#43 Empowering Communities Through AI: The Kalebu Jordan Story

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
It's me again, this beautifulday Down in Dar es Salaam,
tanzania.
And today is a beautiful day,day of the Lord Lighting movers

(00:31):
and shakers in tech, and todaywe are blessed to have one
amazing person, an epitome in AIand machine learning.
I don't know what I shouldstart with, but I think the man
can speak for himself.
But ideally, we have Kalebu.

(00:54):
I think most of the techecosystem knows Kalebu and if
you don't know him, actually heworks in the room.
You can't miss him.
How are you, kaleb?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
All is well.
So you sound like I'm listeningto a radio.
Yeah yeah, so you're actually aDJ, I see.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, that's nice, that's nice.
So what's your full name?
Kaleb.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Oh, my full name.
My full name, your full nameKaleb.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Oh, my full name, my full name is three names Kaleb
Jordan, guarugano.
Guarugano.
Very nice.
So Kaleb was.
You know, we tried to introduceourselves.
We believe a man should givehis epitome of step-by-step,
chronologically account of whohe is.

(01:46):
Who are you, Kaleb?
From day zero.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
For me who I am.
I am an explorer, you know.
So I like exploring stuff, andthen when I explore, I get so
obsessed with it.
So right now, what I'm obsessedwith is AI.
So I'm an AI enthusiast, I'mbuilding an AI solution, but I'm
also advocating for people toadopt AI solutions.

(02:13):
So I'm kind of somewhere.
I'm kind of exploring the AIphase.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
So, kalebu Kalebu, Let me just introduce you
officially and then you can tellus.
You know where it all started,right?
So once upon a time and this isKalebu speaking he was a
mechatronics engineer, but hispassion for innovation and
technology led him down a newpath.

(02:40):
He discovered the world ofprogramming and it was love at
first sight.
A new path.
He discovered the world ofprogramming and it was love at
first sight.
He spent countless hourswatching tutorials, reading
books and blogs and buildingprojects.
His hand paid off as hesolidified his understanding and
even added to the opportunityto showcase his projects,

(03:02):
including an AI tool thatconnects people without internet
access to the internet throughSMS, that connects people
without internet access to theinternet through SMS, and a
device that allows farmers toeasily monitor and control
conditions on their farm usingSMS.
As he continued to hone hisskills, he found out himself
working as a professional Pythondeveloper and machine learning
engineer.
He is also an advocate of opensource software, maintaining

(03:25):
over eight open source Pythonpackages and sharing his
knowledge with others throughspeaking engagements and writing
articles and tutorials.
He is currently the founder ofNeurotech, an African startup
that is building infrastructurefor developers to easily build
industry-ready natural languageprocessing solutions for African
languages.
His passion for innovation andtechnology led him to fulfilling

(03:52):
career and excited to share hisjourney with community across
any digital footprint.
So, kaleb, that's yourprofessional.
That's at least done.
So who is Kaleb?
Where did all this start?
Where do you come from?
Around in Jerusalem?

Speaker 2 (04:09):
No, I'm not from there.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
You're not from there .
Yeah, I'm from upcountry.
Upcountry, which side?
So I'm from Mbea, mbea.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
And not just Mbea.
I'm from some part of Mbeacalled Tukuyu Tukuyu, not just
Tukuyu, upcountry, oh okay.
Really upcountry area.
That's where I grew up.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Oh yeah, it doesn't get upcountry as Tukuyu.
There's more upcountry, there'smore upcountry.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
So Tukuyu is a town and you go more upcountry, but
you go where I can spend most ofmy time here.
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
What was the name of that place?

Speaker 2 (04:48):
M yeah, ah, that sounds the interior.
So how many hours from da ifyou're?

Speaker 1 (04:50):
driving here.
If you're driving like 14 hoursfrom that, yeah, but is there
another option like can you takea train?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
like there's a train.
I don't know if that train Inever took a train but, like a
flight, is about one hour ohyeah, so there's a flight to
yeah, there's a flight.
There's a flight to Mbeya.
Yeah, there's a flight.
There's like an airport there.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
So you were born there, grew up there.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, so I was born in Mbeya.
I studied in Mbeya from primaryto college.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
How was that experience?
Did you get everything there?
Do you feel like you're missingout?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
No, I mean not so much.
I like studying near home, sothat was quite like any day if I
want to get out of school andgo home, I can go.
You know, that's what I like.
So it wasn't much like I wasmissing out.
Maybe later, when I'm thinkingof pursuing like a tech career,
that's when I saw, okay, maybeMbea might not be a suitable
place for me to continue myjourney.

(05:40):
But apart from that, m thattoday is quite good, the weather
, I liked it.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
it was cold, but I don't like hot.
And now I do you know, yeah,yeah, yeah.
So you studied at um primaryschool, from uh to I no, no, not
really not.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
I moved a bit in school, okay, yeah, so I I.
I was studying somewhere calledkatumba primary school.
And then I went to Mpanda Panda, I think on Saturday, and then,
yeah, up to like seven.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, mpanda Panda Primary School.
Okay, okay, and what causedthis movement Like, why did you
move from one school to theother one?
Parents, you know, parents,okay.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, so parents moved and then, yeah, I had to
follow my like.
Yeah, then I had to follow mydad.
I had to follow my dad.
Yeah, so that's why I moved toFumagusa.
My parents moved, and then Ihad to move.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, okay.
So after Mpanda Panda you wentto Yunga.
Yunga, is it a secondary schoolright Like a high school right?

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, but it wasn't as great.
In Lincoln I tried to steepsome of the stuff Ah okay.
You don't have to put a wholestory for people to yeah.
So basically, yunga is like youknow, if you graduate from
Science 7, you go.
There's those like law school,maybe like school, maybe from I

(07:07):
don't know what they call it,maybe school like I don't find a
good name, but Iyunga was likea middle school and there was
like top school, like maybe forvery like talented students.
So I wasn't selected to Iyungasecondary school.
Yeah, I wasn't like very smartto be selected to Iyunga school.
I went to another school fromlike the same Tukuyu, like area,

(07:28):
yeah.
And then I moved to Yungabecause of my parents.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
So you said you're not that smart, I wasn't, yeah,
you wasn't, but now you are Okaybut now you are okay.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Maybe I am because when I was in standard six I was
one among the students that the, the head of school, choose to
repeat the class.
Okay, yeah, and then not in 36,37, actually yeah, I was like,
okay, the the head of school,come and like you're gonna
repeat class, and then you'regonna repeat class and then, he
forgot me.
I begin to celebrate.
And.
And then he was like oh, caleb,you too.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
So that was very painful.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
And then my mother was a teacher in a nearby school
and then he was like, okay,maybe I can talk to the head of
school, maybe I can give yousome time to catch up.
And that was my lucky.
You know, that was my onlylucky for not repeating, and
then from that on.
That's when I began to payattention to school.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
So were you playful when you were a kid.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Very playful and troublemaker.
Troublemaker like 100%.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
I don't want to say right now you don't look like a
troublemaker, but most smartguys are always troublemakers.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
For some reason, I don't know, they never settle.
I'm not a cool kid.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
What does cool kid mean in Tanzania?

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Cool is the opposite of tribal maker.
Like you don't like.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Any tribal yeah.
When you say cool kid in inNairobi, that means you're rich
kid.
Oh, I'm not, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So so from class seven you wereserious in school.
You got good marks and then youwent to the technical
university.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
No, I didn't get good marks enough.
But, I remember my head ofschool after realizing I began
to excel in class.
Yeah.
Because I went from I don'tknow whatever position to number
nine in class I to number ninein class I was like Kaleb.
You know you should hunt forlike special school.
You've got to study hard and Idid my best but I wasn't like I
was not able to go to thespecial school.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
You know what I mean.
Do you feel like youconcentrated when it's a bit
late?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, I mean it was a bit late actually.
Maybe Because I don't know whatI did, I realized I was in
school when I was seven, now Inthe elementary class, yeah.
So I mean, maybe if I hadstudied earlier Maybe I would go
to a special school.
But you know, it's all like youknow.
Yes, I'm a stoic now.
So, maybe it was all like that.
It was supposed to be like that.
You know, maybe catch up laterand then Go to technical school.

(09:58):
By another way, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
So what happened then ?
Now that you're, you know youdidn't go to the good school
yeah, Was.
Was that a bit discouraging foryou?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
it was.
It was I remember going to tolike the selection of classes
and then my, I'm thinking, maybeI went to one of the special
school.
I'm like looking at Caleb,where is the school, this school
?
There's no Caleb.

(10:27):
It was very sad.
People kept saying, caleb, youknow, you've got a good marks,
but why are you so sad?
I'm like dude, I wanted to goto the special school but I
wasn't.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
So special is like top schools in Tanzania.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
So there's special school and there's technical
school.
Technical school is like themiddle school, you know, like
they weren't very special.
But, they're like at least youknow you're medium smart, and
then if you are like you know,really smart.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
You go to the special school and I wasn't even
hunting for special school.
You know, somewhere, even amedium, you know and you were
not there and I was not there.
Yeah, so you just, you werejust taken to a technical school
no, no, it wasn't as easy.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
It was like my dad studied in the technical school,
okay so my dad was very smartokay, easy it was like, my dad
studied in the technical school.
Okay, so my dad was very smart.
Okay, so he went to a youngerschool when in his age, not like
in the days so he was like,okay, maybe I could go there and
try to make an excuse and thenmaybe the parent moving out, and
then you can get you there like, yeah, so so someone who
doesn't report the replacingwith you?

(11:20):
yeah, so something like that.
So my dad began a formalprocess, like from like district
to whatever, putting a writer,like you know, maybe my parents
going to study somewhere andthen maybe so you know, you know
how they move, if you you'retoo straight, you can never get
a chance.
So it was something like that.
And then I I was able to to geta chance.
They.
They said, okay, maybe you'regoing to give good marks, but

(11:41):
maybe not as excellent, but themax was not that bad.
So, okay, maybe let's take youto.
Yeah, so that's how I got totekeko school yeah, oh nice.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
And when you get there you meet other.
You know smart kids, right yeah, they're very like.
Smart kid went there by maxyeah, so how was that experience
for you?

Speaker 2 (12:00):
I mean, uh, in the beginning, you know I was, I was
actually, you know, you, you.
You got out from a place whereyou were like one of the top
people and you got to anothervery smart people, and then you
were like in the very, in thevery, in the early days you were
like okay, maybe let me youthink you still can catch up to
that smart level but, aftermaybe two semesters, you're like

(12:21):
no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
I have to work harder than this.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, maybe let me have another goal, that just
being a top student, so that'swhere you like.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Started exploring your career.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean still, I was from up to form two.
I think I was still an ed, youknow, like love to study, but my
first, like maybe form one, itwas very disappointing.
I was 64 student, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
So 64 students, 64 yeah position 64 out of.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
I don't know, maybe 100 or 100 or something, yeah so
it wasn't very like from fromone of the top people in class
to.
Is it that good?

