Where the answers lie

"Sheila.... 90%, Joy... 96%, Brian... 94%, Michael...88%, ....", that's the voice of my class 8 Mathematics teacher who was giving us back our mid-term test results. He called out everyone's results except mine. When he got to my paper, he looked up, looked at me and then ran outside as though he forgot something from his office - he was also the school's head teacher. He came back sooner than expected with a pack of pens in his hands. Of course the entire class was wondering including myself, "Why has Carol not gotten her result back?" In full disclosure, I was disappointed in myself. "I know I am good in math, why could I not at least gotten marks worthy of a call out by my teacher?" Now, we were all dying of curiosity and couldn't wait to see how everything would unfold before our eyes. Without a doubt, our teacher could feel the stares cut through his skin. So he decided to break the silence. "Carol, come to the front." he then turned back to everyone else. "Carol has performed excellently in this test. She scored 100% and for that, she deserves to be appreciated with this pack of pens."

It was in that moment that I realized, I really love math! Whether I am the best in class or not, I enjoy crunching the numbers and working through the complex formulae which everyone finds super challenging. Fun fact is that, during all my tests, I preferred the MOST difficult questions which required more than 5 minutes of my time. They brought about a fulfillment which words can't explain. Doing one math equation for 3 pages and coming up with a solution after is divine if you ask me! Don't you think?

This passion and fire for math was definitely the basis of my Bachelors degree. Although the math in university is completely different, complex and challenging, I forged on. Never did I think that I was better off doing something else. I fought the fight.

When campus was done, just like most of my peers and anyone who is transitioning from one stage of life to another, I got into a space of asking myself the Whys, Whats, Hows and Wheres. I decided not to focus on the outside, rather from the inside. "What do I love doing? How is that translated in the world today? Who should I be reading about to take myself to the next step? What should I be doing in order to improve the skills I have and become 'market-ready'?" In that exact moment, did my journey to data science start. My first project was to do an analysis on our congregation data. Man! I was anxious through the entire project wondering, I'm I doing the right thing? Impostor syndrome is real guys. My boss always says that we usually have someone following us every time in whatever state we are in. We call him Mr Doubt. Curious to know, do you have a name for him?

I pushed through the doubt and impostor syndrome. Don't get me wrong, I didn't fight it off, I just embraced the voices and chose to listen to something else. I chose to listen to the voice within, the one that carried my passion, the one that carried my talent, the one that told me that we need to keep pushing, asking questions, attending hackathons, reaching out to people on LinkedIn and just showing up for myself. See, the answer is always within!

That same voice has pushed me from just being content as a data scientist but chase being an engineer in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Engineer Carol Muchemi - I like the sound of that :)

They (I don't know who these are) always say "Consistency is key". For sure, it is. Alongside John Kamara and Claire Matuka, I am the Co-Founder of AI Centre of Excellence. What the centre means to me is that it provides an opportunity for data scientists, software engineers, software developers to scale their skills a notch higher. I believe that AI in Africa should be a movement which once embraced, benefits each and every one us through creating impactful solutions and adding value to our continent. I am thrilled and scared at the same time to see what the future holds. Good thing is, I am here for it all!