The Bold Move: Transforming Lives Through Tech Literacy

The Bold Move: Quitting a lucrative software engineering career to found TechLit Africa, an organization that transforms discarded technology into computer labs and digital literacy programs for rural Kenyan primary schools, breaking the cycle of poverty.

The Backdrop of Scarcity

Nelly Cheboi’s story begins in a world of profound scarcity. Growing up in Mogotio, a rural village in Kenya, she faced abject poverty. Imagine going to school barefoot and scavenging for food in garbage pits! At just nine years old, Nelly took on parental responsibilities for her younger sister due to the immense hardship her single mother, Christine, faced while raising four daughters.

Her childhood was defined by a harsh reality. Nelly watched her mother work tirelessly, often selling vegetables just to afford school fees. This constant struggle led to Nelly being sent home due to non-payment. Poverty, in this case, wasn't just a lack of money; it was a systemic absence of opportunity.

The Uphill Climb to Opportunity

Nelly’s intelligence and relentless hard work secured her a full scholarship to Augustana College in Illinois, USA, in 2012. This was her first plane ride, a flight away from the life she knew!

However, the scholarship didn’t erase the psychological and skill gaps caused by her background. While pursuing computer science—a course she fell in love with after initially struggling with chemistry—she felt profoundly behind her American peers. She didn’t know how to use a computer terminal, couldn’t touch-type, and often felt "insufficient" in class. After graduation, she practiced typing for six months just to pass a coding interview. Talk about a humbling experience!

To survive and send money home, she worked campus jobs, including as a janitor, saving nearly 80% of her minimum-wage income. Her initial goal was singular and deeply personal: to retire her mother. With her savings, she managed to move her family out of their dilapidated home.

The First Iteration: A Bold Move

Realizing that simply sending money home was a temporary solution, Nelly used her early savings to build a low-cost, sustainable primary school in her village called Zawadi Yetu in 2015. This was her first attempt to create a system where none existed, ensuring local control over educational access.

The Moment of Disruption: TechLit Africa

After graduating and beginning a successful career as a software engineer in Chicago, Nelly saw a different form of waste: working computers, perfectly capable by African standards, being routinely discarded by US companies every three years. Can you believe it?

For a child in Mogotio who had never seen a computer, this industrial waste was pure, untapped opportunity! Nelly couldn't shake the image of her rural community being locked out of the global digital economy due to this absurd disconnect.

In 2018, she began collecting these discarded machines, hauling 44 computers with her on a single flight to Kenya. This was the birth of TechLit Africa (officially co-founded in 2019 with Tyler Cinnamon).

The final, decisive "Bold Move" came when she quit her well-paying tech job to dedicate herself full-time to the non-profit. She recognized that the true scalable solution wasn't building one school, but providing a sustainable, replicable model for digital literacy across rural Africa using refurbished technology and a curriculum focused on self-efficacy and remote work skills.

Photo credit: CNN

Empowering the Next Generation

Today, TechLit Africa operates computer labs in dozens of schools, serving thousands of children who now learn coding, music production, and graphic design—skills that directly plug them into the global economy! Nelly Cheboi's dedication to this cause earned her the prestigious CNN Hero of the Year award in 2022. (Source: CNN, 2022)

The Main Lesson

Nelly Cheboi’s journey illustrates that the true engine of impact is not the resource you have, but the gap you refuse to accept. She saw poverty not as a destiny, but as a solvable engineering problem that required two things: access (via recycled tech) and a skill pipeline (via a relevant curriculum). She chose to leverage abundance in one part of the world (e-waste) to address scarcity in another (digital access), proving that scalable solutions often lie in redesigning the system, not just treating the symptom.

What’s Your Bold Move?

What is that one bold move that you have to make in order to get to the next phase of your dream(s)?

You can check out TechLit Africa on YouTube to learn more about the amazing work they are doing in Kenya!

Conclusion: The Power of Education

Education is a powerful tool! It can break the cycle of poverty and open doors to opportunities. Nelly’s story is a testament to the impact one person can make. By transforming discarded technology into learning tools, she is not just changing lives; she is reshaping futures!

So, what are you waiting for? Let’s take inspiration from Nelly Cheboi and make our own bold moves! Together, we can create a world where everyone has access to the skills they need to thrive!