Speaker 1 (13:00):
yeah, so realize, being smart also can be average
some some other place.
Yeah, yeah, you go some otherplace.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
You're just uh, you're just a normal person, you
know.
Yeah, so I begin taking likeschool, like, okay, not, maybe I
should take it easy now, notthat.
Uh, yeah.
So I remember I'm going to formthree and then I was like, okay
, I wasn't very serious withclass, but that's why I began to
excel in class even.
Yeah.
So I remember from three Ibegan okay top's where I began
to excel in class, even yeah.
So I remember from three I began, okay, top five, so I began to
excel because, yeah, I was.

(13:28):
And then, yeah, so that's whathappened.
But I remember that there was.
I don't know if, like, if Idon't study hard sometimes in my
secondary school, that's whereI excel, but even if I'm too
like, that wasn't happening, youknow oh yeah okay, that's
interesting so you stopped, youstopped focusing becoming a book

(13:55):
warmer.
Book warmer, that just like,just just normal yeah, studying
like enough, enough, enough,just enough, but that's when
okay maybe the brain just neededa little more rest and just
accumulating stuff on the head.
Yeah, that's when I was likemaybe I need some more time to
do other things.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah, oh, that's interesting.
So did you discover that inform two right?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah, in form three, in form two, up to form two, I
wasn't that much of a top class.
I'm just someone in, yeah okay,average, average yeah so you
started.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Now, you know, taking it easy.
And what was this that you'redoing on the side?
Is this just games, or oh, no,no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
I remember from three that's where I'm in so there's
something in tanzania calledyoung scientist competition.
So they take, they go to school, they look at the kids which
year, like, have innovativeideas, and like, okay, we're
gonna go, we're gonna take youto da into with other kids, idea
, idea, and then you're going tocompete for a prize and this
prize can give you a scholarshipto go abroad.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, so it was very tempting, yeah, so I began
thinking of it.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Maybe, maybe I could get into this program, you know,
yeah, so just before thathappening, another, another
thing came up.
It's called San Sifia Project.
So it was done regionalized,and then there's a national
competition.
So they come to school they'relike, okay, what is your idea?
And then you pitch, and then ifyou win in your school they
take you regionalized now tocompete.
So I remember I was I mean, Iwas not an innovator, I was just

(15:17):
a bookworm, you know.
But I wanted that scholarshipstuff and innovating stuff.
Yeah, yeah, I was a fan ofsci-fi, but not to the stage
that I turns me to an innovator,you know.
So, it's just I love that stuffof building stuff and doing
stuff, but not to the stage now,Like of me getting hands on to
it.
Yeah.
But I remember now, um, whenthat first transport came about,

(15:39):
I was very um, I liked it a lot, and then I went to like a
library took wikipedia maybe Ican find something.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Uh, yeah, yeah.
So you started now becomingcurious on what actually?
What can I do understandingscience?

Speaker 2 (15:54):
yeah, I've seen science, not science to this
like practical science, so likecoming up with an innovation now
.
Yeah, so it was not much onengineering, but in the days I
was very good chemistry, chemist, I was like maybe I want to be
a chemical engineer, you know,because I was a very good
chemist and then the idea camewith the Sunspot Project.
It was something like I don'tknow, I forgot even the name.

(16:16):
It's been a long time ago.
But something likemulti-producer stuff.
It was more of like chemicalstuff.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, which year was this?

Speaker 2 (16:24):
I think, I don't know 2015.
I don't know 2015,.
I think Is that a?

Speaker 1 (16:28):
long time ago.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
No, it looks like a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
You're the second person in Naa who I've talked to
and they refer to like five,six years ago or eight years ago
as a long time ago.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
So 2015 is eight years ago, right, yeah, eight
years ago, or eight years ago asa long time ago?

Speaker 1 (16:44):
uh, so 2015 is eight years ago, right eight years ago
, just years ago.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
It's quite a year because you've gone through
phases from secondary to collegeto street so if you, if you, if
you take that time ofexperience like 10 years ago,
yeah, it's quite, it's kind ofcrazy okay.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
So, um, now, if you, if you think about that journey
where now you think like okay,there's this science contest
where you're going to competeand go abroad, and even for you,
coming to die is something youknow something exact, yeah, I've
never been to die at that time.
It's just there, yeah and thenyou start even going to the

(17:21):
library checking out anencyclopedia, trying to learn
science and whatnot.
Do you think guys right now inthe school are getting that
opportunity?

Speaker 2 (17:32):
I think they do, because I think young scientists
keep existing.
Mine, which has triggered myinnovation, was not a young
scientist, but it was called theScience Fair Project.
I'm not sure if it exists, butright now there's a young
scientist, there's Makisatu.
So Makisatu they do like acompetition from secondary to
primary to university level.
You bring innovation and thenthey compete against the people.

(17:53):
So I think they do Right now.
I think they're realizing even.
I think the curriculum ischanging.
So maybe not too much becauseit was about more like okay,
getting greatest, but nowthey're trying to, okay, maybe
put more practical and moreteach people to do stuff rather
than just cram stuff.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, yeah, and for you, such activities you know
from your experience is whatactually started exposing you to
the tech and what is happeningin the world of science.
Right A?

Speaker 2 (18:23):
hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
It was from chemical design.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
I remember I kept participating in the tech and
what is happening in the worldof science right hundred percent
it was uh from from chemicaldesign.
I remember I I keepparticipating, competition, I
keep designing.
I was writing papers I waswriting stuff you know, I I went
to.
So they said if I get obsessedwith something, I'm full into it
yeah, so I became a nanny nowyeah um, I remember our biology
teacher gave us a like a biologylab.
Yeah, so I had a key.

(18:44):
Any time there is chemicals,there is copper, there is
whatever in a library, I coulddo whatever I want.
And then around when I'm inform four grade I begin to get
interested with engineering.
Now, because all the previousform three that was mainly
chemical, engineering, chemicalstuff.
But form four that's whereengineering captured my heart.

(19:07):
Years, years and stuff and then, which even led me to choose
mechatronics as a college,because of form 4 now yeah but
still the same, like kind ofcreate, trying to create
something uh creative.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
yeah, yeah, um, now you at this point, I think, is
your turning moment, given towhat you're doing right now, and
for you now it's even changedfrom being the top student to
can I understand the subjectmatter of what is happening in
the engineering world, right?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
How did this change perspective on how you look at
things?
Are you talking about back?
Can?

Speaker 1 (19:48):
you refresh all your, you refresh all your questions.
So, if I understand well, yeah,yeah, so so you said at this
point you're not struggling tobe number one on, you know, top
student, right, it was more likeyou're fascinated by science,
correct?
And for you, you see moreopportunity of even going to
town competing at a regionallevel, you know, country level
to international level.
How did this change perspectiveof how you look at now?

(20:11):
You're in school, I'm going toclass, there's a teacher
teaching something, there'll bean exam, but of course do I want
to understand the subjectmatter?

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, so I think it quite changed because I didn't
look at the class itself.
So it was always my chemistryteaching.
I'm always looking.
Okay, where can I put this?
Can.
I add this to that design, andthen it can react whatever.
So I think even my class beganto be more like, like yeah like
a lab for me, like I, like Idraw into imagination of what

(20:42):
each other teaching, but notevery class, you know.
Yeah, but um, and I didn't.
And then my future began tochange.
Like they look at the future,uh, yeah, begin to change
because before I was thinkingmaybe, uh, I'm gonna be a
neuroscientist, but now I beginthinking my, my future as a
scientist.

(21:02):
So that's why it completelychanged my like, flipped, my, my
, my, my, the career, like, uh,future I was imagining from like
a career that you know, youknow, I want to be a doctor, I
want to be this and you, and todo that you need just to study,
study, study, get a, a, a to getthat career.
But he told me, like, okay, no,no, no, it's not that far ahead
.
If you want to be that, you'regoing to be, start doing this

(21:24):
while you're here, and what canyou do now?
Yeah, so I think it's.
It made me more like yeah, itmade some classes a lot of funny
and other classes more boring.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
I know what you mean.
So at this point, do you getgood grades to go to university
or?

Speaker 2 (21:42):
no, no, no At this point.
Do you get good grades to go touniversity?
No, no, no, no so the normalway is you don't go to
university.
The normal way is that you goto advanced school and then you
go to university.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Which was previously from 5th from 6th, from 5th from
6th.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
But for me I'm like no, from that moment, moment I
saw myself, I began to diverge abit from class and then I know
like even now I'm going to justfocus on chandy stuff or PC and
PCB to want to work well for meso that's where now I begin.
Okay, maybe I can takealternative route instead of

(22:19):
going to advanced school, I cango to college.
So that's been invading to mymind, I can take an alternative
route instead of going toadvanced school, I can go to
direct to college.
Yeah, yeah, so that's beeninvading to my mind.
And as I do research, I foundthat there's a course called
mechanical engineering.
Hmm, synergy, computer andmechanical.
Yeah, that's where, like, yeah,so so I, I, I, yeah, like, let

(22:44):
me get some good marks to takeme to university.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, um, perhaps it was not quite easy, you know.
Yeah, no, going to invest isnot easy, of course the harder
part was not the marks.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
The harder part was like in my family where I'm the
first born okay I have threesisters.
The first one went to advancedschool, second one to advanced
school, the third one went toadvanced school.
Yeah, and then, um, now tellingthat idea to parent, like I
don't want to go to advanced.
And then, while you still getgood grades, like you get
Division 1, but it's like okay,I don't want to go to university
.
They don't get it.

(23:10):
They're like, okay, this kid isconfused.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Did you get like Division 1?

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, I did.
I biology, but you didn't wantto go to the advanced school.
I didn't To advance the school,I didn't want to go to the
advanced school.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
What is this?
Advanced school, form 5 andForm 6.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I didn't want to go to that class Because I saw,
okay, it doesn't add any value.
There's this thing in TZ if yougo to advance, the chance of
going to study what you want isactually dependent on the marks
that you score and the finalmarks.
So I didn't want to take thatroll of dice that my future is
uncertain, so whatever I'm goingto score in my PCM or PCB is

(23:52):
going to determine my entirefuture.
I can go to mechatronics, andthen here's my future and grow
with it.
So I didn't want to play dice.
I said, okay, here's what Iwant.
And I didn't want to play dice.
I said, okay, here is what Iwant.
And I know for sure this iswhat I want, I'll go for it.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, so you just went to mechatronics.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Mechatronics.
And then, yeah, it was.
So I did in selection in formfor you to select like advanced
or college.
Okay.
So they automatically selectedme to college.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
I was not selected.
Okay, okay, yeah.
And you joined college whereyou're doing mechatronics,
correct?
Did you find other more smarterkids than you?

