You were the first president of the ITC club at Marungu Secondary School, through which students create school magazines, posters, videos, calendars etc. What do you like about working on computers ?

How did you perceive Slovak – Kenyan cooperation as a student ? Actually working with a computer was something great and interesting for me because it gave me the chance to be creative by learning MS Publisher, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and other applications like video editor. Also through the power of the internet it enabled me to obtain more foreign information and materials which has helped me to get new ideas. Lastly, through social websites like Facebook or Blog I learnt how to interact with different people and also how to do marketing online. In short computers have made my work easy and broadened my mind. The Slovak-Kenyan cooperation actually gave me the opportunity to gain beneficial skills through the idea of training companies because it was a new idea for Kenyan schools. If it hadn’t been for this cooperation I could never have got the chance to gain those skills in my life. It was the best cooperation I have ever had in my life.

When setting up a training company you came up with the idea of creating a virtual bank, Mshindi KCB, which follows the work of a real bank, but also provides additional services. Does this training company still exist in Marungu, even if you are not at the school anymore ? If yes, what are their main activities or achievements ?

Yes, the training company still exists and the major activities that the company does are; (a) opening an account for other training companies from other schools in our project, where they can deposit or save their virtual money and (b) provides loans – whereby the bank sends loan application forms to all the training companies so that they apply for a virtual loan and start carrying out their activities using the loan while repaying the bank. What they have achieved so far is that they are able to use the SCCF and Practice Enterprise Network tool to execute transactions with other training companies. This is compared to the past where they used Excel and Google documents for these transactions, where it was difficult for them to track changes in the accounts.

You finished your studies at 2013. What were your plans for the future and what happened ?

My plan was to study IT and Software Development at university and after that try to open my own business with the course that I studied. Also I had a plan B in mind if plan A failed. As I was finishing fourth form, I agreed with my patron Mr. Herman that we would find a way to change the bank into a real one so that it would employ me. Actually this happened through the grace of God, as I didn’t know if the project under management of the Pontis Foundation and Kasigau Wild Life Trust would give me the chance to work with them. I would like to say a big thank to you Pontis Foundation and Kasigau Wildlife Trust by offering me this opportunity.

You have become an irreplaceable part of the SoteICT Pontis Foundation team. What are your main responsibilities ? Do you like your job ? Why ?

My responsibilities are; 1) Going around schools on a daily basis and helping the students with the technical issues of starting, developing and running training companies by providing them with training sessions and also motivating the students. 2) Collecting data from the ICT clubs, training companies and schools in general in a form of a report. 3) Coming up with terms and yearly programs for the schools in our project. 4) Sometimes helping the training companies / schools with logistics issues. 5) Updating and posting activities on our Facebook page on a daily basis. 6) Saving reports and documents from the schools. 7) Enhancing and following up cooperation in the training companies both nationally and internationally. I do like my job very much because it gives me more experience in life like confidence, the chance to help and to exchange thoughts with different people, creativity, new IT ideas through exposure and meeting with different people.

For how long have you been cooperating with the Pontis Foundation ? Do you have opportunities to learn something new / is it a rewarding experience for you ?

I have been cooperating with Pontis Foundation for eight months now and I have learnt a lot through this cooperation like gaining more knowledge of the training companies, how to work in an office and in general gaining more experience with my job through different exposure. What are your plans for the future ? Are you planning to study more about computers or do you have a dream job ? Of course, yes. I need to study more about computers through pursuing IT in software development and Public relations courses.

Read more about the soteICT project in Pontis Digest.