The Chronicle
Lumbidzani Dima, Chronicle Reporter
AN America-based Zimbabwean youth has created online coding classes for Zimbabweans with the aim of helping them attain scholarships abroad.
Coding is basically a computer programming language that is used to create apps, websites and software. We would not be having Facebook, our smartphones, the browser we use to read our favourite blogs or even the sites themselves if it weren’t for it. Everything is controlled by code.
Mr Eric Khumalo (26) is a Data Scientist and Privacy Engineer at Good Research. He has previously worked at Twitter building tools to eradicate anti-spam on the platform. Before starting his undergraduate studies, he served as an intern at the American
Embassy’s American Corner in Bulawayo. He also taught at four schools including Tsholotsho and Nketa High schools.
Inspired by a coding and computer science class at a university in the United States, the youth wants his experience to benefit talented students back home.
He started Emzini weCode to share knowledge with Zimbabweans back home.
Mr Khumalo is the founder and head instructor at Emzini weCode, an initiative focused on democratising access to computer science education in sub-Saharan Africa. He holds a BA in Data Science from the University of California, Berkeley where he was a MasterCard Foundation Scholar.
In an interview, Mr Khumalo said he is motivated by quite a number of things but mostly job creation and the betterment of his community.
“I find great joy and satisfaction in the tales that come with the prospering and betterment of young people,” he said.
Mr Khumalo said their aim as ‘‘Emzini weCode’’ is to enrol 1 200 Africans and 1 000 should be Zimbabweans.
“Our goal is to enrol 1 000 students from Zimbabwe into our class and 200 from other sub-Saharan countries. The classes will be offered online in a way that will greatly minimise the cost of data to our students,” he said.
The overall cost of attending the class is US$1 676. However, scholarships are offered to most if not all students, leading to the reduction of the student’s contribution to only US$6 for the entire course.
The class will be offered online from January 30 to April 29, 2022. There will be a mid-term examination and a final examination at the end of the course CS7, which is an introduction to programming and computer science.
Mr Khumalo said Emzini weCode also grooms, mentors and helps its alumni get into internship positions and full-time jobs.
They have alumni placements for internships and working at companies like Microsoft, Uber, LinkedIn and Google.
Mr Khumalo started teaching in January 2019 when he took a semester off from college.
“I would host weekly technical workshops where I shared the knowledge I gained from working at the Silicon Valley companies and from school.
“The young people I interacted with and mentored had amazing ideas about innovations but their ideas required a tech solution and lack of strong foundational understanding of Computer Science was therefore the stumbling block,” he said.
Mr Khumalo has in the past hosted classes in Bulawayo and some of his former students are attending top universities in different countries.
“In May 2019, I started the first class of CS7. I hosted lectures at the Bulawayo Public Library and got assistance with equipment and additional venues for discussions from the Nust American Space. I continued mentoring the students who enrolled for the lectures until some of them were enrolled at universities,” he said.
Mr Khumalo said more than 20 alumni of his classes are attending top institutions around the world including schools like Stanford University, Northwestern University and University of Pennsylvania.
“I also have a considerable number of mentees attending our local universities and pursuing Computer Science related fields,” he said.
Mr Khumalo said Emzini weCode does not only offer one computer science class.
“We have a number of advanced classes and workshops on AI (Artificial Intelligence), Machine Learning and numerous other fields in Computer Science,” he said.
He added that Covid-19 has forced many aspects to go digital.
“Covid-19 forced many aspects of our lives to go digital. I’ve had two class offerings online in 2020 and 2021 where I taught 200 students per session. When I released my application online, my target was mostly Zimbabweans. However, due to the openness of social media, I received applications for enrolment from other students in the Sub-Saharan countries. I decided to enrol them and I’ve had students from more than 12 different countries,” said Mr Khumalo.
He urged Zimbabweans to enrol into coding classes as it might be a way of making their dreams of studying abroad come true.
Source: https://www.chronicle.co.zw/america-based-zim-youth-creates-online-coding-classes/