Growing up a loner, Brian Nziza did not have a lot to do. He watched himself lose interest in what children his age were doing at the time. While his peers were making toy cars race, or playing hide-and-seek, a seven year-old Nziza was interested in one thing — technology — and in particular, coding. Coding is defined as the process of using a programming language to get a computer to behave how you want it to. “I wanted to know what goes on at the back-end and see for myself how to control computers and tell them what to do,” he says. Sensing a budding curiosity and passion in the lad’s life, his parents introduced him to Rwanda’s biggest technology hub, kLab. Nziza shows off his self-built robot. It was there that Nziza’s dreams grew even bigger, at the tender age of 12. He wanted to understand the concept deeply, and connected with experts in the field who trained him. “Like many other young people out there, by the time I got to grade eight, ICT lessons still just consisted of creating a presentation on PowerPoint and writing about it on Word, hardly the best training you can get in the world. This is why I picked the interest in coding,” he says. Now a grade 10 student at Green Hills Academy, he is currently inspiring others with his short-term experience. For Nziza, ‘code’ is the language of the modern world — whether it’s the app that brings emails to a mobile or the car that knows how many miles to go until refuelling. Any smart device needs code instructions to tell it how to operate and communicate with the outside world, hence, need for students to adapt to it. “With job losses to artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming decades predicted in millions, coding is one skill that looks future proof,” he says. Though Rwanda’s education system is improving and initiating more for computer education, Nziza says he took matters into his own hands by teaching himself the basic coding languages. “Having found the learning approach that works best for me, I’ve been able to teach myself the skills that most teachers and lecturers are unable to. With many people experiencing similar difficulties, I recognised this as an opportunity to inspire others in schools to learn programming. One of the drones(quadcopter) in form of a prototype that Nziza built. “This is not a job for “IT geeks” and it does not lead to endless shifts, typing odd-looking numbers and letters and brackets from a keyboard like most people think,” he says. Instead, he points out that the practice is promoted as being more about critical thinking and problem solving, which are skills that can open up opportunities of career paths. Nziza attended the Youth Connekt kids’ platform, where he believes he used the opportunity to learn from other young associates. As a result, he has been working on different projects, such as building prototypes of drones (quadcopters and hexacopters) which he says keeps him focused on his main goal of operating neuro-tech related projects in the future. “When I share my dream with most people, they are quick to judge and say that it is impossible, but I have never felt discouraged. Because I know that when you combine effort with people who have the same ambition, there is nothing you can’t do,” he says. With many future jobs expected to rely on coding skills, it is little surprise to see that education ministries across the world are beginning to push schools to start teaching children how to code at a young age. Having that at the back of his mind, Nziza is currently learning ‘Python’ as a programming language and is also very comfortable with ‘Arduino’. “I want to learn many more languages such as C++, C, among others, for me to be able to achieve my dream.” From experience, Nziza highlights that fellow students should not refer to coding as a complicated course, rather, use his three fundamentals to develop themselves. “If you are diligent and you read and experiment, then coding is an easy concept,” Nziza says. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
