This month our spotlight goes to @Nicholas!
Ntambi joined the Visa Dev Community in December and has been actively taking up all opportunities to learn and better understand how Visa APIs work. His enthusiasm and willingness to support helped him stand out as an obvious choice for the spotlight. But it wasn't until after we started our Q&A session, did we realize just how much support Ntambi was giving, not just in our Visa Dev Community - but for his neighborhood in Uganda, that's been hit hard with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn what him and his team are doing and give him some love with a kudo below!
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself, where are you from and what is your current role?
[Ntambi]: My name is Ntambi Nicholas, I am a mobile application developer currently working with two payment processing companies BodaCash and Xente . I was born in Nairobi Kenya but I currently moved to Uganda
Q: What do you enjoy about the tech scene/industry in Uganda (Africa)?
[Ntambi]: The tech industry in East Africa is growing rapidly, Internet penetration of over 50% and growing, this is bringing up new opportunities for us to solve.
Q: How has life changed with you due to COVID-19?
[Ntambi]: The pandemic has not been an easy situation to me, given the region I come from having poor medical and sanitation conditions. People around my area can’t even afford a 3$ face mask so you walk in fear of catching the virus. This has encouraged me and the team to turn our hub into a mask making space using locally available materials to donate to our neighborhood.
We are also going to launch an information app to teach people more about the pandemic and future threats to come.
Q: That's awesome! What was that experience been like? How has the neighborhood reacted to this effort?
[Ntambi]: The whole experience has been surprising, I didn't know that when we asked for people to volunteer, they would turn up in big numbers. We had rented the sewing machines but didn't know how to operate them, we had to work as a community to get the work done, they have come in with their expertise and they're pulling it off.
Q: What brought you to join the Visa Dev Community?
[Ntambi]: We were looking on moving our products from the local market level to a cross-border product and we found Visa would fix all our problems. Visa is has grown to be a family, I fill loved most especially when we are gifted makes feel I’m part of the family. I have learned a lot from the forums and webinars to list all, I’m really grateful, Thank you Visa
Q: What do you love most about coding?
[Ntambi]: The ability to breathe life into lifeless ideas thus making them exist and interact
Q: What was the first thing you built with code?
[Ntambi]: It was a print statement of hello world in C programming language
Q: What has it been like working with Visa Developer so far? What have you learned?
[Ntambi]: Visa is has grown to be a family, I fill loved most especially when we are gifted makes feel I’m part of the family. I have learned a lot from the forums and webinars to list all, I’m really grateful, Thank you Visa
Q: What have you learned from challenges you face as a developer?
[Ntambi]: The biggest challenges I’ve faced as a coder in Africa are:
1. The cost and speed of internet
2. Having space where coders can meet, talk about code and learn from one another (Hub)
I approached the problems by creating a tech hub, with this we were able to pay for internet and rent a space as a group.
It's exciting being part of the accelerators of our economy because I help shorten the time between businesses and buyers who want to buy and sell in real-time.
Thank you, @Nicholas for being a valued member in our community and the hard work you and your team are doing for your very own community at home. 👏🏽👏🏽
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Every month we will feature Visa Dev Community members who are active on our forums and blogs. Want to be featured? Start by giving this blog a kudo or comment. The more you are active, the better your chances of being the next user of the month!