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Definitely yeah, always First day.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
You realize now even you're not smarter anymore.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, I mean, it's not about smarter now.
So my obsession now became it'snot about, okay, who are
smarter.
So if I find smart people, Iwant to learn from them.
You know like okay, yeah, okayyeah, so I remember so right
before college.
That's when I you see, now I'mgoing to court, but that's the
journey was not.
Before going to college I begindoing the code adventure.
So my, the way I judged smartwhen I got to college was not by

(24:55):
the maxi score.
It was like what do you know?

Speaker 1 (25:00):
yeah, for sure.
And.
And at this point you realizeoh man, I need to learn more
stuff.
Uh to just uh, and.
But before even that, whatactually is the grading system
in in mechatronic college looklike?
Is it the max anymore, or is itthe experiments?
Is it the projects that youbuild?

Speaker 2 (25:18):
it depends yeah, is it combination?

Speaker 1 (25:20):
it's combination yeah , so you do a lot of projects
there not a lot.
It's not even like it's not alot of maybe final year but,
it's more like practical examyeah, so there's more practical
exam whereby you you build aproject or how does it look like
yeah, so final year, yeah so.

(25:51):
So in this case, if you'redoing a practical project
whereby you know so like aproject project, it's more like
an experiment that you do in alab, right?

Speaker 2 (25:59):
I mean we did a lot of that because we can use broad
.
It's more like director guidingus.
This is how you do.
Yeah, sometimes, if you'reinterested enough, you can
approach the lecturer like, okay, can I have some more time to
use the lab?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
yeah, some people did that.
And what would you be doing inthis lab if it's not a project?
What is in this lab?
Is it an engine?
Is it the gears?

Speaker 2 (26:21):
is it because in our college we had a mechanical like
workshop where we saw a lot oflike machines like bending
machine into whatever you know,all mechanical machine?
I haven't got a name it's quitesome time.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
did this help you now visualize most of the learnings
that you've been doing sinceprimary school, and sciences and
all that?
No?

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah.
So before just going to college, I began like Googling a lot on
YouTube what is mechatronicsand like?
What do mechatronics and like?
What do mechatronics do?
So when I'm going to college, Ihad very high expectation.
Yeah.

(27:12):
And so you got, disappointed Iwas disappointed Because what I
was seeing on, I was seeing ononline and people doing
mechatronics in the industry.
There's, you know, people inwhite coat yeah, putting this
cheap and turning on a robot.
That was my, that was myfantasy going to college.

(27:34):
Like this is what I'm going todo, you know sci-fi movie not
sci-fi by say industrial Likeyeah, it was.
I didn't say it wasn't thatgood like in teaching, but I'm
saying my expectation was wayhigher than college.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Okay.
Did this discourage you?
Or how did you navigate the two?
Is it two years college orthree years Three?
Because this is now maybe firstyear.
Second year, yeah, how did younavigate this, now that your
expectations are not met?

Speaker 2 (28:05):
I mean from the day before I went to college, I
began to be fascinated with codelike programming.
Yeah.
So even from like first year tosecond year to third, my whole
consultation was coding you know, like building software, like
learning to act, wait a minuteIn this mechatronic.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
did you start first year by coding or I started?

Speaker 2 (28:29):
coding way before first year Okay.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah, who introduced you to coding, or how did you
get about that?

Speaker 2 (28:36):
So the reason that was my friend.
They went to US because ofcoding and this is my friend.
I knew them like I know them,like I can touch them, you know
they went to US.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
You're so tight with them, yeah but you know.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
So one of the reasons they went to US was like they
knew how to code, yeah, and thatwas inspired me.
Now, okay, let me learn thiscraft, maybe it may take me to
some place someday.
So I remember going to mybrother and my brother was like
my cousin was studying at BayUniversity.
So I'm like give me a tutorialto code, give me where do I

(29:11):
start?
They give me like a bunch of Cplus C tutorial.
Give me a DVC plus plus like anAD for coding C.
And then I went home to likefind myself, okay, how do I set
to code?
So when I'm going now tocollege I had a bit of an idea
on what coding looks like.
What is C programming, yeah.
So from there I wasn't muchinto classes.

(29:32):
I'm like class so that I don'tfail, but I was more into all
the time on Wi-Fi gettingtutorials, downloading tutorials
as much as I can, coding,learning to code, building
sample projects, something likethat.
So it went from first year tofinal year.

(29:53):
My concentration was not oncollege per se.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
So which language did you start coding with?

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I started C and then I went to C++ until I think
second year that's where.
I got into Python, yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
And this was not taught in your course, right?

Speaker 2 (30:13):
C was taught in second semester, first year,
yeah.
So we did a lot of C.
In second year we did C++.
So because mechatronics the wayit works is that you're doing
hardware controlling, sohardware C and C++.
So because mechatronics is theway it works that you are,
you're doing like hardwarecontrolling, so hardware C and
C++ are very powerful forembedded programming.
So that's why you got LMC as amechatronics engineer.
So, we did some classes onprogramming.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Okay, yeah, and at this point you realize that
coding is fun.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, I mean fun, yeah, I mean I like coding.
Yeah, so a bit of a story.
I remember just when I wasdoing, before going to college,
I wrote a paper called Beyondthe Achimedes Principle, where I
was challenging the AchimedesPrinciple.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I wrote formulas, I wrotewhatever.
I came to the Commission forScience and Technology I'm like,

(31:01):
okay, here's my paper I did andcan you look at it?
And yeah, so, but the shortstory, uh, I had not to just one
paper, I had papers.
You got free dynamics, nhs, Ihad a lot of papers, yeah.
So my, my, my, my holiday fromwriting papers, but those papers

(31:24):
never touched the light of theday and that discouraged me,
like, maybe these papers youneed someone to push you to push
you, to take you somewhere butsomething is called that I only
needed a computer and then Icould take an idea and still
create something that is useful.
So that made me like fullobsessed with code and then like
, okay, hey, physics, I love youso much, but take a break with
software.
I only need a laptop and then Ican take something and in

(31:47):
internet and I can readsomething that it could impact
the world.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
You know, like yeah yeah, and it's good you realize
that.
Uh, you know on your own,because also that's one thing
that I believe that can change alot of things for many people
across the board.
Uh, anything else I look at,there's so much time needed,
resources as well, as you know.
Education argument right, butfor code you just need a laptop

(32:13):
and internet, as you said, andjust curiosity.
If you're curious enough, youcan get to build anything and
learn anything, because now evenmost of the content is
available online.
But it's not as straightforwardas people think it's not, yeah,
yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
The only thing you need is just don't stop like
every day, you just learnsomething new.
Yeah, because they're going tobe moment like don't feel like
learning because be sometimesbeginner is kinda hard and then
you go into letting you see thesmartest the word and then you
go like, okay, no, no, not yet,yeah.

(32:46):
So I think at the verybeginning sometimes you need to
intentionally know okay,interest in it.
So if you're, intentionallyinterested in it.
I think that's all you need.
Learn something that doesn'twork.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Take your break get it works, yeah, yeah.
And what was the biggestchallenge that you face when
you're?

Speaker 2 (33:10):
learning some of these.
You know coding skills and andwhat you can build with code.
Okay, yeah.
So back in the days I had zeroexposure to other ecosystem.
You know, all I had is all Iknew was me.
There's my friend called Daniel, who taught me a lot of C++.
Daniel Daniel who?
Daniel Mkongo.
Oh, Mkongo he's now aMechatronics Bachelor in ROTC.
But he taught me a lot of codelike C++ and stuff like that, so

(33:32):
I wasn't very much exposed toour ecosystem and also it
limited what I can.
I didn't have a good roadmap,so sometimes you just find
yourself going to class z a to z.
Sometimes it's like, okay, youdon't get it because you're
jumping to a very high concept.
So I think, yeah, maybe aroadmap like kaleb, maybe learn

(33:54):
from these to this would helpvery much.
Yeah, uh, so that was like zeroguidance.
So, yeah, it was like a lot oftriennale yeah, yeah, uh.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
So we would advise someone who is trying to run uh
to learn this concept at thispoint.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Uh, they just take some time and be patient with
themselves yeah, but for now Ithink you don't, don't don't
like get somebody at least toshow you the roadmap, like not
somebody?
If like, okay, ask me, teach me.
No, no, no, I won't teach you,but I'll give you a course and
I'll give you, like resources towhere to go, where to go if you
stack.
So I didn't have that somebody,so it was like more me um

(34:28):
learning, the learning throughthe hardware, you know, yeah
interesting.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Um, and now that this learning was not, it was
self-taught.
Besides, you know doingmechatronic, but of course you
could find some somewhere wherethese two are meeting.
Uh, and I know withmechatronics, but of course you
could find somewhere where thesetwo are meeting, and I know
with mechatronics.
If it's a banded system, youneed some PCB, some gadgets some
semiconductor to program.

(34:54):
Did you get these in plenty atthe college?

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Yeah, in plenty.
I think remember from firstyear I began implementing my
first robot like hand robot.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah.
Grab something, and it was verylike you know, a physical robot
or just simulated robot.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
It was a hand robot, okay.
But basically I didn't createthe hands.
Someone gave me the hands, Ijust programmed it.
You just programmed it, okay.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Interesting.
Yeah.
Because I remember last time Isaw, actually when we programmed
a robot, it was on Java, youknow, simulator, eclipse.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
And you could see, yeah, it's moved left right.
So if you connect that andactually to, move that it's
simulating what you could see.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
So I did a lot of those hardware stuff.
Yeah.
So in my first year to thirdyear, I was still a believer of
mechatronics.
Yeah.
So in my first year to thirdyear I wasn't.
I was still a believer ofmechatronics, but I wasn't a
believer of like it could,through the normal way of going
to class and listening tolectures, that I can tend to
where I want to go.
I'm like, okay, let me just gothrough my self adventure.
Let me go buy Arduino andprogramming Arduino and buy

(35:57):
sensors and actuators.
I, I, I began.
I believed.
As I began, I believed, okay,if I could teach myself how to
control all this hardware, Icould get somewhere with
mechatronics.
So I was still a believer.
I stopped being a believer,maybe late in the Late in the
years.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
So you're connecting robots, programming, and what is
running through your mind, like, what will you do?
Will you go and work for Toyota, or you know all these places?
What was going through yourmind, like, what will you do,
will you go and work for toyota,or you know all these places?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
or what was going through your mind at this point,
or you just wanted to graduateand you know, get your degree
and no, like to be honestly, thethe graduating thing became in
the last year, so I wasn't verymuch like I was just thinking
about the future or thinking,okay, I was always, I was all.
I mean, I've always wanted todo something like this like
program hands, uh, controlsensors, creative lines,

(36:47):
whatever, like that's what I was.
No, no, no, no.
Like future like two years tocome no, no, no, just uh, what
in front of me that was goingthrough my mind living in the
moment in the moment, yeah, butI was.
I was like, okay, if I could dothis now, maybe in the coming
days I could be somewhere veryfar.
You know that that I had that'skind of concept in my mind,

(37:07):
like maybe I could, you know,build an industry but you're
already building an industry.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
You're sounding like someone who is struggling, but
you're not man, so I mean not,not to the concept.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
I was thinking it was more on hardware.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Okay, yeah, and I I do, but you still have time, man
, so where you have started isnot.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a fair point, it's a
fair point, it's a fair point.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, you are a head unit.
I don't know if they know whatyou.
They have achieved, what youhave achieved so far.
So you have time to do allthese things and it's great.
So, in that aspect, yougraduate and do you pass your
exams or do you exceed theexpectations?

