me what I wanted. There's no. There's no job market. This kid is supposed to be An engineer so he can make money and live comfortably, because no one wants a kid that lives with you All the time. Like this dude is like 28, what are?
Speaker 1:you doing here Going to get something out of him. He can't afford to move out, but for you. You just wanted to be independent. You knew what the future looks like.
Speaker 3:So my elder sister knew I was a smart dude.
Speaker 2:Just knew okay.
Speaker 3:Maybe he can become an electrical engineer and all that. My father father was like I have a prodigy Electrical engineer. My mother was like you can be a doctor, let's try you to do PCB and all that stuff. But now I had to find a compromise. So PCB is physics, chemistry and biology, which is the subject they do If you want to become a doctor Now. I had to find a middle ground. Where do I save my soul?
Speaker 1:Because you don't want to disappoint any of the three.
Speaker 3:Because the teachers were already tired. They knew I had prospects. But the way I was behaving, everyone gave up, even the students around me. Because I had students that when they talk to me they were like but when I talk to you, you're like this is smart, dude, but your grades are shit.
Speaker 1:So they didn't know they were measuring fish Outside the fishing pod.
Speaker 3:I can't blame them. We are students. That's our measure of how smart you are, the way you perform.
Speaker 1:You took yourself to the fishing ocean.
Speaker 4:The funny story is let me tell you a funny story.
Speaker 3:I had another guy that I was studying with. He had the same name. Like Daniel Mwangira is Daniel Michael. We were all DM and we all arranged it. Now imagine this dude Like this was DGenius. He's number one, number twelve. If you mention that number one, you're hiding number twenty or something. I was like that makes sense. This guy was embarrassing me all the time Because he was the best dude I know. He was the head prefect. He was one of my good friends.
Speaker 1:And he was always number one. He was performing.
Speaker 3:He was telling me Pull up your socks. I know you're good.
Speaker 1:You're my buddy man, you know you can be DMDL.
Speaker 3:But you don't know like a man is already. A brain is already shut down. So adding all of those together was great. I know so in my head I was like I know I have done the best that I could have done, but I don't feel like it Because I have lost the weight. It means that even if you go home, you have lost the weight imagine if you fail. So it means that he was just exercising, he was just studying.
Speaker 1:They wouldn't understand the struggles. So let me ask you, daniel, I didn't finalize.
Speaker 2:I did the try, catch effect.
Speaker 3:I tried doing the examination, but when they told me that the university they didn't understand what I did. I chose the university. But I had to trick one guy that I knew in the world. Even if it happens, he would never like, never scored me. I called my father. Yeah, my father was in a good mood the way he picked up the phone. Then I had to trick him. I was like you know, I've done the examination but I don't believe in myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:In the best way here to avoid any extra cost in the future is if I choose a university, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:I would have enough grace to go to the university so you all didn't have to go and pay for expensive high schools, like I mean five and six. He thought about it. He was like, okay, I believe in you and I know you are the one who did it and I know the decision will make his fair business assessment. The man gave me the key to the kingdom. He went and I said my first option is university. Okay, cool. Now, when I was waiting for the great, for the results, because I already went home, I enjoyed my life, gained some of the weight back, because when I went back I was so skinny, my mother was like I actually wanted you to cry.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have killed you.
Speaker 3:When my father came to my graduation, when he saw me, he was like is it you? What happened? They feed you properly.
Speaker 1:What is happening in the school meals?
Speaker 3:Everyone was shocked about my weight.
Speaker 1:Because they've been used to you having good body and all that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was not that fat back in the days but, I at least had a body that was just a normal. But, when you come, like you are skinny something must be going on.
Speaker 3:Even the wind can blow you away. My guy, I was so skinny. Now, when I was enjoying life after the shock gained some of the weight back, I was at home. The result came out and you know, like government institutions don't know something like AWS, they have their own servers that you may find it even has 2GB. They want to serve the whole nation.
Speaker 2:Yeah so.
Speaker 1:I would use the whole nation with a 2GB server, my guy you know there's a digital machine in the machines with two gigs.
Speaker 2:So that's my concept because, like anyone, was hitting I couldn't see it Because my sister called me.
Speaker 3:It was like yo, it is us out, have you checked? I said no, Do you want me to check for you? Because my sister knows it's at Strait Like deep down in her social and this is my sister, that we cannot call her for any bad news. Do you know in the family there's that person you can call with bad news and you know this man or this person will handle it properly. That's not her. And she was the one that was calling me and she was telling me should I check for you?
Speaker 3:I said if I fail this person, they can call up.
Speaker 1:So, I said you know, I will check myself. She's that sensitive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I already had like a desktop because I already had a computer and I was doing some coding as usual, cmd. So, okay, I tried to check on the laptop. It was not loading. It was not loading, yeah, Then I don't know what I did, but it was this trick I saw on YouTube and I did that trick. The page loaded.
