Above Image by Elchinator from Pixabay
In high school one of my four major subjects was Computer Studies and I guess I chose that because my brother chose the same subjects. My first programming experience was coding in Basic (GWBasic or Q-Basic). High school for me was pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter, pre-everything social tech. My brother was the "King" of the school's computer lab while I was the "Queen". While in my matric year deciding what career path I wanted to take, three specialty fields stuck out: Astronomy, Electronic Engineering, and then Computer Science. I wanted to be an Astronomer, to work in this big Astronomy Lab with all the other brainy scientists. I wanted to be a scientist. When I applied at a university to study Electronic Engineering, my application was declined. I still wanted to get into electronics and Astronomy but had no idea how.
At the end of my matric year and few days before my final exams, a slight tragedy hit my family, motor vehicle accident. Both breadwinners of the family were in hospital, brother was in a coma, my dad did not see his son for nearly a month. No financial support at home. Younger brother who was still in school with me had to work part time, evenings and on weekends. I wanted to study a technical career, that was A+, N+ and then MCSE. Due to those financial constraint, I only managed to study A+, but getting a job with just A+ skill was not easy, especially being a woman. In my mind I would think, there would be more men in that company, and me the only girl. And, well, previous experience was required.
When I started work in 2000, that was the same year and same day I went for the interview I registered to study. For almost 14 years I worked and studied. In those 14 years while working at the local municipality I could not get a job as a developer even though there were always advertising for Application Developer. Many times, I applied, never received any feedback. When I graduated the year of 2014, I left my municipality job as it wasn't taking me anywhere, not where I wanted to be. It wasn't going to give me the experience I really needed.
My journey as developer started with teaching. Me, the introvert, who was shy to speak to people in public, had to welcome new students into the college. I had my drivers license years before but was not able to afford to buy a car. My first car I could only get by leaving my first job at the local municipality. With my own car, I could move places, didn't need to depend on my brothers to force them to take me anywhere, because I never had to. Why would you make plans to go places when you had no means to go? However, while studying, I was taking the bus frequently, so I explored some parts of the local developer world, not a whole lot was happening back then. With this mobility, I was able to attend local developer and gaming events. Though being shy, I made the attempt, put myself out there, learned about an initiative called “GirlCode”, I wanted to be like them, I wanted to be a part of what they do. At many other events like these I met some great, talented and inspiring young women. I wanted to be more like them. From the introverted and shy girl I was in high school, to the young woman I was in the early 2000s, to the woman I am now, I would say I have changed, I’m able to speak to total strangers, I’m overly friendly and quite conversational. Took me some years, but I finally got here. Now, next challenge, to be more visual (WhatsApp voice notes scares me :D)
I eventually realized I loved teaching. Two years after, the college had to be closed down, due to some financial issues, I was left with no job for 5 months. Thanks to an old friend who referred my CV to one of his contacts, I got my first actual developer job. Working with a team was a whole new experience, although I wasn't doing any actual coding stuff, but being able to think logically. While working here, this gave me the flexibility to do other things, that is how I started my own dev training workshops. I started out free and I had great responses. I wanted to introduce my town (Durban) about games and making games. This will be my challenge for 2022. In 2019 I applied for a C#/ASP.NET developer role, the job was me working with VB.NET code mostly [Yay, fun ;( ].
Since then, I am now a developer mentor, a (freelance) developer trainer, an occasional game jammer, tech/dev influencer, a Game Jam+ Africa Organizer, and I seem to have this ability to inspire others to explore their dreams further. One such example, a young man by the name of Nyapa Lipholo, I introduced him to the world of game development and AI development with my Entelect AI challenge workshop. He participated in my first Game Jam+ event. That experience inspired him to study further, currently he is completing his computer science qualification.
Because I was making some waves in the Game development space, I was noticed and referred by a fellow gamer/game developer (thank you, Steven Tu) to a Game Jam+ organizer in Brazil (Lucas Pessoa de Freitas). Since 2019, I've been a Game Jam+ regional organizer for South Africa, along with Tutaleni Ilonga from Namibia, and my fellow regional organizers from around Africa. We have expanded and still growing with more African countries participating in our Game Jam+ Africa. We certainly hope to have more game jam events and local game-related events. I still hope to give Global Game Jam in Durban another try.
Here I am, at the start of 2022, well a quarter of the year in, I'm still working with a few developers, but all male, and they seem to love talking sports. Well, let's hope there are some female developers that will come through here, again and soon. I guess I eventually did become that brainy scientist, the computer scientist.
"I want games to take over the world!" - Bit of side joke by "Brain" from one of my favorite cartoons, Pinky and the Brain.