Speaker 2 (37:51):
So basically, in class I wasn't a very bad
student.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Okay, you're just average.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
No, I was the top student all the years.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
The three years.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
I was the best student first year, second year,
last year and the bestgraduating student.
Yeah, 4.8 out year and the bestgraduating student.
Ah, nice yeah 4.8 out of 5 ofthe final GPA.
So I was not very bad in class.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
I was actually good, yeah, yeah, okay now, because
you said there's a time.
You said you know, I want toconcentrate.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
No.
So if they're like Caleb, youalways code.
How do?

Speaker 1 (38:21):
you manage.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
How do you manage?
Yeah, but for me, because Idon't know, maybe my adventure
was the physical programminghardware.
Yeah, it made me even like,okay, if it's programming class,
I get all the marks.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
And do you think there are guys who are in school
doing the wrong thing?
It's not that they're notbright or they're not smart,
it's just because they're doingwhat maybe they are not supposed
to be doing.
Maybe, yeah, maybe, becausefrom what you have just said.
It's just that you found whatyou can connect with and do.
Yeah, that's why you found funin it, because I know

(38:55):
mechatronic is not that easy.
Yeah, it's not, it's notstraightforward as most of the
things.
Neither is it.
You know, even literature forsome other people is not that
straightforward.
You have to connect with it andyou have to be like this is
what I want to do, understandwhat I want to do with this and
go ahead.
So after school, what happens?
Uh, do you, do you join ouruniversity?

(39:18):
Or do you just say you knowwhat?
I have enough skills, let me goto da you mean after college?
After college, yeah oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
So after college, during college, I, yeah, okay.
So after college, duringcollege, I participated in a lot
of competitions, like coming toDA exhibiting something and
coming.
So during college, I beganexploring a bit.
Okay, there's GDG, there issomething called Python,
tanzania.
So I started to have a sense ofcommunity and I realized, okay,

(39:46):
if you want community, go tothat.
Yeah so that was in my mind likein my very last day of
graduating.
Yeah, so I stayed one month athome in Bayer, but I'm like mom,
if I want to make it Now, I'mthinking now in my head.
I know like you, I'm thinking inmy head like I don't want to be

(40:08):
like the best result outcomefor me, working as a mechanical
engineer is being a repair guyyeah or maybe the best yeah yeah
, maybe like not repair per se,but more for maintenance and a
bit, a bit of like I found outin industries, like as a

(40:29):
mechanical engineer inindustries, because we had this
science fair like this projectto go to maybe Coca-Cola or
Pepsi.
So I don't know if it's quitetrue, but they don't trust
locals to touch sensitivesystems, so most of the time.
They won't give you that aspectof actually having to innovate
and create something, so you'remostly gonna go into uh okay,
there's okay, let's, let's addmore oil here.

(40:50):
There's a bolt that is loose,okay let's really let's press
this, so that doesn't.
That doesn't like, that doesn'treally trigger me.
You know, what trigger me is methe aspect of creating
something, you know.
So I saw myself, okay, notreally going to that career of
uh, taking my cv and going to aninterest, like, okay, he gave

(41:11):
me this job so I, I say I'm, Iwas not um gonna apply any work
of megatronics that was myliking to me.
Yeah, so, even if um, yeah, soI I to now to now to take uh to
pursue as a developer.
He's that, you know, like hedies, he's ecosystem there is a
community that is gdg yeah and Ithink there's also jobs,

(41:33):
because every head is in that,you know, if you want jobs.
So I'm like my mom, uh, I seeone month and you know like he's
staying at home.
You're like, okay, if I'm, uhat home, the best could could do
would be be a farmer.
You know, yeah, go to go tofarm, but I know I can't farm
now.
I don't want to be a burden athome.
Let me just go to town and seeif I can get opportunities in

(41:55):
tech.
Yeah, so.
I stayed only one month and thenI came to, came to town yeah,
so do you have like familymembers here or just I?
Have a sister, sister.
But uh, I only stayed for aweek and then I rented.
Um, like I, I went to rent,yeah, yeah okay, so um, you come
to da.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
At least you had come .
You had come before for thecompetition and participation on
different things but now youcome to da, and here you're
self-reliant.
How did that work out?
Did you get some side projectswhere you could now pay rent, or
I was very naive so I was verynaive.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yeah, I remember just I was working on some final
year project for some some, somecollege student from udome,
yeah, and it paid me.
Uh university of darsala oruniversity, university of dodoma
yeah, they paid me about 200KTshiling.
And then I'm like I want to gorent, yeah.
And then going fighting housesand I realized renting is at

(42:53):
least you need to have, I thinkaround 300K, yeah.
And I called my dad.
I'm like my dad, please rent me, borrow me at least 300K.
I need to rent a home.
And then I was sending myselfgoing forward yeah, I need to
rent a home and then I'll alsosend myself going forward.
Yeah, so my very first rent, Irented from my dad.
I mean, I borrowed my moneyfrom my dad about around 300K.
Get a rent and then I have 200Kto buy.

(43:16):
Godoro the first mattress, thefirst mattress, and then some
Pazia, and then I had only 20Kon my, 20k on my on remaining to
live in Nda.
That was how I started myjourney in Nda.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yeah, yeah, and here you are, and here you are.
So if there's a guy who isstill living, you know, with
their mom or dad, it's, it'snever that hard to take a risk,
because otherwise you're goingto always be afraid to jump
right.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
I mean the risks are high.
I didn't know the risks.
I was very naive again, Ithought I would make it.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
What happened?

Speaker 2 (43:54):
In early days I realized okay, this man cannot
stay for two days or three days.
And so I was not a debutable asa software developer, so I
couldn't get jobs.
I don't have any certificationas a developer, I'm just an
enthusiast.
So back into.
I don't have any certificationas a developer, I'm just I can
be enthusiastic, you know likeyeah, so back into college I was
doing some business mine, I wastaking component from China.
I was ordering on Alibaba andI'm selling device to my fellow

(44:16):
student, so that was my I took.
When I'm coming to DAA, I camewith a component.
Maybe I could do this sellingof of component.
I had a brand called QuantElectronics, so like selling
electronics and stuff, yeah.
So my very first, like 80 days,was me selling electronics,
going on WhatsApp, going onCanva yeah, putting price.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
And how did you know how to order from China?
From China?
Yeah, I took a risk.
I tried once, just went online.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
I tried once bought me money.
I bought around one M duringCorona.
I'm like I'm going to order nowBecause if people don't order
now, if Corona ends, I'll havethe component.
And then it actually worked.
So all other sellers during nowCollege of Open.
After the lockdown Now Collegeof Open after the lockdown Now

(45:08):
College of Open.
I was one of the few guys withthe component from China already
here.
What?

Speaker 1 (45:15):
company was that.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Electronics, maybe sensors, microcontrollers.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
So even you actually ordered things in line of your
yeah, microtronics.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
So I was ordering stuff, and I was also building
projects for other collegestudents.
Okay, get some money, oh yeah,microtronics.
So I was ordering stuff and Iwas also building projects for
other college students.
Okay, get some money, oh yeahso you are the guy.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
It's called what the guy?
Who?
What do they call it?
Gun for hire.
So if someone is doing aproject and things are all
working out, kalebu is there tosave the day.
Yeah, call me and how much doyou charge?
200,000?
.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
No, 200 is too high.
You know you're talking aboutuniversity students Okay, yeah.
It's around 100K.
You know it's around there youknow 100K so you buy from me
component.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
And you build for it.
Yeah, so yeah, I get.
Yeah, this is in Dondoba, orMosty, in my college.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
That is Mbea.
So I'm like okay, let me printposters, get a designer, design
me a poster, print posters.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
You're also a designer, a graphic designer.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
No, I had to pay a designer.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Oh, to promote yourself.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
To promote the brand I was creating in college Quant
Electronics and stuff like that,by that time you're not
finished college, I'm notfinished, I'm still in college,
I'm in entrepreneurship sellingstuff, and then when I came to
DA, now I begin doing the samething, because now I'm not it's
very hard for me to get adeveloper job Because there's no
reputation around me.

(46:38):
So after I managed a bit andthen my very first job, I think,
was around, it was a developerwork.
It was around 30k Tshilling30,000 shillings.
Yeah, my guy called you need tocreate an app and this is the
features.
There's a lot of features youknow 30k, that's like 150 Kenya

(47:01):
shillings.
Yeah, yeah, that is like 1dollar 50 cents something I'm
not $1, no, no, I don't know, itwas 30k.
Tshiling oh, 30,000 okay soit's around maybe $10, okay, $15
yeah, $15.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Oh there about yeah yeah, it's not still not.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
I was very happy this guy just didn't know how he
helped me, because I was, I wasalmost broke, oh so I was like
so this meant life and death foryou.
Life and death for you.
So I called him in a day andlike, here, done, and the guy
paid me 30K.
And then he put the work to theboss and the boss was like,

(47:42):
okay, call this guy, maybe youcan add some more features, yeah
.
And then I went to the boss andthen we didn't talk about the
pricing, about the work.
I just do work, do work, dowork.
And then right after I'm likehow much?
And now I'm like, okay, now Igot charge money.
It's getting to be 30K, no more.
Yeah.

(48:04):
So I'm going to the boss and I'mlike, okay, give me 500k.
Okay, the boss is like, okay,give me some time.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
I'll build this for you.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
And he called me and I can't.
It sounded like too much money,but I'm like no, no, no, I'm
like boss.
You know, there's anotherclient just nearby, who?
Was bothering me, yeah, who wasbothering me, and then I
charged them around 300k for aday.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
I walked here for four days you should pay me 500k
and that was my very first bigmoney to be paid in town.
Oh, yeah, yeah, and now yourealize the uko mugini and then
now I'm like okay, dad, here'syour 300k.
I'm in town now and here's50,000 for you, for your trouble
, for your trouble, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
For your trouble.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah, ah, that's nice .
And then did you now startgetting big projects from that
point, or?

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, not a big project, you know, but I studied
a bit.
I used to be on Upwork, I usedto be on LinkedIn.
Oh wow, yeah.
So I never got a job on Upworkby that point.
But on LinkedIn I put myselflike machine learning engineer,
whatever.
Wow, yeah.
So I never got a job on Upworkby that point.
So I had like a but.
I only put myself like machinelearning, engineer, whatever,
whatever, too many stuff.
And so one of the one person ison a company in logistics.