Speaker 1:What is this trick?
Speaker 3:I actually, so you know that you have a network card on this machine. Yeah, so what I did was I just took it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like I cleaned. They say just clean the threads.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Threads or whatever. Sometimes you may find there not connected properly. In back days we didn't have 3G, yeah true 3G came when I was about to go to university. Back then it was 2G, so it was loading like really crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I did that trick like the team plugged in my modem went on the internet, it loaded.
Speaker 3:Find the scope yeah, the first thing I saw. I saw people. Back then we had GPAs. I saw dudes with amazing GPAs 4.4, 4.7.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was like you. These guys got this amount. What?
Speaker 2:do I have?
Speaker 3:When I went, ah, when I saw that I had a 4.2, I stood up and I said I'm the man. They can't do shit to me because I don't. No one can tell me. Because I was like every engineering major PCB, pcm, whatever, even the arts like I can go anywhere. Yeah, if I wanted. Yeah. So I was like I'm happy with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, like then, I called my sister, I got a 4.2.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:My sister was more happy than me. Yeah, because she knew she knew this guy. By the way, the trade was this guy would have failed. It would be really bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so she also get a 4.2?.
Speaker 3:Actually, my sister got back then they did a division Okay, so I think she got a division 12. Okay, that's really good. Yeah, division one, 12 point, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And my other sister also did one, 12 or 11, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because my sister's a smart yeah yeah, you are smart dude. Compared to me. Those people can take you to school.
Speaker 1:No, you're just a typical engineer. You just focus on what is right and you know, the rest is just in, count, yeah. But now this brings me to a very important thing that I think you did, which is computing, because now, when you go to bear, that's what you did, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did computer.
Speaker 1:And now this is what you really loved. And no one asked you hey, chief, you know you want to be a doctor, you want to be an engineer. But even you know there's several lines of engineering, right, yeah, including structural. But you, you just fascinated by computer since you introduced to Java and you built something on PHP. So you go to bear. Do you now start coding seriously? Yeah, so there's, there are no jokes now going forward.
Speaker 3:But one thing that I always like to say about myself is I got introduced to the code by the old guys. So when people came to me with the React and the criticizing JQuery, I was like do you know what JQuery did? Do you know why most people have like that impression? I'm like that guy. I'm telling you as if I was working back in 1990.
Speaker 1:And you're just another young guy who's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, another young guy who just because that's where the technologies I started with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you understood them.
Speaker 3:Like to the core. There was a time I did JQuery to the point that if someone came to me and I wrote for him a JQuery script script. He was like yeah, this is it. This is it.
Speaker 1:This is the shit. Just to give our listeners and our viewers the context, he's a guy who is familiar with technologies and libraries from Expertjs, nodejs, angular, secularjs, angularjs, mongoose, reactjs, rxjs, ngrx, rpsql, alchemy, symphony, chai, redux, django, jsonj, units, no, postgres, picasso, angular, universal, barber, socketio, electron, enzem, gal, prolab, beautiful Soup, supertest. And it's a good in this programming languages TypeScript, html, json, javascript, scss, css, python, java and this dude, I hear, learned Scala within a week. Scala, dude, scala.
Speaker 3:Scala is Java my guy.
Speaker 1:It is, but it's kind of interesting for someone who is used to Java and syntax of Java and is comfortable with it.
Speaker 3:Like what I said previously, when someone comes to me and say, do you know Java, I will tell you I don't know that much. Java, but I can use Java, as the situation with Scala. When it came to me, people asked me do you know Scala? I don't know Scala.
Speaker 2:But I know.
Speaker 3:Java. So what I did there?
Speaker 1:I told them I know Java. That's when they they will be confident that this guy can learn.
Speaker 3:Then I had to learn Scala.
Speaker 1:Within a week you will strap everything and everything is working and you're like I guess you're done.
Speaker 3:So at the end of the day, as a developer, you do a lot of to-do apps. But, to-do apps. You just do a lot of manipulating arrays. It's good, but sometimes I would say it's like take on a challenge Build an API with a different language you don't even know how to use the language, but the more you Google, the more you solve the problem, the more it actually imprints in your brain, more than when you when you just go there. You do Because, let me tell you something, tutorials are boring as well.
Speaker 3:Some tutorials that can just make you sleep. You find you the way I know when they say beginner to absolute, to advance, if you don't have prior experience in any coding language as your tutorial, but as a person that has done, let's say, let's say you are a master of Nodejs, you want to go into Python. Don't do those courses. What?
Speaker 1:should you do?
Speaker 3:Because those courses will just start teaching you the same thing you already know.
Speaker 1:And it's boring.
