Audrey Cheng first came to Kenya from
the US seeking to fund IT startups and saw a new opportunity when she
discovered that the country lacked a school for software developers.
While
Kenya is famous globally as an IT hub Ms Cheng, who worked for Savannah
Fund as an investment associate, quickly learnt that many ‘‘tech
wizards’’ were self-taught while many IT graduates from tertiary
institutions and universities remained unemployed for lack of practical
IT experience needed by the job market.
Using her
savings, the 23-year-old launched a feasibility study where she sent
online questionnaires to corporate firms on IT capacities they were
looking for and what the market had to offer.
She also visited several IT schools and companies which helped her prepare a comprehensive programme.
“Many
computer science graduates had theoretical skills but lacked practical
knowledge on web and mobile software application development which
companies now need like never before.
This gave me a
leeway to establish Moringa School in Nairobi, where we impart IT
graduates with specific skills required by various companies,” she said.
When Digital Business
caught up with her at Strathmore University in Nairobi where she was
hosting the Second Nairobi Tech Week, the trained broadcast journalist
said Kenyan learning institutions need to create a platform where they
dialogue with industry players on the kind of skills needed to enable
graduates get jobs.
Ms Cheng together with her friend Savannah Kuvorsky, a
Silicon Valley trained software developer, invested about Sh200,000 in
the venture.
Their first class, started in January
2015, attracted four students and promised to ‘‘equip students with
market-drive technical and soft skills.’’ “I secured some funding from
friends and family which helped us register Moringa School while my
co-founder oversaw the development of infrastructure,” Ms Cheng
recalled.
She realised that most Kenyan universities
hardly made follow ups on their graduates and were only interested in
the number of students they enrolled.
This has denied
the institutions an opportunity to understand what the industry needs so
as to realign their curriculum to the job market.
“In
IT the curriculum needs to change with the times otherwise we will churn
out highly skilled but unemployable graduates. This we do by inviting
IT students from across Kenyan universities, IT hubs and those working
in companies to share their knowledge during open forums at the
Nairobi Tech Week annually,” she said.
Last year,
independent judges selected four IT startups whose founders were flown
to the world’s tech hub in America’s Silicon Valley to learn more on
software development.
Promote creation
“We discuss product development with our students where the most successful are those that can be monetised,” she said.
Ms Cheng has since formulated an open source curriculum for secondary students willing to learn about software development.
She has also become a regular figure at local universities where she gives lectures on software engineering.
“It is important to find out what the market wants and then proceed to use education to solve those issues via a commercial way.
‘‘The future is in software applications and our work is to promote creation of Kenyan apps,” she said.
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