There are Gangsters, and then there are Original Gangsters fondly called “OGs.” An OG ideally doesn’t imply old as one may be wont to think. Instead, when you think of OGs, you often think in terms of their invaluable experience in whatever field they have found themselves in. Nevertheless, one very common quality of OGs, especially in the African tech space, is their reluctance to be considered as such.
Uganda: Abdu Ssekalala
Before Google Playstore and iOS App Store ever became a thing, there was the Nokia Ovi store, which was the playground of Abdu Ssekalala in 2011 in Uganda. He would go on to build a lot of Nokia apps from 2011-2013 and even get famous for it within Uganda.
“I was among the first people that got some notoriety and fame for building apps back then. I also wrote windows phone apps and taught boot camps on it.”
Abdu is 32 years old, and for someone who ideally can be referred to as an OG in the Ugandan tech space, he is reluctant to see himself as such.
“I am still young, though.” he says with a chuckle, “And I am learning every day with the new changes in tech. Trying also to ensure I am staying abreast of how things are.”
He is a C# lover [Pronounced C-Sharp for tech newbies] and has always loved the language. His introduction to tech was while he was a young boy in high school with a cousin doing his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He was about 14 years old and convinced his parents to buy a home computer.
“Convincing them was easy. They saw the value in it and got one.”
From what began out of curiosity, having read a Logic Building textbook owned by his cousin, he also got to learn PHP independently before deciding to go into something similar along the tech path after high school. He studied towards an Information Technology degree at Makerere University in Uganda and graduated in 2013.
Motivations and Changes to tech currently
On how he feels about the motivations for the current influx of people into tech these days as compared to his days, he had this to say.
“I got into tech back in the days out of curiosity. It intrigued me, and saw the value in the problems it could solve. But I think learning to code is more for survival these days. People have discovered that they can earn so much from it that as opposed to wanting to create value, more people, due to their circumstances, are learning to code for survival.”
The idea of coding for survival might not be far-fetched. No thanks to the influx of cash that has been pushed into the tech ecosystem in Africa in the last few years. In an article by TechCrunch, “it is estimated up to $2 billion went into African tech startups in 2019.” A few paragraphs down the line, in this same article, the figure doubled to about $4 billion thanks to some unicorns within the fintech space: Flutterwave, Opay, Wave, and Chipper cash.
Many Venture Capital (VC) firms from outside Africa have invested their resources into these unicorns, and the dividends are paying off. It is no surprise that with all of these happening in this social media age, when companies like Flutterwave informed their followers in early February of 2022 that they had tripled their valuation to over $3 billion after raising $250 million in Series D, the average African youth’s interest would be piqued. And at that moment, it is easy to see why the next young man or woman would think, “Maybe I should start learning to code too.”
Certifications hoarding with experiential deficits
Well, maybe you should.
Abdu is happy about the new wave the African tech space has hit. Whether he feels nostalgic about his days, he claims he doesn’t, but he would like more developers to appreciate those old methods are still just as valuable as newer ones.
He fondly remembers when getting wallpapers online was almost an arduous task.
“Downloading jpegs was a big deal. Part of my Nokia portfolio was selling wallpapers in the Nokia Ovi store,” he says with a chuckle.
“But things have changed. Now, you can stream Youtube videos of courses when you had to learn from scratch and those with some knowledge back then. Resources are now readily available, and principles like Agile, Scrum, and Sprints now exist to make work much more fluid and easier.”
While it may sound like he is in awe of the new way things are, Abdu does mention that he feels like more developers are chasing after learning and certifications without having any backing experience.
“I hear people say I have this certification – AWS or something – and yet when you ask them to practice their learning, you can almost tell they don’t have that experience. This generation is more about learning how to do it; half the time, their coding experience is stack overflow.”
Abdu started with mobile development when he first got into tech but then switched to the backend, learning Python-Django, DevOps, and the like. He is adamant that the new wave of developers and coders, while they have all the resources available and at their fingertips, might be lacking in the depth he and his peers had to learn when they started.
“I usually say this as a thought experiment, if you lock a couple of coders in a room and switch off the internet and ask that they code something from scratch, how many would be able to do it?”
He believes a lot wouldn’t. And he may be right. Coming from an era where the internet wasn’t as readily accessible, Abdu and his peers learned to grind the hard way. He quipped that back then, you had to buy 2gigabites of data to watch a YouTube video, which was a lot then but barely enough to stream a Netflix movie now. With more access to resources, he hopes that more developers hone their skills by mastering one thing than being a jack of all trades and being mediocre in everything.