Speaker 3:That's a problem, because I've been enrolled in multiple courses and they all started from beginner level and whenever they always take you back to a beginner, you feel as if you don't know stuff. But in the essence you know stuff. So whenever I go into nowadays I'm more interested in when someone says maybe Java for Nodejs developers, it means if this guy would not treat me like a kid, it means he would go straight into the hard stuff. So maybe you would tell him OK, in Nodejs you do this type of interface.
Speaker 3:Here we do them like this it's like when you are moving from AWS to GCP. This is a GCP for AWS engineers, and those are the courses for someone that at least has experience in.
Speaker 1:So you can see what from familiar grounds and marks to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah and that one actually makes you learn faster. Yeah, yeah yeah. Because you basically don't start from scratch.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They start teaching you this and that. No.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They actually tell you. Here is the concept that you have when you come from this language. But, the way we do it. We do it this way.
Speaker 1:So it's easy even to like. It's palatable, for lack of a better explanation. But, chief, you are a genius, right? I see you got like from data camp. You did the re-certification back to back, actually in two months. So the chief here got a certificate in introduction to SQL, introduction to R, introduction to Python. So you wanted to pursue data engineering at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember there was a time Devsakokigar, which right now I think is called Meta, so actually they had so, like what Salvi was saying yesterday communities, so I actually got this opportunity from Devsakokigar.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They actually had I don't know some sort of arrangement with data camp. If you want to be a data engineer yeah, Through Meta right. Yeah, you just apply. You just apply then.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because then do the courses.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then you can do the SQL, the Python and the R.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But later on, I think because of COVID, there was some miscommunication and I didn't know where to proceed. So I just stayed with the certificates but did not complete, actually, the full path.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, because this is just introduction, right, yeah, this was introduction. As much as the introduction. I think doing three of them in three months actually two months sequence is not an easy first, so either way it's an impressive thing. And then you join andella, so you talk about community. Have you been actively part of the community?
Speaker 3:Nowadays I cannot say that about activity. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Community needs you now that you will depend on community at some point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now I think there was a time I just lost communication with the community. So basically, I don't know, like, when they are hosting or where they are hosting.
Speaker 1:So I Talk to Savvy. Savvy does most of these things. I think Still very active, I think I was shooting my DL.
Speaker 3:Yeah, true yeah, because Savvy thinks the day is off and he'll be gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the community can use your knowledge, given that you're a smart guy. You're doing amazing stuff. Actually, now you're building applications that are going on production and being used on the field, and you know. That's what actually gives people a way of learning better and also bridging that gap between a beginner to someone who actually can build something scalable. So I would encourage you. But though I'm a proponent of community, I've been doing this for the last 12 years. The only developer expert in Africa. I want to have more developer community expert in Africa.
Speaker 3:Okay, you actually got that. There was a time I actually wanted that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But when I read it the requirements I was like, yeah, it's crazy, right. Yeah, the requirements are crazy, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I've been doing this for the last 12 years. It started well in second year. Okay, most of the communities that, even in Rwanda, here, some of the leaders have been castigated or inspired or trained by the leaders who are members in the community. So that's how powerful communities, yeah, right now you know, microsoft just opened the office in Nairobi, google even Andela. When they started in Nairobi, they had like three quarter or 90% of the engineers who were part of that community.
Speaker 3:Actually Andela was a big thing. You understand that. There's one thing Andela actually changed a lot of lives.
Speaker 2:True, true.
Speaker 3:Because if you look at the developers at Kigali, most of them are from Andela, exactly, and most of these guys are the guys that actually took what they learned in Andela. They actually gave it to all of them.
Speaker 1:Ah, the engineers, yeah.
Speaker 3:So Because initially you find like Most people will find you will just be like Java engineers and they find that Java is not widely used because Java you find, maybe in places like banks, some companies that we started way back.
Speaker 1:They call them legacy applications.
Speaker 3:So now when the Andela guys started doing Java script, most people started imparting some other people to switch up to.
Speaker 2:Java script.
Speaker 3:Because sometimes you may like, do you know? Like when people started building architectures, like when the code base starts, the person to blame is that senior guy that actually started, because that guy that will reset the base for the future.
Speaker 1:True, true Now if this guy is good in Java, it will force everyone to do Java Exactly, and even that's how most of the communities work. But community gives you a chance to even learn new stuff and also grow as a person in terms of your skills, your career and everything else, but also to know how the new guys are thinking and perceiving things. So I'm a proponent of senior engineers. Find some time maybe companies should also give you some time to go and interact with these guys. They help them figure out stuff to bridge the gap.
Speaker 3:I remember I had a conversation with one of my previous employers. I was like okay, the way developers work like this. Developers are communal people, like communities, everything to us. Now imagine a company comes and it tells you like okay, we have this software as a service, we are offering this the best, we offer APIs, we offer everything and we want you to use it. But remember, at the end of the day it doesn't come, although the company will say maybe, okay, let's go and use that one.
