My journey into tech as a black kid from the township.
lets go back to where it all began…I am a 23 year old computer science graduate, Born and grew up in Soweto, the biggest black township in South Africa, I experienced all the struggles that young black people go through in a township, like lack of exposure, poor education, drugs, alcohol abuse, lack of finance for education, limited resources etc…but having said that I always knew I was a highly creative kid growing up, I was an artist from an early age, I painted, drew, designed and enjoyed anything arts related. At the same time I was very much into computers quite early than other kids in my hood.
So I finished high school, but I was not so sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to be in a career that will combine both my Arts and Computer/technology interests. I registered myself into a computer college in Johannesburg (Falcon Business Institute) were I chose to learn Web design and tech, I never took it seriously at the time because I taught I was just taking a gap year and following my curiosity
I finished the year 2010, but while learning Web design I got exposed to more computer programming, I was fascinated, I wanted to explore it further, so I researched and found out about Computer Science, that decision was also influenced by my brother-in-law, who is a Software Engineer at a leading Bank, I then hustled my way into a private university in Midrand (MGI).
The real hard work begins…
At the back of my mind I thought because I’m now a university student, the real fun would begin, I thought I was going to have the most epic, crazy fun, party so hard, drink like crazy, be free, enjoy life and have a good time with the ladies. but unfortunately that was not the case for me, That was not the experience I had of my varsity days. (I guess I had watched to much “American Pie” movies in high school).
First year I realized that my dad will not afford to pay for my tuition fee (which was double the amount at a public university)and my accommodation at the same time, That changed my varsity experience drastically, My whole mindset had to change at that moment, when I realized that I will have to travel from Soweto to Midrand every day to attend my classes, using public transport(which was like 4 hours per day spent on the road).
Anyways, because I enjoyed what I was studying, I was able to persevere, even though I had very little time during the day, I worked harder, studied longer, learned faster, sacrificed my weekends to push my assignments, lived a very lean lifestyle, I basically had no social life for a duration of 3 years, to be honest it was very tough and exhausting. But I’m not complaining, that’s what most young black people go through to acquire better education in South Africa its normal.
Results of persistence…
I was able to push my self until the finish line, 3 years later I graduated (magna cum laude), plus the top computer science student. Not because I was smarter than everyone else, but I guess I was more hungrier than the rest of the students.
What I have learned so far…
When I look back at my life so far, Me growing up and going through all my school life in the township of Soweto with all the experiences I have had, I know how much it sucks to grow up here, being poor, hopeless and seeing the race inequalities in our country has had a lot of impact into how I view the world, but it has also given me some kind of “characteristic” advantages that put me in a better position than other people who grew up “soft” or “easy”.
It has made me to work harder than anyone else, learn quite a lot of things in a shorter-period of time faster than anyone else, and to have more grit, courage, faith, hunger, drive, persistence, perseverance, resilience, hustle and grind than anyone else for the things I wanted in life, it has never been easy.
All those experiences have made me realize that I have always wanted to be “as wealthy as possible, as quickly as possible” (as @tristanwalker would say) and being a tech entrepreneur is the best way to achieve that goal now. The main purpose for me being wealthy quickly is that I want to change the lives of the people I care about, and change the socio-economic, socio-inequalities our black youth is experiencing especially highly talented kids from under privileged backgrounds who can’t afford access to the best education and resources.
I will write another post about my journey of founding my first startup Spoink the next time.
Remember to “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” :)
