“Every graduation season, I publish stories celebrating other people’s achievements. I never imagined that one day, mine would become one of them.”

Every website has a homepage. It’s the first thing people see, but it rarely tells the whole story. Behind every polished page are thousands of decisions, countless updates, unexpected errors, and every once in a while, a bug that nobody wants to admit they introduced.

People aren’t very different. We always celebrate the graduation gown, proudly place the familiar “mshaino” around a graduate’s shoulders, and applaud the achievement we see. But those moments are only the homepage. The real story is buried in the pages most people never visit; the setbacks, the detours, and the lessons that shape who a person becomes. 

So, before you see me in the gown, allow me to show you my homepage.

The Original Code

My story began long before websites, computers, or data science. It began with a curious boy growing up in rural Kenya, trying to understand how the world worked and occasionally creating problems in the process. I was born at Pumwani Hospital in Nairobi to parents who were both teachers. You would think that growing up in a household led by two teachers would automatically produce the perfect student. That was not exactly the case.

Yep … that’s me …

Because of my parents’ teaching careers, my childhood was shaped by moving between communities in Bomet and Kericho districts, now counties. Those years were filled with the simple beauty of rural Kenya: endless stretches of lush green tea plantations, muddy roads after the rain, football matches that rarely ended before sunset, and walks home met by warm smiles and a familiar “Chamgei weri?” which means “Hello son” from neighbours who knew exactly whose child you were.

It didn’t matter whose home you wandered into after hours of playing; before long, someone would place a steaming cup of tea in your hands.  It was a childhood full of freedom, and freedom combined with curiosity can produce interesting results. I was the child who always wanted answers:

Why does this work?

How does that happen?

What’s inside this?

The only problem was that my curiosity often arrived long before I understood the consequences.

404: Pupil Not Found

My relationship with school was complicated. It wasn’t that I disliked learning; I simply found the world outside the classroom much more interesting. Every morning, my friends and I would leave home looking like responsible pupils. Our uniforms were neatly pressed, our books were packed, and our parents believed we were headed straight to school.

Technically, we were….for a while.

The moment we were out of sight, our real adventure began. We disappeared into tea plantations, exploring, talking, laughing, and enjoying the freedom that only childhood can offer. Around lunchtime, we’d casually reappear, eat alongside everyone else, disappear again, then return just in time for games as though we’d been there all day. Looking back, our attendance system was remarkably sophisticated. It had regular check-ins, carefully planned disappearances, and excellent timing. The only flaw was that the Ministry of Education hadn’t approved it. 

To us, it was the perfect system. To our teachers, it was a mystery. To my parents, who were both teachers, it was a serious concern.

Our adventures didn’t stop there. We even sneaked off to fish in a private dam. In our minds, we were fearless explorers. The only people who disagreed were the people who owned the dam. Eventually, my parents decided I needed a little more structure; boarding school then became my next chapter.

Curiosity Without a Manual 

Looking back now, I realise I wasn’t trying to cause trouble. I was simply trying to understand how things worked. One day in Class Three, I overheard some adults discussing biogas. Unfortunately, I only remembered one part of the conversation: Cow dung.

To my young mind, the conclusion was obvious. If cow dung could produce gas, surely it could make our paraffin lamp work. Certain that I was about to unleash the greatest invention of all time, the only thing I changed was the condition of our lamp. Our poor lamp was ruined. My first startup failed before it even launched. The prototype was a kerosene lamp; the innovation was cow dung, and unfortunately, my investors- my parents were not impressed. 

Faced with the evidence and reality of my failed experiment, I made what felt like the most logical decision; I ran away. I walked nearly thirty kilometres to my grandmother’s home. This was before mobile phones were common in our village, so my parents spent an entire week searching for me before eventually finding me during a weekend visit.

Today, we laugh about it. My parents still describe it as one of the longest weeks of their lives. As for me, I still insist, “Nilikuwa scientist tu… makosa ikafanyika.” This story captures something important about me. I was not trying to cause trouble; I was trying to understand how things worked. That curiosity that once got me into trouble became the curiosity that shaped my career.

Not long afterwards, scientist Brian emerged again. At home, we had a black-and-white Great Wall television. Most children were content to sit and watch it. Scientist Brian, on the other hand, wanted to know what was happening inside it. Armed with a piece of wire that vaguely resembled a screwdriver, I carefully opened it. Inside it, I found an entirely different world. Wires, circuits, components, a hidden system quietly making everything work.

Somewhere along the way, my investigation became a destruction. A few parts broke, and some wires came loose. My research project had unexpectedly turned into a repair project. I carefully put everything back together and waited. It was time for Habari za KBC, and my parents settled down, eager to catch the evening news.

They turned the power knob.

Nothing …

Turned again.

Still nothing …

Finding Direction

At this point, you’re probably asking yourself, “Brian, did you ever stop breaking things?”