Speaker 3:But if the developer is not happy with that one, why will he? They will also persuade them. So I always told them the best way is you build a community around it.
Speaker 1:Yes, because you'll get real time feedback. Even with the agile approach, you're able to reiterate over time and because, anyway, this is the way I've come to figure out that engineering works. So engineering has smart people already, so you can bring them market bullshit and think that they will just consume it without questioning it. Another thing marketing cannot fix engineering problems. So engineering problem needs to be well engineered, well thought about and well solved. So if you bring an API, it doesn't work. It doesn't matter how much or how sweet you are with your words. That will make it work. So community plays a key role in terms of how people perceive that, yeah, so a big example can take.
Speaker 3:I always take a big example when it comes to communities Microsoft. Microsoft opened source to VS Code.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But the open source to VS Code is not the same as the VS Code that you would allow from Microsoft.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So, basically, the bulk of the work is done by the community. All Microsoft has to do, because there's the maintain of the community.
Speaker 3:All they have to do is just focus the changes implement them on the main application, which is something that is good because it allows the people to implement the features that they want. Yes, yes, because it reaches a time. There's that killer feature that everyone requests, but you find that the software is closed. No one can contribute to it. Because I remember that the day I read the tweet someone posted around one in the afternoon like why don't we have this feature in this framework, and it was like people were like, ok, so right now we are backed up, we have NTI because, it's time to work on it.
Speaker 3:This person went and read the guidelines of the code base. Four hours later he raised the PR, reviewed and it was merged. That's how things are supposed to be done, because we cannot always wait for you to make the changes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so, this democratising knowledge, innovation, talent and skill at the same time, because now you open up, it's not like you're closed down, yeah, yeah. But I think also it's interesting because I wish I get to talk to Apple people, or Apple people, so they have a very different approach to what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for Apple. Apple is like. So I believe like a developer, if there's one thing a developer. If you ask any developer from most of African developers that I've met, they only like the MacBook, but they don't like all the stuff. Because, they know like, even if I buy an iPhone, I will still be locked somewhere.
Speaker 3:Because there's still limitations there's still a lot of limitations, but if you look at Android, this is the most open source thing that you can ever see. So if you want something, you can even maneuver what you already have and get what you need. True, so I think maybe in the future I don't know maybe in the future Apple has an idea of doing open source. So, right now, most of the thing is just in-house.
Speaker 1:They do have open source, they do consume open source.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:OK, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know even how they improve the safaris by consuming chromium. So some of these things go on and it's fascinating when you study them, how they do stuff. I've tried to do my bit. Ok, imagine this. Ok, imagine this.
Speaker 3:Like Kubernetes chromium, this has one of the biggest open source projects out there. Imagine in this way I'm made by big companies that are competition.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 3:And the same technologies used by Microsoft is used by Apple is used by everyone. Imagine if these people decided to make Kubernetes a Google thing. Oh my goodness Because right now, kubernetes is that thing that everyone needs to know, because Kubernetes revolutionized a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And the more. When you learn Kubernetes and you master it, you will find that this is like this solution, because Kubernetes were like in the evolution of Microsoft. This is Kubernetes was that missing key? Mm-hmm Like, yeah, I mean you can't say enough.
Speaker 1:But also remember, still speaking about Apple they still have a very close, tight community. You know that.
Speaker 1:I know from the users, the developers, to even out the cater for their support or FAQs. If you go to their how they answer questions, they just don't dub questions and feedback, for the sake of it. They actually do it really well In a way that you can solve a problem. You can find a very systematic solution to what you're looking for and, I think, where the world is going on. Two, we can learn from both Both the Android, now they do it and both what Apple is doing in terms of community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so actually I think Apple has a perfect cheat sheet for building products and everything they have a way of perfectioning like they are perfectionists. So maybe they are avoiding open source because most people want to know the Apple way of doing stuff, Because let's be honest because nowadays there's like a lot of boilerplate applications. I remember me and my friend when we were doing X-Plays. We always find that when we have certain type of boilerplates, we always end up like it reaches the time.
Speaker 3:It just does not serve as well. So in the end I just told him if they can't give it to you, build it yourself.
Speaker 1:Yes, be a pirate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because at the end of the day, we are living in an open source community, right, and we are also like have this, because every developer has a blog and every developer has an opinion, and one developer that is famous than the other developers says that this is the way I do stuff and this is the way I prefer this is the only way. It becomes coveted. This is the way we do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you see yeah.