Africa as the new tech frontier – predictions
“I don’t think this new wave of African tech is a fad,” Abdu says in response to a question about how Africa is establishing itself as the new tech frontier.
“I think it will not pass because I have seen the previous wave. There was a time when Google had a Ugandan office, and Andela did too. But they packed up, and even at that, the developer community in Africa never let up. I think we have begun to establish ourselves as not being a joke. African talents have risen to the occasion. In the next decade, African tech talents will build more unicorns.”
His conviction rings true. The African tech ecosystem has grown in leaps and bounds in the past two years alone. More people are pushing towards starting their tech careers in Africa than in any other continent in the world; companies like Tunga are helping make that dream a reality.
“Africa has a lot more young people than in all the continents. So, this means there are many more untapped talents here than anywhere else.”, Abdelmoneim Mohamed says.
Egypt: Abdelmoneim Mohamed
Abdelmoneim, who prefers to be called “Menem,” is an Egyptian Software Developer and a very reluctant OG. In fact, during our conversation, he flat-out dismissed that notion, saying his introduction to tech was more coincidental than anything.
“I usually posted on Facebook saying I would go into tech but never followed through. Until one day, I saw a post about learning front-end development, and I jumped in.”
Jumping in meant starting from scratch for Menem. But he was resilient. Learning on his own and taking advantage of online courses. He learned and got his first job after seven months, but according to him, he never really made any money from tech in his first two years in the field. His motivations, just like Abdu’s, were purely about learning and building a career path.
“I think my salary when I got into tech was meager. And this was mostly because I had no insight on what tech salary wages were, and most companies exploited that.”
Sad as that might seem to be exploited, he believes the new crop of tech talent has more leverage in this field. The availability of researched information about salary wages ensures that most tech talents know their value and can ensure they get compensated for it.
He ascribes this development to the rise in remote work.
“I sometimes speak with friends from Uganda, and the local salaries for devs there are low, but when you work remotely, you get paid more.”
In one of the famous Tunga Dev Hour conversations, the CEO of Tunga, Ernesto Spruyt, details tons of tips on how you can advance your remote coding career as an African tech talent. The push for more remote work was amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic but has slowly become a mainstay in the African tech ecosystem for the right reasons.
“Remote opportunities have given more developers in Africa better lives, opportunities to meet and interact with new people across the globe and improve their living conditions,” Menem says.
He also fondly remembers when he joined Tunga in 2017 and was paid in bitcoin.
“In Egypt, bitcoin wasn’t legal, but it was sort of not illegal, too,” he says, laughing. “I was scared because I wasn’t sure about how I would receive it. Only recently did mining bitcoin become legal in Egypt. But it was a fun experience.”
Limitations within the ecosystem
Fun as the experience of working remotely and getting paid in bitcoin a while back was for Menem, he was also worried about some other factors. As an Egyptian, getting funds from outside of Egypt was dangerous. Due to the country’s fight against terrorism, payments from outside Egypt were usually put under the microscope.
“That was one of my biggest worries. I thought my payments would be flagged, but thankfully the banks understood where the payments were coming from, and no issues were raised.”
His case might be an exception, nonetheless. Down south of the equator from where he resides, many developers face challenges getting access to their funds in Nigeria despite the wave of advancement in the fintech industry. PayPal is still not recognized in Nigeria, and restrictions on banks on foreign exchange transactions by the Central Bank of Nigeria still play a vital role in stifling some of the positives that should come from working and earning remotely.
Menem channels a similar reservation in what he believes might hinder more advancement in the African tech space. On where he sees African tech in the next decade, with it being considered the new frontier, he says he’s not sure.
“I am not certain, but I am worried about politics getting into it and disrupting the flow. Things usually get corrupted in Africa, and without credible institutions that hold people accountable, even the best technological advancement can be lost.”
However, all does not feel too dreary for Menem. He believes in the years to come, with more support from big corporations, Africa can improve its internet services and create more avenues for employment for people, not just in tech. He reckons that when more established powerhouses like Google and Facebook have their headquarters here, more infrastructural advancement will occur.
Partnership, Mastery, and Mentorship
“Africans need to be more proactive and share insights,” Menem says, further discussing technological advancement.