Thankfully, yes.

Or at least, I started building more than I broke. Things began to change in Class Six after I transferred to a different school. For the first time, learning felt different. Expectations were higher, teachers challenged us, and education slowly stopped feeling like something I had to do and started to feel like something I wanted to pursue. This was where I first encountered computers.

The computer lab wasn’t large, and we rarely had the chance to use the machines, but I was fascinated. The idea that people could write instructions and make machines perform tasks felt magical. I didn’t know it then, but that fascination would one day become my career.

When I sat for my KCPE examinations, I scored 413 marks out of 500. My dream was to join Mang’u High School because of its renowned aviation programme. Instead, I was admitted to Nakuru High School. It was a good school, just not the one I had imagined.

My dream had always been Mang’u.

Life had a different deployment plan.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Finally! Young Brian has figured things out. The experiments are over, the bugs have been fixed, and it’s all smooth sailing from here.

I wish that were true.

That disappointment stayed with me much longer than expected. My motivation dropped, performance declined, and I questioned why I was even trying. My mother tried everything:

Advice, encouragement, conversations, and nothing seemed to work. Then one day, she cried.

The Turning Point

Seeing someone I had always known as strong break down because she believed I was capable of more changed something inside me. That day, I made her a promise. I would make it to university as a government-sponsored student. For the first time, I wasn’t studying because someone else expected me to. I was studying because I had found purpose.

And I kept that promise. I joined university to pursue Computer Science.

The First Deployment

After graduating, I was so convinced my education journey was over. I even joked that I would never read again, not even a signpost for directions. Life, as it often does, had other plans. For more than a year, I searched for work. There were countless applications, interviews, disappointments, and even one experience where I was conned while chasing an opportunity. What kept me still going was hope. Eventually, an opportunity came through a referral.

I became a mobile developer at a health startup, building Android applications and dashboards using Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, and PHP. For the first time, the curiosity that had followed me since childhood had found a professional home.The boy who once dismantled a television to understand it was now writing code to build solutions.

A New Platform: Strathmore

Then came the opportunity to join Strathmore University. I immediately knew it was where I wanted to be. This was more than a job opportunity. It was a chance to be exposed to a different perspective of life, an environment where technology, innovation, learning, and purpose came together. My role evolved from building applications to building digital experiences. As a Webmaster, I became part of telling the university’s story. I worked on platforms that connected students, staff, researchers and the wider community with information and opportunities.

Every graduation season, I helped publish stories celebrating other people’s achievements. I never imagined that one day, mine would become one of them.

The Unexpected Return to School

After two years at Strathmore, I became eligible for the staff scholarship programme. The same person who had once declared he was done with education found himself walking back into a classroom. This time, though, I chose it. I enrolled for a Master of Science in Data Science and Analytics at iLab Africa. 

Having a computer science background, many technical subjects felt familiar; Then came this giant called Fundamentals of Economics. Suddenly, I was outside my comfort zone. I was comfortable with algorithms. Economics introduced me to a different kind of algorithm-one where the variables were people, markets, and concepts I was still trying to understand.

There were moments when I genuinely wondered if everyone else had received a memo before class. I could have chosen Fundamentals of Computing, a much safer option. But choosing comfort was not why I returned to school.

By the end of the semester, I was grateful I chose Economics. My most unexpected highlight was Philosophy and Ethics with Dr John Branya. Coming from technology, I expected technical subjects to excite me most. Instead, I found myself fascinated by conversations about values, responsibility, and the impact of human decisions. That class changed the way I viewed technology. It taught me that the question is not only: “Can we build this?” It is also: “Should we build this?”

The Current Version

For years, graduation season meant checking details, uploading photographs, and making sure every profile was ready to go live. I had always been the person clicking “Publish.” I never imagined that one day, someone would be clicking it for me.

As I reflect on this moment, I realise that every version of me has been part of the same journey: the curious child running through tea plantations, the young inventor who destroyed a paraffin lamp in pursuit of a scientific breakthrough, the boy who dismantled a television just to see what was inside, the student who almost gave up after missing out on his dream school, the graduate who struggled to find his first opportunity, the developer who discovered purpose through technology, the Webmaster who spent years telling the stories of others, and now, the student celebrating a master’s degree. Looking back, they have never been different people; they have always been me.

People often say that education changed my life. The truth is a little different for me. Curiosity started the journey, education gave it direction, and technology gave it purpose. The same curiosity that once made my parents nervous whenever I wandered too close to a machine is the very curiosity that drives my work today. I used to take things apart because I wanted to understand them. Today, I build things because I understand them.

The boy who once ran away from school eventually built a career at a university. The person who once declared he would never study again returned to earn a master’s degree. 

Looking back, I realise the page was never broken.

It was simply still loading……

Article written by Brian Kiprotich.