Growing up, I knew nothing but struggle. Poverty wasn’t just a state of being; it was an endless darkness that loomed over every day of my childhood. My parents worked tirelessly, doing everything they could to keep us afloat, but there was never enough. Every day was a delicate balance, every meal a quiet victory. I remember looking at the kids around me, at their nice clothes and shiny gadgets, and feeling a pang of longing so sharp it hurt. We couldn’t afford clothes, new clothes were only purchased on christmas, and shoes only once we outgrew them. Forget about things like paid school trips, computers or internet access. The idea of having more seemed like a distant dream, something that other people were lucky enough to have.
At school, I was always on the outside looking in. The other kids talked endlessly about the latest computer games, the newest music hits, and the weekend’s football matches. They’d argue about which teams were the best, recounting goals and highlights from leagues I’d never heard of. I’d sit silently at the back, pretending not to care, pretending not to feel the sting of exclusion. It wasn’t just their mocking that hurt—it was the way they seemed to effortlessly belong to a world I couldn’t access. They had what I didn’t: access to technology, to the internet, to knowledge.
My teachers weren’t any better. They’d give assignments, expecting us to know how to research and type out our essays on the computer. I’d watch my classmates, the ease with which they copied well-written essays and information from the internet, submitting polished assignments that made mine look like a joke. My essays were always hand-written, filled with my best attempts at neatness, but I knew they weren’t enough. I didn’t have a computer at home, and as usual students had limited or no access to school computers. I remember one teacher, who always called me out in front of the class. “Why can’t you just keep up?” she’d say, a smirk on her face. “It’s not that hard to find information online.” I’d bow my head, my cheeks burning with shame. I didn’t know how to explain that I didn’t have what everyone else did. To them, I was just lazy, unwilling to put in the effort.
But it wasn’t laziness; it was despair. I felt trapped, caught in a cycle of ignorance and helplessness, with no way out. The kids laughed at me, and my teachers didn’t care. It was like I was invisible, my struggles unseen and my efforts dismissed. The isolation was crushing, a weight on my shoulders that I couldn’t shake off.
The only glimmer of hope in those dark days came when I saw the small, beaten-up cellphone my dad had managed to buy back in 2006. It was old, with a tiny screen and keys that were so worn you could barely read the numbers on them. But to me, it was a treasure. I remember the first time I stumbled across WAP, the Wireless Application Protocol, and WML, the Wireless Markup Language. It was like discovering a secret door to a world I didn’t know existed. I found an old Russian site builder called wen.ru. The site was entirely in Cyrillic, and I had no idea what any of it meant, but I didn’t care. I taught myself to read just enough to navigate, piecing together bits of knowledge from the sparse instructions.
Late at night, when everyone else was asleep, I along with my little brother would sneak into the living room and grab that old phone. we’d sit hunched over in the dark, my fingers trembling as I tapped away, trying to build simple websites on that tiny screen. The work was painstakingly slow, and every mistake felt like a mountain I couldn’t climb. But I refused to give up. I was desperate for knowledge, for something more than what I had.
Some nights, the electricity would go out—a common occurrence in our area due to load shedding. I’d sit in the pitch black, the phone screen my only source of light, waiting for the power to return so I could keep going. Other times, the SIM card wouldn’t connect, leaving me cut off from the world outside. I’d stare at the blank screen, tears in my eyes, feeling more alone than ever. The frustration and loneliness were overwhelming. It felt like the universe was against me, throwing every possible obstacle in my way.
But then, my parents noticed my determination. Despite our dire circumstances, they scraped together every bit they could save and managed to buy me a computer. It wasn’t much—an old machine with just 512 MB of RAM, no internet, and a monitor that flickered every few minutes. But it was mine, and it was enough.
I remember the first time I turned it on. The hum of the fans, the flicker of the screen—it was like magic. Without the internet at home, I had to get creative. I couldn’t afford books, so I taught myself JScript (a Microsoft’s version of Javascript that came with MS FrontPage) by trial and error, deciphering error codes as if they were ancient hieroglyphs. Every time the screen filled with red text, I’d feel a lump in my throat, but I’d take a deep breath and try again till I got the syntax right.
I saved up every penny I could find and finally made enough to visit a cyber café. I’d sit there for hours, downloading pages of programming references and tutorials, saving them onto a USB stick to take home. At home, I’d study those files late into the night, squinting at the screen as I tried to understand concepts that felt just out of reach.
I wanted to recreate the magic of wen.ru, so I began building my own HTML builders, experimenting with code late into the night. My curiosity grew, and soon I was delving into making my own toy Databases and SQL parsers, tinkering with C++, and dreaming about writing my own compilers. I became obsessed with the idea that I could create something from nothing, that with just lines of code, I could build worlds.
During this time, my faith became a beacon of hope. I wanted to give back, to help others who might be struggling as I was. I began creating free software for churches and schools that offered free education, wanting to make a difference wherever I could. I was also very naive, and combined with my attitude I ended up being taken advantage of by a lot of people. It took me good while to understand and accept the workings of this world.
But slowly I started picking new things, Learning PHP allowed me to build web apps, and soon I was making a decent income, enough to slowly upgrade my ancient computer piece by piece.
With every upgrade, my skills grew. I managed to get through a three-year diploma in Computer Science, then a degree in Engineering, and eventually, a master’s degree. From a kid who knew nothing about computers, I became someone who led a team of engineers, guiding them to build software that would impact millions.
Today, my life is so different from those early days. I have a loving wife and a beautiful newborn daughter. When I look at her, I think about how far I’ve come, how much my life has changed—all thanks to that little WML/WAP site builder on my dad’s old phone. It was those late-night sessions, the electricity outages, the disconnections, and the sheer determination that laid the foundation for everything I have now.
I keep pushing myself to keep improving and learning because I know what it’s like to feel lost, to have no one to guide you. And that’s why I teach and guide my juniors as much as possible. I want to be the person I needed when I was younger, to give back and help others find their path, just as I found mine.