Speaker 3:So sometimes it just gets like, especially when new developers are coming in you find okay maybe Todd did this, maybe Travis did this maybe this this is how I'm going to do it from now. So, if you don't have, like communities where people can actually discuss and say okay, this works for certain A-B for scenario A-B, C-D, but you can also take this and evolve it to be more tailored to your company or to the project that you're doing. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean that's very, very powerful, because, when you think about what is happening in the ecosystem, is that even companies that have been there for some time, like Microsoft, they're starting to embrace things like JavaScript, they're trying to embrace a new approach in terms of how you work, open source. And I don't know if they're genuine about it, because after GitHub went to Microsoft, Actually, they're genuine, they are. They are very genuine about developers there.
Speaker 3:They have invested in developers because let's be honest. 60% of all the tools and everything we use right now is Microsoft.
Speaker 1:NPM Microsoft.
Speaker 3:GitHub Microsoft. Here's called Microsoft.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you see yeah.
Speaker 3:Like this is our daily drivers live on this stuff. Right yeah, but I also have this story about Microsoft that I always tell every friend I have. Like you know, like C-Sharp, like everyone is like C-Sharp is like a knockoff of Java. And when you look at it, the syntax is the same right, but that design, you know, the design of C-Sharp, is the same design of TypeScript, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Now, when JavaScript was at its peak, everyone was like JavaScript is the real deal right now, like there's no type checking, there's no whatever. And this guy since you bashed the C-Sharp, I feel like this guy sat down and said I'm gonna mess you up, yeah, and with TypeScript. Now, TypeScript is like that golden standard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because it has those typesaves in there, typesave codes and whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So whenever I tell this story to like a new developer, everyone is like you have very knowledge of, but imagine I just I'm just assuming stuff here. But yeah, microsoft is a developer product.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know developers will support this at some points because they don't think so.
Speaker 3:But isn't okay.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest.
Speaker 3:When TypeScript hit the market everyone was like ah, it took them. It took them to never take off. But if you look at TypeScript, the documentation and the evolution of TypeScript and the power it gives you in writing, because when we use ES6, ES6 was basically sugar and whatever, but you couldn't do those advanced class stuff.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Like interfaces and those were needed features. Typescript gave you that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, you know, to be fair, all those things when you think about it. They are really trying, but they could do it better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:With intention, because when you come with co-pilots and you charge for it and you know that model has learned from people's innovation, it's not an honest approach. It's okay to make business out of these cases Actually, on that aspect here.
Speaker 3:I hate that Because, let's be honest, they are scanning our public repository.
Speaker 1:You know that's IP, that's intellectual property. Is this that you trusted them with? The intellectual property?
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, did you read the terms and agreement of what you were trying to forget to have?
Speaker 1:Okay, we can go that route.
Speaker 3:Okay, and at the end of the day, this is what we call the power of open source. Is your public repo not open source? Yeah, if you didn't want them to scan it, put it privately.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because let me tell you something about public repos, one thing I like about public repos yes. When the recruiters come to your GitHub and they look at your public repos this gives you more, more like it gives you a more chance of getting a gig for a job. But I came to the area recently that I have more private repos than public. Yes, and when you try to like say there's this thing, they have in Coderranc where it shows the amount of code that you have written. In the experience, yeah.
Speaker 3:You find out if you have a lot of private repos.
Speaker 1:That is on the show when they're seeing anything.
Speaker 3:Yes, they just see the greens.
Speaker 1:You see what I'm talking about. But it's not that, but it's a psychology approach. It could be done. But I'm not saying that all those things are wrong, because it didn't exist before.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, If co-pilates is for developers, why should we pay for it? And if they say Kwanba Zeminti, of course, is expensive, we can contribute in the code. We can write a code. There are people who know AI. They can do training models and whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a discussion to be had there. And also remember there are people who contribute to open source because they want to be paid or they're looking for a job, but because they want to share the solution On the other side.
Speaker 3:Let's be honest. Which developer is broke? $10, come on, because for me I pay like 25 bucks for jet brains. Every month. I'm the happiest person in the world.
Speaker 1:Because it serves you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, co-pilot, if you want it, pay for it. It does the job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is a discussion to be had there, no doubt, and that's why we are having this discussion, because we are the one who are going to change the way things are.
Speaker 3:But there is one thing that I always like to put it out there yeah, like do you know? Like do you know, there's a lot of developers that are creating content. Right, and you remember, these developers are creating content at their own free time. Yes, they are creating powerful open source project at their own free time. Yeah, no one is paying them.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Example yeah, faker Mm-hmm. Do you know what happened to the faker guy?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:This man. The story is this guy actually the house burned down. He had no money, but Faker is used by Google, by everyone. The guy got pissed off. He removed the faker. He did it, he did it, he did it, he did it. He was like ah, he returned the repo, kicked him out. Oh my goodness, because you can't do that, even if you are pissed, you can't do that. In the recent this is already there are some people who are living in production with Faker. They wanted the whole world to fail.
Speaker 3:No, but also look at it this way so where I'm going is this yeah, we are not like most developer jobs pay well To at least spare $50, at least give people like five, five, ten, ten dollars makes a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You see yes.