(49:15):
I went on my LinkedIn and thenlike, okay, DM me like Caleb,
can you?

Speaker 1 (49:19):
come to my office that is in Tanzania or some
other place In.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Tanzania, in Tanz, and DM me like, caleb, can you
come to the office, I want totalk to you?
And I'm like, okay, this is it.
So I went to the office andhe's like, okay, I want you guys
to build a CRM and stuff likethat.
So by that time I only knewPython, so I don't know any of
font and stuff.
I tried font and it didn't work.
Yeah, I just don't know Pythonand I know backend.

(49:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
But the guy wanted us to do like a CRM.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, and how much was he hiring?
Or just per project?
It was per project.
Okay, yeah, okay so.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
I came and I took my other guy who knew how to do
content Okay.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
So now you're starting to know guys who are
doing what you've connected withthem from the community or Some
of them from the community,some of them maybe when they
reach out to me for a project.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, back when I was in college.
So, I'm like, okay, from theexperience of this guy who we
worked together on the CRMproject was just a guy who
reached out to me when I was incollege Like Calum, I want this
Now when I come to street.
So I, but when?

Speaker 1 (50:23):
I came to street I'm like, okay, give me that, I'll
figure it out, I'll figure itout.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah.
But then I called he was goodat Fontaine and then we were
like, okay, can you do thisBecause we're all broke by the
time you know, no one is rich,so okay.
And then the guy's like, howmuch do you charge?
Like okay, let's.
That was like okay, now let'scharge them by this.
First of all, we wanted tocharge them by hours, but it

(50:49):
turned out to be very high moneyand unfreakable pricing.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
So now we're experimenting.
It's like you are scaring themaway, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Now we begin experimenting.
Now we're just missing numberout of air.
And see how they react, youknow and they to see how they
react you know, yeah, and thenlike five million, five million,
we can do it.
Yeah, so that's turned to beanother bar on the street.
So we worked on that projectfor like a lot of months.
Yeah.
But it was like five months.
Now we could pay rent and thenassure a couple of months

(51:19):
survival in town.
Yeah, yeah.
And also build reputation.
Now, now, once you work on aproject.
That's why developer it is ifyou work on a project, you work
on a project, you're buildingyour portfolio and now you're
writing real things, notimaginary not imaginary stuff.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Yeah, now you go ahead.
At what point do you or howmany projects did it take for
you to you know think about okay, I'm gonna start a company,
right, and I'm gonna build asolution of X, whatever x is,
and you tell us about the xfactor of your solution okay,
yeah, um.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
So it was quite ill because I started working on
2020 and I started the companyin december 2021.
Just one year, just one year,you had done all those projects
then a Because when I wasworking on that 5 million
project, now I begin exploringopen source.
Yeah, so that's when you see, alot of open source was me
intentionally building them toget a portfolio.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Yeah, because projects are not coming as fast.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Yeah, but you want to .
No, no, not as fast Because theCRM but you never work.
So I wanted something thatcould expose me publicly so then
I found open source to be quitethe way and writing content, so
I was writing content and alsoputting open source, putting

(52:40):
open source and then open source.
I began to get a lot ofexposure.
People were like, okay, a lotof exposure.
People are like, okay, I can'thave made my person and stuff
like that, and then from thereyou might get one gig, two gig.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting, so 2021, you decide
.
Okay, you know what?
I'm starting something.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
What castigated that?

Speaker 2 (52:59):
At that point I did a lot of freelancing in Tanzania.
I went on Upwork, I went fromUpwork to a remote company, some
remote company in Italy andthen, during the work with the
remote company, I quitted workand then not in a good team.
I was very frustrated withworking now.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Was it a bit toxic.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Yeah, the boss was a bit toxic.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
You want to speak a bit about it, or?

Speaker 2 (53:24):
no, no, but in the end, of the day.
I was very sick, I had somebody, they died and then I went to,
so I missed like two days in awalk and the boy was like no
serious so I'm like okay, I wasvery sick, I'm suffering, like I

(53:46):
was like like a lot of ulcer,and then like, yeah, so he's,
and he's like he doesn't careabout that.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
He cares about what you do.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
I'm just a number.
You know like yeah, yeah, sothat that really, I'm like, okay
, if we, if I it, and then I wasgetting paid 6 million a month.
It was 2.9k USD A month.
And then I'm like I'm quittingthis work, what I'm gonna do,

(54:16):
yeah, I mean, but you know,working there, getting 6 million
, it made me okay, I'm valuable.
Now I can get paid for 6million in a month, so I'm
valuable.
What can I do now To get the 6in a month?
So I'm valuable?
What can I do now to get the 6million a month if not getting
paid?
So a lot of idea.
But again, the idea of companycame about after quitting.

(54:38):
The idea of company came evenbefore working in a remote
company, but it wasn't serious.
Now, after quitting, what do Ido?
I begin hitting freelancing,like Upwork.
I made a bit of money on Upwork, but I'm like, okay, I don't
want to do Upwork, I don't wantto do another job.

(54:59):
Let me think of a company.
And again.
I don't know what it takes tobuild a company.
I'm just a developer.
I'm thinking now, okay, let medo it.
The most comfortable way for menow, okay, is not freelancing,
not going to another job.
Yeah, so even maybe theemotional relation wasn't that
well because I didn't, I didn'twant, don't talk to me about job

(55:21):
again, don't talk to me yeah,yeah.
So that's all like now, okay,let me set a company.
And then I remember when I wasin college, I begin exploring on
AI stuff and then I wanted,okay, the company should be
around AI, you know?

Speaker 1 (55:35):
yeah, so in a company , oh yeah so you're already
fascinated with AI and what youcan do yes how do come about the
solution that you offer?
Because the solution, theportfolio solution that you
offer, even I think by that, ifyou started in 2001, no, most
people had started now seeingthe potential in boats, in

(55:55):
translation.
You know, these are actuallyright now most companies are
looking at so it wasn't verystraight.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Yeah, so in the beginning it wasn't very
straight, yeah, so in thebeginning, uh like, okay, I'll
find a solution, and if you wantanything, yeah, just do it, you
know very general.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, more ifs statements and then it's okay,
we gotta be specific.
And then, uh, so when I was incollege, I did something called
ask iris.
So ask iris was something thatyou could text on sms and it
could reply you back.
So it was like going to usingWikipedia API fetching me
feedback.
So that was my very first kindof chatbot thing to build when I

(56:32):
was in college.
And then that idea was heldsomewhere in my brain and my
brain was like okay, what areyou wondering?
Yeah, it is, I am here.
This is the chatbot.
Yeah and then, okay, okay,let's do chatbot.
So and then, okay, okay, let'sdo chatbot so it wasn't very
like specifically.
Okay, like, okay, let's thinkwhatever my previous exposure,
like I began to be reallyfascinated with sports, and it

(56:56):
all traces back to my firstinspiration of AI it was a movie
Ex Machina and then it's kindof like some sort of a humanoid
robot that can talk to.
So that kind of software thatcan talk to you and reply back
was sounded very interesting tome.
And then, uh, doing a projectaround it, um, and then coming

(57:18):
to street, is still that?
Yes, it's somewhere in yourbrain.
Okay, you gotta be chat aboutsomething like that yeah yeah,
and then and then.
now that's how it is, and thenI'm going forward.
There's a lot of influence, youknow, like there's not like one
influence that you can do chat,but yeah, so yeah, I remember
one of the inspiration I want towant at one around one point

(57:39):
was when I was doing open source.
I was exploring around NLP inAfrican languages.
I went to NLP, nltk it's one ofthe popular packages in NLP.
And I'm looking around, okay,how do I do in Swahili?
And I found out, okay, there'sno support, it's empty, not even
stop words.
I'm like, okay, shit, it can bereal.
So I opened an issue, okay, letme contribute something to this

(58:03):
.
But that triggered me to know,like, okay, there's no, there's
a huge gap in NLP tools forAfrican languages, because
Tanzania is a like Swahili is ahuge language, like it's 100
million speakers, but not evennational language 100 million
speakers in East Africa, but whythere's no tools?
So I begin to see like a hugegap around this area and I'm

(58:24):
like, okay, I speak Swahili, I'ma developer and I know a bit of
AI.
Why not me try to do somethingaround this area?
And then that really matchedwith the chatbot idea, because
to be chatbot, you need to begood at NLP in Swahili and
African languages.
And then, yeah, so it was likeokay, different idea coming to
each other.
And okay, we know, I know you,I know you and then now let's do

(58:46):
something together.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
You know, yeah and uh , you started this all alone and
then, over time, you got somepartners.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
It was like three people in the beginning, and
then from day zero, yeah, andthen I came to one oh, the other
guys quit along the way, or?
A lot happened, oh yeah, so,but at the end of the day, um
yeah, I remained alone.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Now is it the time that you're rebuilding the team,
or you started rebuilding theteam now, after these guys left
the company?

Speaker 2 (59:15):
There was no team.
The only team of these threeguys are the three, but I won't
talk much on the details.
I'll be there for the details,but what happened basically is
two other guys ended up leavingthe details.
I won't be there on the details, but what happened basically is
two other guys ended up leavingthe company, you know.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
But not in a bad way.
I mean.
Or people decided to.
I mean, I can tell.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
But eventually, for me it was very hard because I
wanted to burn my bridges, youknow Like.
I left work.
So this was it for you, thiswas it for me, but these other
guys had option to go and getemployed, which you are not
happy with because you know,yeah, not important, because it
was just more of commitment,because, uh, for me I've got to
commit 100 to this, because thisis this is it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
This is it.
There's nothing else.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
There's nothing else I do.
If I, I'm gonna make it ormaybe go back again to looking
for a job so it ended up then,after they left, and then I'm
like, okay, one of them I veryquickly went to hire was okay,
let me get a market.
So, yeah, I get okay.
Open an Instagram account, openTwitter, facebook you know,

(01:00:24):
take it, you know, take it, youknow, take it, and then start
such marketing.
Ai solution compensation AI noproduct.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Okay, yeah, so just marketing to see how the market
reacts to these yeah, how marketsays, and then yeah, oh, you're
really smart.
No, I wasn't.
If you're doing marketing totest the market about something
that actually Because by then Idon't think AI was really that
crazy man and you see, two yearsdown the line, you have already

(01:00:53):
covered ground.
It was really smart as much asit doesn't look like AI, not
that biased.
And then did people start nowinquiring or asking you what is
this?
How long did it take?

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
It took quite a while A whole year, six months, three
months.
Maybe something like six months.
So six months, that's when Igot my first project as a
company.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
But there's nothing in this, just marketing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
So there was marketing and then around three
months I began getting adeveloper.
Maybe I've been now designingthe system.
So the very first edition ofSarovi never shipped to life, so
there was a first version,there was a home page.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
The dashboard was always in development yeah, but
to believe this thing will work.
And these six months, how areyou surviving?
Are you paying this marketer?