“European countries boast of more technological advancement than Africa because there are available resources and a sense of collaboration there. We need something similar here.”
The idea of partnership and collaboration is not new. Many innovations and changes that have graced the African tech ecosystem have come on the back of viable partnerships. However, a McKinsey study notes that partnerships should not be rushed but approached deliberately and methodologically.
Now, while the above study speaks more towards Joint Ventures in the tech and business world, the sentiment still resonates even regarding talents. As established, many young talents are joining the tech ecosystem, and ideally, when speaking of the next decade, these are the minds likely to shape the tech world. However, it is paramount that this new crop of talented developers and coders ensure they are not rushing into tech just because it feels like the next goldmine. And to those on the verge of creating the next unicorn, it also means understanding what sort of partnership works and is likely to yield the fruits of innovation that Africa needs.
When asked for his advice for the new crop of tech talents, Abdu says, “The first advice would be: pick a hustle. Be clear about what you want, and your passion would drive that. I suck at art, and even though I know CSS, I won’t be able to create a front-end design that would rival someone with a passion for UI/UX. So, pick a hustle. Be patient and practice and practice and practice. Tech is rewarded based on skill.”
In one of Tunga’s recent articles, this author writes about the value of proficiency in building a tech career. Abdu’s statement buttresses that point, Although not mentioned in the article, another valid point Menem considers to ensure that Africa continues to establish itself as the next tech frontier is mentorship.
“There is a lack of mentorship in Africa for African talents,” he states. “Lack of mentorship has been one of the reasons there has been a lot of migration of African talents abroad for better opportunities, and what we have is that our biggest talents are leaving, and those coming up are not necessarily having the right guidance.”
A March 2022 article on Tech Economy documented the wave of migrating African talent. Written by Emmanuel Otori, the tagline for this article sums up Menem’s point: In the quest to develop a region, human capital’s impact cannot be overlooked as it suffices to make the whole process work.
Emmanuel Otori hints at a few solutions to curb the mass migration of tech talents, While not explicitly mentioning “Mentorship,” the culmination of his solutions hits close to the idea, nonetheless.
Web 3, Mental Health and The Future
Briefly, I spoke with Abdu about the new phase of Web3 and blockchain technologies. He was somewhat skeptical when asked if he foresees African talents also being a reckoning force in this movement.
“Majority still do not understand what web3 is. I do know that some talents from Africa would go on to make great strides in web3, but for now, I think it is unnecessary to jump into every wave that comes. There’s still a lot that African talents can leverage from Web 2. However, if you believe that is where your passion lies as a developer, then by all means, pursue it.”
Conversely, Menem was not keen on speaking about Web3; instead, he pivoted our conversation to something he feels has been hugely ignored in the African tech space: mental health.
“People fail to realize how tough it is to be a software developer, sitting in front of your screen for hours, especially when working remotely. This can take a toll on mental health, and developers need to find more ways to unplug.”
Before my conversation with him, Menem had told me he would be offline for about four days to unplug and focus on his mental health. I suggested he champion this discussion on mental health in the tech space, especially in Africa, and he assured me he is doing his bit.
“When I can speak to young tech talents, I mention this. I advise that they build more human interactions to ensure they can step away from their computers. It is essential.”
In an article on Iqmetrix published in 2020, Kirsten Barkved writes about the growing mental health crisis in tech. She states that according to OSMI data, 51% of tech professionals have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, with founders 2x more likely to suffer from depression and 10x more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder.
These numbers have risen over time, but this speaks to an essential factor that should be keenly addressed if the African tech ecosystem is to maintain a leadership position as the new tech frontier. Suppose more discussions on mental health arSupposechampioned. In that case, we are confident that t. In that case, a crop of tech talents will be provided with information and resources that were not readily available for folks like Abdu and Menem when their tech journeys began.
Creating value is the way forward.
The consensus gathered from speaking to these two reluctant OGs in the African tech space points to one thing: as the new tech frontier, the only way forward for Africa is up. Nevertheless, this also means we must work more towards creating value and less towards seeking financial survival. Technology that aids in human advancement and improving lives should be the focus.
And should you want to kick off your tech career today, fully aware of your passions and the value you hope to bring to the world, then Tunga is here to offer you the platform to do just that. Then maybe in a few short years, you too might be considered an OG, albeit a reluctant one.