Speaker 3:So that's where now we come, even in the case of co-pilot or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Some great tools out there in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because, remember, we are not even paying for this. This is your VS code, yes, and we use it every day. Like this is like our.
Speaker 1:Is no paid model. No, no, so you're okay.
Speaker 3:If you want to a paid model, you have to take a visual studio. Visual studio to visual studio. Okay, visual studio is like an intelligent for Microsoft. Okay, Right, yeah, never understood how to use that stuff. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha, never. Yes, I think there's any different approach. But you can actually buy a subscription, you can pay a subscription there.
Speaker 3:It's a good tool. It's intelligent If you know how to use it. For me, I still stick with IntelliJ because I've used IntelliJ multiple times.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, intellij is next level kind of innovation.
Speaker 3:But you can even turn your VS code in like that, right.
Speaker 1:Maybe now that you're talking about IntelliJ, have you heard of Space?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 1:It's there. You can try it by the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Space is out. We're waiting for the other light one, ah.
Speaker 2:It's called.
Speaker 3:Vision of IntelliJ Fleet. I think it's called the Fleet Ah.
Speaker 1:That's the one, but check out Space. It's cool. We are playing around with it at Africa Stocking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's kinda cool. It's also a view tracker and everything, yeah, so they have a good ecosystem actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah and also take you back to what you said about the developers. I was backing down, I think, also some of the experience that actually make companies make decisions and think about their community, so they introduced GitHub sponsors. I don't know if it's live in Rwanda. It was live.
Speaker 3:Nah, I actually use GitHub sponsors. That's how I paid for that fake guy.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay.
Speaker 3:So you always get my $5 each.
Speaker 2:Ah nice, you see, there's another guy back then he didn't have a job.
Speaker 3:Maybe he released into this one day in the future. This guy created a really nice table like a calendar library or Angular. I used this library for a lot of jobs and back in the days he was like if I reach this amount, I will just quit my job and just dedicate my time full time. I gave him $10 and that, but right now he's working for Cricup and he still maintains that one. So what I'm saying is at least these are our tools, if we have the money to give some.
Speaker 1:I support it yeah.
Speaker 3:Because, at the end of the day, when these softwares, these tools are not updated or they are not maintained, you are the one who will suffer. Yeah, and you will hit to it and you will be like why is this not working? Why can't we do these features? We make them open source for a reason.
Speaker 2:If you feel?
Speaker 3:like you can contribute. Contribute If you feel you can not contribute code-wise, but you can contribute at least $5. Because people might think $5 is small, but remember they are like 100 like me, who have the same sentiment that let's give this person $5, find they are 200. So this person can live, because sometimes you find that some guys were just trying to find a job and this was like a proof of concept or something that became famous.
Speaker 3:So sometimes is even sometimes you know you suffered for like two hours trying to find a solution for a problem. Then you go to this blog.
Speaker 1:And you find a library.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or you find these guys described with this problem really nice, but he asked you to buy him coffee.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Please buy.
Speaker 1:Do you think also people like Stack Overflow should also consider that, because I know a lot of developers use Stack Overflow.
Speaker 3:Now Stack Overflow. Now, let's not get it twisted. Ha, ha, ha ha ha, can't pay everyone.
Speaker 1:Ha, ha, ha ha, but you should not use everyone's solution. If that's the case, Now listen. Do you know if Stack Overflow went uh?
Speaker 3:it appeared today. We will still build that portal. Developers are like cockroaches you cannot kill us.
Speaker 1:Even with the nuclear, we are there, so we'll take you as.
Speaker 3:Stack Overflow, we'll build another one. Because that's the same thing as OK we have Devdev community website right. We are OK. Stack Overflow I don't think they need cash because Stack Overflow has a business behind it.
Speaker 2:And even those ads they put there.
Speaker 3:You know the amount of developers that visit those sites. They just make money for the traffic. But I'm saying this.
Speaker 1:Get it from me. I've been in the ecosystem for some time. If Stack Overflow was Like, there's no Stack Overflow, you don't have any guys who don't have a job Immediately because guys have, and it's a good thing anyway, because developers are lazy. How many guys have solved most of their crisis back just through Stack Overflow?
Speaker 3:I think yeah a lot.
Speaker 1:How many guys have learned on the job? Learning on the job is like copy pasting and then figuring out how to do the factor.
Speaker 3:The way we call VS Code is like our coding Bible Stack Overflow. Is that Jesus In the morning, right now? I can tell you. Up to now I've gone to like 20 Stack Overflow pages.
Speaker 1:There you go. At your level, you are a senior engineer, right? And I'm not saying people, it's a way of just saying don't be, just be redundant.
Speaker 3:Actually, being a senior does not mean that you don't Google.
Speaker 1:Google is a part of the job. Make Google your friend.