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
So remember when I was writing content.
Oh, you got paid for that ittook me like six months to get
my first job as a writer.
So I got approached by acompany like Rocket, Like okay,
we're going to pay you $350.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Well, how did you go?

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
I'm like dude, this is like Nani, this is something
I get suddenly, you know, inTanzania.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Yeah, in Tanzania, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
So I begin and then I then go to Draftdev.
They pay you $3.20 per article.
Yeah, so it was quite good forme.
I begin, okay, using this moneyand my saving money from
suddenly working to kind offinance developer, because I'm
not a fondant, no, so I'm aboutto design the UI and then get a

(01:02:37):
developer to design some fewpages.
First of all, landing page Geta landing page live hype on
Twitter like oh, building inpublic, Sort of coming in the
next week and then yeah nevershipping for up to six months,
yeah, never, nothing'sfunctional yeah, yeah, wow,
that's.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
That's kind of interesting because if I think
about it already, I see, uh,that you believed so much in
this idea to an extent that youbelieve this is gonna work after
all.
Um, yeah, so after six monthsyou get your first customer.
Are they willing to pay upfront or are they willing to pay
after they see the project?

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
um.
The first client was not achatbot guy, so it was not a
chatbot project yeah it was moreof like aai b2b consultation
yeah so I remember going thereto Tamasha, which is another one
that's happening this year, thelast two years at Tamasha.
So I went there and I foundsomeone speaking about AI.

(01:03:35):
I'm like I'm going to approachthe guy and pitch myself and
then I'm like, okay, you knowI'm the best.
If you want AI solution, go nofurther.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
He's the guy.
He's your guy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
And he's like okay, you see that lady, Go talk to
her.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
So the marketer was a lady.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
No, no, no.
So I approached the guy who isthe head of the company.
They were also offering AIsolution.
So I was preaching if theycould give me a gig, maybe a
subcontract to work on.
And then he's like, okay, yousee that lady, another tech
person now from the company, Italked to that and then he's
going to lead you out.
He will tell if you're good ornot.

(01:04:15):
Back then I had a lot ofproblems.
I created my own language inSwahili, but not in language by
per se.
But if someone look at it like,okay, this guy built a language
and this guy did you, did youpipe aside?
So they look at my portfolio onopen source and like, okay,
he's quite good.
yeah, we can give him a job yeahso he's like, okay, there's a

(01:04:37):
project coming up.
It was december coming up injanuary, come to our offices and
give you a job.
So I went on january and then,okay, here's a job, yeah.
So I didn't know, but I need tocome on up front or not.
So I was like, okay, I'm gonnado it and I'm watching a party,
uh-huh, yeah.
So I remember, not, because topay, I should you $30 per hour.
Yeah.
So, and then this, this client,and then I begin charging them

(01:05:01):
on the same right.
Yeah, it quite paid, it mightsustain me.
I think for the, for the wholelast year even this year okay,
that plant okay 22.
It sustained me I think thewhole last year.
It was one main plant.
That's glad I got at the data,the data machine okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
So here is a community paying back over time.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
Yeah, so now, now it's not now, okay, it it's like
okay, so before getting a jobas a company.
I didn't have the decision done, so it was just a briefcase
company.
Yeah, the company was like okay, you need to give me your
company certification get acontract.

(01:05:43):
And then I'll go register andstuff like that, no-transcript,
now getting a job and learningabout charging how much do you
charge?
And also maybe get some morepersonal team, because now if
you get paid as a company it's abit some money.
And then okay.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Do you have an accountant?
Do you have a dev there?
No, not an accountant.
Accountant not yet, not yet, soI got a very old.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
I got a dev advocate early.
I opened a blog where a bloggoes, and I begin writing blogs
on AI.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
As an advocate.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
As an advocate, like writing content, so in content I
market it for developers,trying to build myself a
reputation before product likeis out yet building uh like some
authority and reputation aroundai.
So that was I've been doing somy very first one of my very
first the marketer and then theadvocate.
Yeah, um, the fountain was notvery hard, it was more like gigs

(01:06:43):
, and then I got to some uh some, to some content, to join in a
team.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
And you're paying them using the project and the
gigs that you're doing on theside.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Not on the side now through this company and does
the rates change?

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Did they change when you registered the company?

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
No, no, they didn't, but it's just like okay, it was
enough, you know, to sustainyeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
I've not that enough, okay, yeah so now, here you
have a company, at least it'sregistered.
Yeah, you have some employees,correct, you're paying them, you
know?
Whatever the amount you knowwas this time, now you started
developing Sarufi seriously.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Yeah, so I was talking.
The aim of the content now isnot to consult, it's to build
Sarufi.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
So the Sarufi began earlier on.
But another developer left, sothe new developer came keep on
building this new Sarufi.
So, it was very odd, becausewe're building the UI with no
architecture in mind.
It's just okay, let's do this.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
And then we're thinking of UI with no
architecture in mind.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
It's just okay, let's do this, and then we're
thinking we're building the shipon the way and then we don't
know what we're doing, we don'thave like a big picture in mind
of what we're building.
So that's how we startedbuilding Sarufi.
It was okay, gotta do this.
We the Sarufi, the firstversion of Sarufi, yeah, but it

(01:08:10):
never turned the light of theday for the Sarufi.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
So the version do you have.
Which version do you have rightnow?

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
I mean it's the other version.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
The original version or.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
No, no, the original version never.
So, as I say, initially wedidn't know what we were doing
it.
Initially, we know what we'redoing.
It was a try and error.
And also, if you tell me, caleb, take a pen, draw me, what is
it?
What is it you're building here?
They hold the wholearchitecture.
I wouldn't have done it, youknow.

(01:08:40):
Yeah, it was more like, okay,we're gonna figure it out.
You could agree.
Yes, let's have a good UI.
Yeah, look at other platform.
Okay, this, these people havethis dashboard, also have this.
And if you do it, you're goingto post on Twitter, building in
public.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
So there are two versions that never saw the
light of the day.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
Yeah, the first initial version I mean the first
version continued to bedeveloped again.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Oh, by a new dev.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
By a new dev Still building it, you know, and
sharing on Twitter building inpublic.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Building in public.
That's a tagline nowadays.
Build in public.
And then from that, now is itlike what is this building in
public?
Because I've seen a couple ofdevs nowadays saying you know,
I'm a believer of building inpublic.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
It's like maybe you can get early users early
because people are saying okay,this guy.
Day one, there was only CSS onthe first page.
Now the whole platform you'relike but do they?

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
does it work like that, or are you building hype?

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
it's building hype you know, so when you, when you
purchase it done, you have somealready.
You know, yeah, not like okay,here is a surprise.
So I was a believer first, butit haunted me.
It haunted me because Iremember in very January I'm
like, okay, ah, almost there.
And then it's June, there'snothing out there.

(01:10:00):
So, some people give me a call.
You know, Kale, are you thecreator of Sarufi?
Like, okay, I logged in the.
Are you the creator of?

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Sarufi.
Okay, I logged in the log pageis not working.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Something's not working.
So people are now kind of likeokay, some people are working
what you guys are building.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
You know you have given me another perspective of
Sarufi that I didn't know.
It seems like you built out ofpressure, that this actually has
to be real.
This actually has to be working.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
Otherwise your reputation is online here.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
But that thing never shipped.
So the other Sanofi that cameto public it was not under
pressure.
Okay.
Yeah, so I'm like okay, I'mokay now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
How did you like discontinue the one that never
shipped?

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
I mean it happened, the front-end developer left and
then I mean it's a point, nowthere was no quality.
Now, whatever I'm building,okay I'm like.
Okay, I don't know what I'mbuilding.
It's just a point where now Icame to realize okay, what am I
doing?
I have no idea yet to know whatI'm doing.

(01:11:06):
So, I, instead of starting fromfront-end, we start.
We need study from a back-end.
Let's be the, the framework ofthe chat, what itself?

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
how it's going to work.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Maybe the flawless day in the floor, this is I in
everything first, and then wecan have a phone in as a body to
embody that, that texture ofthem, of the board.
So in a decade, let's stop this, let's start building the CLI
up.
So, and then it became likethat.
I remember doing the very firstvision of Sarufin, I think in a

(01:11:36):
day, yeah, just a day.
Just imagine how much time Isaved.
It took six months to push aplatform, but never, shipped,
but the very first vision, whichis an MVP that could be used in
a day.
It had no UI.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
So the hard lesson that you learned from this
experience is that you can allbuild a product from the
marketing perspective beforehaving the product itself.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
Yeah.
It's hard and it's painful andit's costly, and then you try to
do every feature.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
You know, painful and it's costly, and then you try
to do every feature.
You know you try to build thebest.
And is it building or justtalking about it, because it
sounds like if it's not workingthere's nothing yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
I mean, you saw this.
It sounds productive becauseyou're gonna build some pages
and then you're gonna show ontwitter.
Okay, it's a chat, but here'sthe button and you can click it.
It sounds.
It sounds productive, but it'snot yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and then what I realized?
Okay, you can build the verysimplest division.
If you're building something,think about what is the simplest
representation of what you'rebuilding.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
Yeah, and then let people use get the feedback.
Yeah, build that first yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Stop about any complex feature, because you
need that credit first.
What is it I'm building?
And then those features cancome later, so we begin with
that now during the.
I begin building the very firstversion of sarufi.
Yeah, no, ui.
Yeah, just a cli.
Yeah, uh, and the docs like aopening, open api docs.
Yeah, open api docs, like okay,you have a post you can click

(01:13:03):
and then, uh, and then I build ack, and then it was like that
sharing in public sarufi no, Ididn't share in public which
year?

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
this year or last year last?

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
year, last year around August and so we did a
very first version of Sarufi,but I never shared in public and
I'm like, okay, how do we putthis to public?
I put it private.
I'm inviting people okay, comeand preview in private, this is
my invention.
How do we put this to public?
I put it private.
I'm inviting people okay, comeinto preview in private.
This is my invention.
But and then I'm like okay,maybe now from that Vestivision

(01:13:36):
we've been building demos nowtrying to pitch to companies.
Let's go to Voda and pitch thisdemo with the engine of Sarufi
now.
Okay, we can now sell it tocompanies and then use our
engine, but it never.
But we never sold anything, youknow.
So I'm like maybe let's justopen source this.
Let's just make it not opensource but make it open for
anyone to use it.

(01:13:56):
We're afraid because there's acompany offering chatbot
services and we're like, okay,ours got API.
If you give them API they canplay around with it and then use
it, figure it out, ourinvention, but eventually
because there was no anytraction you gave up keeping it
private.
Keeping it private, it was nothelping it was not helping,
there was no growth.
It was not like okay, using itfor marketing, like the demo.

