What I told the graduates

The first time I was asked to open up a computer (CPU) and remove the hard disk, I had no clue which one was the hard disk. I was looking for something hard, if you have opened a computer before you would know everything looks hard in there. At least I was smart enough not to look for soft stuff (software).

I was invited to the Coastech Empowerment Community Graduation ceremony. For students who had been "empowered" with computer skills in old town (Mombasa, Kenya), this was their big day. Swahilipot, the venue of the graduation, is one of the few hubs that makes awesome tea, so I was looking forward to the event. On my way there, this happened (click here to read). I was attending in my capacity as an Advisory Board Member for Coastech Empowerment Community (Yes, a few cups of tea at their Old Town hub and they signed me up). This post summarises my speech.

In the early 90s we played games on some cutting edge computers whose display was orange and black. There was no colour on it. Whatever you typed on the keyboard would evoke a response "Bad command or file name". There was no mouse, nowhere to click and sometimes it makes a sound like it's a bomb that is about to go off. I am not sure if this is where I got the inspiration to study computers in college.

After my 3 year diploma, I felt like I am ready to change the world (by that i mean just my village by the way). That is not what most people had in mind. I was being asked If I can repair televisions and compose ringing tones on Nokia phones. I once got a call from a friend of mine, he told me the cartridge on his monitor just ran out, so its not displaying colours (I told this joke to I.T guys for years**). There was a lot of confusion on what the society thought I could do after I studied I.T.

Many years on, I got a call from a user who told me her computer does not accept numbers (alphabets only). I was curios, I wanted to see how that looks like in real life, only to get there and realise the NUMS LOCK key was off. I turned it on and I was the hero for a few seconds, they celebrated for like 3 minutes then continued invoicing.

There are a lot of things computer colleges do not teach. They may not show you which one is a hard disk, they may not show you the nums lock key and may not teach you "bad command or file names". They still don't teach people how to decluter the desktop, I once visited a client who had 3 pages of the desktop! What you can do with the computer knowledge you have, is to use the computer to get more knowledge.

Computers are getting smarter. Soon they will not need you, the computers of the future would be able to do a lot more than what they are doing today (autonomously). While the I.T industry is wide, they sure will need more AI programmers, Database specialists, IT security stuff, Programmers, and other related staff.

There has never been a better time to learn these skills, you can take a course on EDX, Coursera, DataCamp or YouTube. There is ton of videos and self paced learning materials you can use. The possibilities are endless. Mine is to wish everyone who graduated all the best. The learning never stops.

In school we used to have compositions beginning with "I woke up and found the door open....."(40 marks). You can either say you closed it and went back to sleep (for 2 marks) or you can do what my friend did. He wrote... "and that was the end of the beginning" and started a totally different story (I don't think the teacher was amused)

To all graduates "That was the end of the beginning!" of your learning journey :)

>I told this joke to I.T guys for years** Here is a dummys guide to this joke. Computer screens do not use colour cartridges (or Toners) like printers that print colour! If the colours do not show, in the 90s, that was because the VGA driver is corrupted or something. Re-installation of drivers can actually fix this (or an IT technician (crooks) who will take advantage and push the narrative on a cartridge just to get a few extra bucks).