Speaker 3:Imagine you have written a link to this story. You were live now. Today, your boss wants you to write an array you already forgotten.
Speaker 1:You need to refer to your friend.
Speaker 3:Ask Greya my java mentor this guy does not even know an array list. Yesterday we suffered for two hours. Moving Stack Overflow pages. So Stack Overflow is a big thing.
Speaker 1:But do you guys do post answers on the Stack Overflow?
Speaker 3:You actually have answers, yeah nice.
Speaker 1:Nice Because if you are giving and taking it it's good, it's like community.
Speaker 3:I have an angular answer that has been giving me juice. Oh nice, nice. So sometimes it's like this Sometimes you go to a post. You find this guy posted maybe two years ago. Maybe they have updated the library. There's a different way of doing it, so I either help them edit the answer or I just raise another answer. You say okay based on this answer. If you have this version, you can do ABCD. Then it works.
Speaker 2:And the good thing about the community around Stack Overflow.
Speaker 3:You will find like someone if you help them they will leave. At least they will leave your answer. Leave a comment if they want more details. So I've been through that it makes someone feel good that you have People relying on you Imagine, when you look at those statistics, you have made an impact on 16,000 people, that's amazing, and some of those have millions and millions of people yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean that's good. So, Mongila Daniel, Did you get someone after suffering rejection?
Speaker 3:Ah, ah, ah. So A developer relationship is a weird thing.
Speaker 2:Developers Like your budding it.
Speaker 3:There are some people that have I don't know they go to the right algorithm let's put it in dev terms Like they know how to work the template. There are some that are having successful relationship, but that's not me actually. I had a couple of Flings. I tried to get a couple of relationships, but they never worked out. And the funny story is, all those relationships were like two weeks. There was a friend of mine. He was like so you did bootcams.
Speaker 2:Ha ha ha, ha ha.
Speaker 3:So I like to call them bootcams. So I just decided OK. So Now I live with that one of that Solomon court, like everything is on time.
Speaker 1:Time.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes yes, so I don't believe you have to force this type of stuff True, true, true. Just relax yourself meet people.
Speaker 1:If it happens, it happens.
Speaker 3:It's not as if you can Between life and death. But there are certain people who To be a developer. It gets lonely, but you also get a relationship. It gets stressful Security. It's a my friend.
Speaker 1:So is it a catch-22?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember I had a relationship when I was a developer at Andela. During those trainee days I needed to give Andela my 200%. Now you find someone is calling you during debugging hours and I know when I say debugging hours, you understand. That is midnight one, two, you are still debugging, trying to get a product total.
Speaker 1:I wonder what is this?
Speaker 3:guy doing so. Most ladies you know, most ladies want attention and it reached a time when most ladies don't know what we actually do.
Speaker 1:They just think that you sit in a computer you don't think a lot, you just Google it and whatever.
Speaker 3:Now there's much work to it and you find it is very consuming. You find once you finish like putting 10 bags or putting out a hundred fires, you're already tired. You go back home and you just want to sleep. Someone hits you up like let's go to the mirror, let's go here let's party. But if you know how to do the work-life balance, because a lot of female developers. I don't know how they do it, but they have mastered the work-life balance.
Speaker 3:Because for me I can't even Like. For me, if I see a bag, I have to get rid of it.
Speaker 1:You can't multitask. Yeah, so we have to give it up to the ladies, actually, and also you need to get a supportive lady who understands and helps you with multitasking and stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's always something that I always tell everyone. To be a developer is a lifestyle actually. It's not as if it's a job, it's a lifestyle. So when you get someone that understands your lifestyle, you won't get issues. Because I remember I had a conversation with a senior developer. He said it reached the time he was doing a lot of work until the wife was like you're cheating. The wife also works in international companies, so she's well-read, she's educated. What the guy did is my colleague and your colleague merge.
Speaker 1:See what I deal with here, so you want dinner?
Speaker 3:look at my colleague.
Speaker 1:You have to look at that appointment. You have to book it. I'll give that to the ladies.
Speaker 3:Ah, they are strong.
Speaker 1:Now there is more openness.
Speaker 3:They have been married for like 12 years, 18 years Because this guy actually gave an insight to his life to his wife, so his wife knows this man at this time has a call.
Speaker 1:I say it's not like he's avoiding me or anything, yeah.
Speaker 3:And there's a friend of mine who actually had a relationship for some time, got married last year. Like he's like one of those guys. That is my role model. I think it was like two years ago. Now he has a kid Whenever I call him. Hey, Now he works from home. But after I had a kid, now he works from restaurant Because the kid and everything is chaotic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's very impressive. So you're parting shot Daniel to the upcoming engineers, but before that, where do you think the future of Rwanda tech ecosystem is?