(01:14:19):
So what we end up?
Okay, making it API public andendpoint public and allowing
people to try it out.
Okay, here's Sarufi.
Yeah, and then an intern came,a front-end intern.
He helped us build the firstversion of Preground.
So Preground came beforeDashboard.
So Preground was like okay, ifyou develop a blog using CLI and

(01:14:41):
Yamo was using Yamo or JSON asa flow control, you can test it
on Preground.
Yeah.
So no Dashboard yet, but thoseprogram yet very simple.
So beginning marketing, it is aroofing launch, yeah launching
on what's up in Twitter.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was it big, did you?

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
I'm you launch it or just sharing on to hyping on
Twitter.
Yeah, yeah, like I back in thenow, I've been experimenting
viral, viral Twitter tweetinglike a lot.
Yeah, most of the people weretrying the bot we made as a
sample demo, but the traction indevelopment wasn't very good
because, again, people need tonow use Anderson the floor.

(01:15:20):
Yeah, use Yamo to build thefloor and then, yeah, it was.
It was not that, um, there weresome people trying out from,
but we saw that the userexperience of using YAML and
JSON was good that it helped.
It wasn't good to help peopleto do chatbots and stuff like
that.
So yeah, but we didn't have themoney now to finance Build the

(01:15:41):
dashboard.
No, no, build the dashboard forpeople to easily build now bots.
So because it's still likemarketing, we're doing a bit,
but no sponsor, just organic.
Yeah, so marketing is a fairpoint.
Also, no money to do marketingand no money to finance
dashboard development.
So even the UI.
You're seeing now it wasn'teasy.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
So when did you get your first serious client after
this version?

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
Ah, serious client after this version.
Serious client.
It was around, I think, duringSahara Spark, maybe around
November.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
So you got them through Sahara Spark.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
Sahara, spark Sahara.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Spark yeah, which is also a community engagement.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
It is a conference.
It's a tech conference in TZ,One of the biggest in TZ.
Yeah, so it's combined ofcompanies tech.
It is a tech conference.
It is one of the biggest in theentities.
Yeah, so it's combining ourcompanies, uh, foreigners
investors.
Yeah, yeah, so one of the guy II once interned in his company
yeah, uh, I went there like okay, I'm not doing a chat bot, um,
yeah, so so it it just happenedthat you can come to my office

(01:16:47):
and then I went to the officeand he's like okay, um, so this
was a big client, but I didn'tget the money.
Hear me out, I wouldn't mentionthe company name for the sake of
okay, yeah but he's, he's avery big company, you know, like
like B company yeah yeah, he'slike okay, um, how much do you
charge?
Okay, this is a big company,it's a big company, let's charge

(01:17:11):
them 15K USD.
And then we go there.
I'm like okay, I'm going todevelop you a bot for WhatsApp
for 15K USD, which is around 30million, you know.
And then he was like you know,kaleb, I get it's fair, but this
is too high.
We have another vendor.
He's offering us for 5K.
And you're like oh, you know,5k is 12 million, we can also do

(01:17:33):
for this, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
So we accepted the offer Now this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
remember from before that job.
Most of the work was notchatbot, it was B2B data
consultation.
Yeah.
It was more like on big data andnot just ai stuff but not
chatbots yeah so this was one ofthe very first chat.
Like client and bow, we we getwant a chatbot and we are going
to use our chatbot platform yeahto you, to, to uh, to deploy

(01:18:02):
for them yeah yeah, outputdashboard.
We have no dashboard, so weYammer and stuff to work for
them.
Yeah, yeah.
And then the client said okay,caleb, how would I change the
stuff in the board if I want tochange this word?
Yeah.
I need a dashboard.
Yeah, and I'm like, okay, Iknew a couple of my friends who

(01:18:26):
are very good at UI.
Yeah, okay, and they're alsoopening their own company and
they like wants to approach me.
If you have a geeks, just letus know just know whatever, yeah
, and then, um, I didn't havethe money, but I know, okay, if
I'm gonna pay 10 million, I'm in, just also this UI.
So I gave my friend a UI.
Uh like, implement me in thisUI.
I needed this for this clientproject yeah um, but something

(01:18:47):
happened in the middle of theproject.
Something happened and then theboss was out of it.
I don't know, but the boss waskind of.
Something happened which theproject froze.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
So you didn't get paid.
We had two pending invoices.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
And then remember I had another team to do the UI
Not paid, we're not paid.
The ui yeah, not paid, we'renot paid, the team is not paid.
All our expectation is like,okay, this december gonna be
awesome.
Now yeah, big money yeah comingin, yeah, coming in, and then
it's not coming through yeahyeah, do people give up on you
or?

(01:19:25):
I want to give up.
Yeah, I remember losing one ofmy very key person, because
after that we went on holidayand then after that I'm coming.
I'm just finishing my holiday,I'm still living.
There's a nation later.
Yeah, like Kaleo boy, you knowhe's crazy man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
My holiday did not turn out really well, because it
never came through.

Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
Yeah because I was struggling with money.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Yeah, someone has not paid it for months and they
need to pay rent.
They have responsibilities.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
You kind of understand okay, you know you
got to find money.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Yeah, so did you get paid finally, or?

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
I wasn't, but something good happened out of
it.
Okay.
The UI that we were doing for aclient turned out to be the
main sort of dashboard you'reseeing now.
So this project flopped soproject flopped.
But I'm like, okay, what if wecould make this dashboard we're
building for a client to edit?
the flow could be our owndashboard now for people to do
their thing and then I'm likeokay, I begin approaching the

(01:20:23):
team can you guys add this fewmore features?
Can you add a sign up page?
Because we're building it forone client but we don't need it
for signups or nini, crazy stuff.
So we begin like, okay, can wemake a?
Can we make it, uh, in a waythat people could sign up?
yeah, yeah, yeah, and now wehave sarufi version yeah, so
sarufi, version one, it comes alot of blessing, you know.

(01:20:45):
Yeah, so right then, uh, my, itwas tough.
Uh, because, remember, my bigplan is the only one.
They want to go from thetamasha in there because they're
also doing consultation.
Another company, yeah, so itbecame the main subcontractor on
the main of the project.
But they vary sometimes theycome and then they don't come,
so you're depending on one bigclient to do all your financing.

(01:21:06):
Yeah, yeah, so and um, whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
Did you get more clients?
Or?
Or, at this point, just now,you, you, you've perfected the
dashboard.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
It was, it was more.
It was more like finding otherwork apart from chatbot, uh, by
the company to work on so thatwe can pay, we can, we can
operate yeah yeah.
So me getting other clients,not not big per se, but my I
didn't want to go much onconsultation, I wanted okay on
the product.
So it's more okay findingwhatever can get gigs around

(01:21:41):
that you can can help sustain.
At some point it was so hard Igot back on upwork oh on a day.
It was so hard, my rent was dueand then I'm like, okay, yeah, I
need some gigs yeah I need somegigs, yeah, yeah.
But then and then I begin, uh,I begin, okay, doing whatever,
giving some, even consultationwork, maybe building ai, work

(01:22:02):
for some other people yeah toget some money yeah to pay the
team that was viewing thedashboard now.
Yeah.
So that we can launch dashboard.
Yeah.
As a product.
Okay.
Yeah, this idea was not.
It was not natural, it was notplanned, it was accident of us
not getting paid from the clientand the work being done.
Yeah.
Like okay, we've got to dosomething because you need to
pay these people.
They already did the work.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Yeah to you know they have responsibilities.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
after the launch, it went well yeah, and something
good out of the launch.
We got our first enjoy investoroh yes so, after the launch of
the of the of the surferdashboard and then, uh, so my
launch happened on whatsapp oh,okay, yeah first day no twitter
only what's up, yeah so I mean alot of developer community,
developer groups.
Yeah, all I did was spammingpeople.

(01:22:48):
Spamming people yeah, and itpaid off yeah, there's some few
users and what's one?
One of the person who shared onwhatsapp, one of his contact
person was an angel investor oh,wow.

Speaker 3 (01:23:02):
And he was like okay, link me to the guy, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
And then I remember we had like a like a 30 minutes
call with the guy like, okay,come to Cape Town.
Yeah, here's the ticket oh niceyeah, then all I know, I'm in
Cape Town one week and then, andthen after one week and no
pitching okay just talk and okay, what do you do?
we're gonna give you in acommunity, gonna tell to use a
dashboard to build a boat, andthen after okay, I want to be

(01:23:30):
your first investor.
Here's the teams, here's thefirst months of investment.
So right now, that's when I atleast you are stable enough to
build.
Stable enough, and that's whenI would say okay, let's focus on
the product, because now you'renot worried about the salary.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
Salary, yeah, Because now you're not worried about
the salary rent, getting gigsout of work to work on a product
.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
So that removes all the destruction and the
worrisome, because the growth ofthe project wasn't very much
good in the first year becauseit was a lot of destruction.
To work on a project is anexpense and also there's no
credit.
So, right now.
We had a bit of credit of whatwe want the floor, the dashboard
was very connecting.
The team did a good, nice workon the dashboard.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
So you know now working on a serious project
building communities and it isnow there is something exciting
about your journey, kalebu, andone of those things that you
have always believed in thecommunity, by participating in
it, by always coming back andgiving value to it, even

(01:24:36):
believing that if you share withyour community, they're going
to actually use your product and, ideally, you'll get an
investment in it.
So, for you, community is likeeverything.
Yeah, it's everything.
And this, actually, I met youthrough our community.
Correct.
And one thing that made menotice you is that even after we
left, I saw you engaging theguys trying to help, trying to

(01:24:59):
see what you can do.
What is that drive?
Why is that drive for you?

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
I mean I think my early days coming out of Mbeya.
I'm a lonely wolf there, Only acouple of few friends, less
exposure.
Coming down to that and thenseeing all these communities and
that's where I saw the spiritof community.
Going to Flata for food.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
So the first catch gate of any community is food.
It's food.
You're broke and you don't have.

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
So the first catch get of any community is food.
It's food you know like, yeah,you're broke, you don't have
money to buy food.
There's good food atcommunities event free food.
You're leaning frata, so you do.
I really like the community.
You know getting there, knowingother people doing different
stuff.
Even my first AI, like kind ofmentor, was through community.
I remember going to Boonie.
Boonie is a very place for me.

(01:25:53):
That's where most of my stuffbegan from.
Maybe Flask or whatever, AI,whatever.
All the stuff came from Boonie.
Because I'm going there.
I'm like, okay, I love AI, I'mlooking for guys who do AI here.
Okay, you see some guy there,yeah, go talk to him.
And you talk to him like, okay,he's doing JavaScript and

(01:26:13):
talking to something like Java.
He's like, hey, play this musicusing voice and the AI is
listening.
It's all fascinating, you know,like.
And it's also community.
You come, you see all this GDG.
So I was actually a believer ofcommunity and then, through
community, that's where I met mytribe, Because my tribe was not
Colleges, most people Mechatronand stuff.