Speaker 3:Actually Rwanda, actually the Rwanda guys actually have the cheat code. Like the community in Rwanda is so solid, like anyone who comes outside, like, let's say, foreign companies that want to invest more in developers, they should come to the communities. There's a lot of smart people out there. Yeah, I agree you know there's that time, like I did and they're right I went do other freelance gigs. Okay, I know like a lot of programming language and I'm aware of a lot of it.
Speaker 3:But, whenever I go to this community, you find someone that is brand new, like this guy will tell you, like what's our videos? That is, this guy will tell you something you are like how didn't I know this? So this person actually challenges you. So you have to improve yourself, right yeah, so the developer ecosystem in Kigali is strong.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it will continue growing stronger because we are getting a lot of developer, a lot of people that want to be developers, yeah. But what I can encourage also is in the communities, a lot of people are not actually encouraging more women. Yeah, Because we need. We also need them.
Speaker 1:How do we encourage women?
Speaker 3:Actually, I think the approach we take in introducing, let's say, girls to coding is it's like you like, let's say, you don't know squat.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you just throw someone like they react.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and this is that.
Speaker 3:So I think they approach. We should approach it in such a way that you give them steps until they get to that groove.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:When they get to the groove now, they will choose what they want to use.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because sometimes you may find, because I know there's a I know a female developer that is actually good in Java and she's Java certified. I was like, from now on, you are my hero.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:No one can tell me nothing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, but she was given the time. Yeah, she was putting in the work.
Speaker 3:She was putting in the work, she was giving the time, yeah, and she was doing what she was supposed to do.
Speaker 1:So you're seeing as much as you are. You know you are. You're taking them slow, step by step, and they get it. They also need to put their best foot forward in terms of learning and putting in the work. Yeah, nice, nice, nice. What is your parting shot? Eh where can I get that one? Yeah, don't need to think about it, like if someone said you're speaking to I don't know, maybe 30,000 developers were in Rwanda. What is that one thing that you tell them?
Speaker 3:So I will tell them the same thing that my forex mentor told me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Consistency, consistency. Consistency does not mean you are winning. Does not mean you are losing, yeah, but you are consistently improving.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:We are not invested in the wins, we are not invested in the loss. We are invested in the improvement. Yes. Growth mindset yes. So stay consistent. Yes. If you say you want to solve 100 problems 100 days, stay consistent on it every day. The more you do it, the more you improve. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's the guru, but I will add into that and I think that's. I say that in the community all the time Consistency is a key in everything, not only engineering, but even artistic work, which comes with creativity, skills and ability to solve problems. But Daniel Mongila, who is an API guru, a genius, a guy who does you know languages, various languages to solve problems and he has solved it even at B-Box, his building amazing stuff. He says he believes that attitude is everything. Whenever someone has a positive attitude, he or she can make anything possible. He believes in the potential he has and if he uses it well, he can bring a big impact in whatever environment he will be working in. That actually can apply to anyone, virtually anyone, across the world.
Speaker 3:I actually stole that from my sister.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no.
Speaker 3:Amazing stuff, amazing stuff. Yeah, it's the first time I've ever seen you.
Speaker 1:I would love to meet your sister, by the way. Sure, Can you make that possible, maybe with time? Because I would like to meet this lady who inspired such a genius to be a programmer.
Speaker 3:It can be organized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were heading in Tanzania next week. Where is she based?
Speaker 3:Ah, nowadays she's in Kigoma, she's a teacher.
Speaker 1:Kigoma is the way she sounds, right? Yeah, the way she sounds, she's a teacher.
Speaker 3:You said yeah, so I have two sisters. That have inspired me. The first one is now a teacher, yeah. The second one just finished her mathematics masters two years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and both of them are computer scientists.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they all did computer science Ah okay. Like in my family, women are the best mathematicians I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because my mom has mathematics skills.
Speaker 1:She used to teach mathematics yeah, she taught mathematics. Amazing stuff. You're blessed bro.
Speaker 3:Even my father is a mathematician.
Speaker 1:You know, women make best teachers, especially for sciences. Yeah, I know yeah yeah, so you're blessed, you're blessed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can complain, yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I know you're a busy man you are. You know most of the solutions. You rely on you, but nevertheless, you made the time for us. We don't take that for granted, thank you so much. So, without further ado, thank you so much, guys, for joining us throughout these. I hope you learned one or two things about the Rwanda Tech ecosystem. This is supported by Africa Stocking Podcast. Africa Stocking provides you communication solutions, such as USSD, sms, airtime, data bundles, among other solutions, and we're bringing you soon Ilarian, which is a data platform, especially now there's GDPR and check out on that in the coming months. And how many of us to my colleague, in collaboration with Impact Masters podcast, and we are covering stories and tech ecosystem across Africa and sharing and telling the stories the way they are, the way it is, and that's me, that's my time, thank you.