(01:26:34):
So I lied to the community.
That's where I find myself atpeace, because I like meeting
new people who are actuallydoing different stuff learning
from them.

Speaker 1 (01:26:42):
So fast forward.
There's this project that youare coming to do with Mozilla,
and it actually touches on yourvision and how you actually to
start building, which is to justhelp people who are likely

(01:27:07):
reachable because of languagebarrier and how they can
interact with the differentaspect of technology through
voice right.
It's called mozilla connectedvoice right and again, you
volunteer to become a trainer,right?
Um, please speak a bit about itand why it's important that
people should come on Friday,saturday, join the competition,

(01:27:31):
but, of course, I'll add a fewdetails on that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
Okay.
So, as I spoke previously, ifyou come to NLP space as a
developer, the tools for Africanlanguages are very non-existent
yeah.
Yeah.
And then you don't expect amiracle or somebody to come and
say hey, here are the tools.
Yeah.
So I think, as African, we haveresponsibility.
Yeah.
Um to to build these tools.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
True, true.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
Yeah, and then I think uh, that's what amazing
Mozilla.
I've been doing it like anamazing walk.
Yeah.
So on local language likeSwahili, luganda and stuff like
that, to help now givedevelopers the ability to use
this data to create AI modelsout of it In this week's

(01:28:17):
hackathon.
It's very interesting becausewe're going to be touching
Swahili.
The hackathon is about now.
Okay, how can we buildsomething for ourselves Using
data collected from our locals?
Because it was using volunteerscoming together.
I happened to participate inone of the voice contributions
run by Catherine.
I was there just looking atpeople doing Mozilla and Common

(01:28:44):
Voice.
I think this week is a chancefor you now to come and be a
part now, not on contributing,but on building now AI that can
can convert speech into text.
Yeah, so I think it's quite.
It's quite interesting.
And then it's quite.
Also, it's good because, firstof all, you're building yourself

(01:29:04):
like a career in AI.
Second, you're buildingyourself a career in AI.
Syscon is impactful becauseyou're doing something for local
.
You're doing something forSwahili, so it's something that
you should be proud of if youcome and attend and build
something that is helping us putour local language on a map and
in a space where, 100 years tocome, as I always say this Gen Z
maybe won't know analog life.

(01:29:25):
They're going to be digital,you know.
All these voices, but if wedon't find a way for us to
represent these languages, inthe digital space, our cultures
will be like you know not as weknow it we'll not be as we know
it.
We'll be a rust so we need toput these languages in a digital

(01:29:45):
space and then as a developernow.
It's your chance now to do oneof this impactful work of
building these models aroundSwahili, yeah, and then yeah, so
it's a competition.
There's money, true, true, yeah, but at the same time, you
don't have to be like adeveloper, like do a voice
before, because even if you are,even if you, like, have

(01:30:07):
interest, we're going to beusing some of the tools that you
can easily catch up after acouple of training.
Yeah, so I think, as long asyou're a developer, you feel
free to come and check them out,check it out.
Yeah, I mean it's a must attendbecause it's really happening,
it's really happening andthere's good food.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
Yeah, there's good food for those who they call
themselves team food teamchakula.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
Yeah, but it's really happened.
It's really happened Somethinglike this is very, it's very,
it's very.

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
You said it happened here last year, right, no?
No.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
No, I mean doing something like like creating
voice, like just more oncontribution of the previous
event, mozilla event I mean I'vebeen participating is more.
Okay, yeah, now let'scontribute the voice, yeah in
this voice.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Uh, some ai people gonna be using to now it's here,
now it's here, now it's localhere.
Now people have a chance toyeah, okay, no, I mean, uh, we
have a top price of a thousanddollars, uh, second price at
around five thousand fivehundred dollars, and then that
price two thousand dollars, and,as I keep insist, but it's not
about the money, because if youask me that's, you know, pocket
change, but it's in what youbuild, it's in the solution
itself.
And if you're listening, or ifyou ever hear this and there's a

(01:31:19):
hackathon happening and you'rean engineer, what is solved?
Not just a beginner you'retrying to learn, but someone who
is just castigated by buildingsolutions always participate.
Um, and one thing I've seenconsistently about akathon is
that, uh, sometime when youcollaborate with other people,
you realize, oh, maybe I didn'tknow this, maybe I've learned

(01:31:39):
this, maybe I can build usingthis best practice, and so and
so forth, and over time, thosepeople become really, really
good at what they do and grow.
So, everyone listening, please,you're welcome, come, let's
build.
And there are so many otheropportunities underlying
opportunities on this hackathonthat I'm going to announce on
that, because also Africa'sTalking.

(01:31:59):
We run monthly hackathons andthis is going to get exciting,
especially in 2024, becausethere are a couple of projects
that we are launching aroundthat line.
Yeah, I mean come, come, let'shave a good day.
We'll be here for the next twoweeks and it's gonna be fun, man
.
We brought some of the bestengineers in in the world to

(01:32:23):
teach you, you know, how to dealwith data, and to come is.
I think Kalebu had an exclusivemeeting with some of these
engineers in Nairobi at ourAfrica Stalking Summit, but
they're here in town, so don'tmiss out.
Something else really importantthat I would like to talk about
is how we view Africa, and Ithink you have touched on it.

(01:32:45):
What solutions can we createthat we own?
Because, guys, no one is goingto come here and create your
solution, and you have seen itagain and again.
So that opportunity for ourbright mind to come and see what
do we build Even the guys inthe industry already, because
sometimes we might build and upto three customers and think we
have made it, but imaginesolutions that we use across the

(01:33:08):
globe.
That's the level that you needto be thinking about and that's
why, actually, I do what I do,because that actually bothers me
a lot thinking of the way wecan change africa in our
lifetime and and beyond uh, yeahI don't know what's your
parting shot or uh, what?
what should people look out forin this hackathon and even the

(01:33:29):
Tanzania tech ecosystem, becausesince I was here last year,
it's amazing, man.
I see a lot of things happening.
You guys won TADA hackathon,which is a global hackathon
through Africa's talkinghackathon, and that's also some
money coming in the ecosystemthere.
I've seen some of yourengineers get good jobs around
and even abroad, so what'spopping man?

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
I think it's getting quite vibrant now.
At some moment back beforeCorona the community was very
vibrant, and then after Coronait kind of slipped, and then
right now, 80 communities thiscommunity kind of popping up,
and during the TED talk, therewere like four events happening

(01:34:13):
in the same day, so that's quiteinteresting because it's
showing like the community iskind of growing and people are
getting really interested inthis tech and I think for all
those people, maybe people whoare interested in this tech, I
think this one is a must attend,because AI is a blockchain

(01:34:34):
You'd be like okay, last yearwas like was blockchain.

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
It was Bitcoin.
This year is AI.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
And one of the interesting things we could be
doing is doing something aroundvoice Not people touch.
Something that's quite easierto do around text chatbot, but
doing it on voice is anotherlevel.

Speaker 1 (01:34:55):
Because imagine people who, even people who
don't know how to write, theycan't speak right, and I hear
people speaking good Swahili.
Actually, before this podcast,just immediately before this
podcast, I was telling Kalebweand another and our manager that
spoken Swahili and writtenSwahili are two different things
.
But you see, everyone can speakbecause if you hear something,

(01:35:17):
you can actually comprehend andspeak it and actually both
people are good right.
So it's a game changer, if youask me.
And also something else tomention is that Africa's Talking
offers voice API, and this isfrom Telcos.
And imagine if you combineMozilla voice connect plus

(01:35:39):
connected voices plus now theAfrica's Talking voice API, it's
going to be crazy you'recalling an AI like hi call
center is going to change.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
It's going to be in your.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
It's crazy that you're calling an AI like Oi, hi
Call center is going to change.
It's going to be in your here.
There are like 200,000languages, right, different
dialects in Tanzania, two 200dialects Besides Swahili.
There are so many otherlanguages.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
I don't know the number.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
It's many of them Because I assume if there are
200 tribes, there must be like200.
Around 100 tribes.
I think that's a lot, becausein Kenya it's like 42.
In some other places you findthere's many.
So Africa is endowed withdifferent cultures, different
dialects and, I think, withMozilla.

(01:36:27):
Why we're interested in workingwith them and collaborating on
this project is the fact thatthis actually touches on every
African African right.
Yeah, so it's really exciting.
Guys, come, let's buildtogether, let's start this, and
it's running between this Fridayuntil December 3rd around there

(01:36:52):
.
So come and be with us, see howthings are built, train your
models and win.
There are two prizes, by theway.
There's Akadon 1 and Akadon 2.
So if you win Akadon 1 as a topprize and Akadon 2 top prize,
that's $2,000.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
That's a lot of money .

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
It's a lot of money, man, and Christmas is coming,
you know.
Something else worth mentioningis that please join the
community.
So you can find the communityat communityafricastalkingcom
slash no.
Communitydelayrancom slashafricastalking.
You'll find that event as thesecond published event.
Dot com slash no community.
Dot delirium.
Dot com slash Africa's Talking.
You'll find that event as thesecond published event.

(01:37:32):
Join, register, get your ticket, be ready and join us.
So, kaleb, give us a partingshot.
Man, like, what do you wanna,guys to remember you for?
Before before we record anotherpodcast.

Speaker 2 (01:37:50):
You're too young let me just show up.
I think it's quite interestingbecause doing this on Swahili,
it shows the possibility ofgoing to all the other dialects
of languages, because if we cando this for one language, we can
replicate it across otherlanguages and it gives really
hope of putting our language ona map, our culture.

(01:38:13):
It's quite interesting becauseI think the quote of everyone
can speak is quite true, becausenot everybody can write, not
everybody is literate.
So all these people sometimesare excluded from the system.
Click there and then you'regoing to go navigation and then
they can't read.
But if somebody can call andtalk to an AI, and you're one
person who is going to nowenable that kind of possibility.

(01:38:34):
I think it's quite interesting.
And then you got to show up.
You know it's a game changer.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
So I normally believe in two things one is that where
people gather, always there's asolution, and two is that in
that solution, actually you needpeople to use it.
So it's a give and take.
So anyone who really want towin this, think about the
solution that actually impactsyour village Not even in Da,
it's a bit mixed up witheverything, but in your village

(01:39:06):
at least, you know, maybe my dador my uncle or whoever want to
top up.
How is that experience?
How can I change thatexperience?
Also, think about, maybe youknow, when they go to buy
something.
Or when they want to callcustomer care at Vodacom or uh,
which other telco do you havethere?
Tigo, tigo, the telco do you?

(01:39:26):
have a tigo or or hotel, right.
And with that now you can beable to solve for the people?
Uh, yeah, so, without furtherado, this was africa's talking
ritual podcasts, incollaboration with impact
masters and our guests.

(01:39:52):
And our guest was one and onlyKalebu Jordan.
Until next time, it's yours,michael Kemadi or MK, if you
want.
Thank you.

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