I bet our universities is the reason we hate coding in Tanzania

You can choose to differ with me but it is the harsh reality that our Universities is the main reason most of the Tanzania ICT professionals eliminate programming as their career option. Most of the students with interest in programming and developing applications have been witnessing their dreams cut short. You might say what is the reason behind and why are you blaming the syllabus that describe clearly that the students is practicing all the basic languages that a computer science student, IT student or Computer engineering student should study whither is Java, C-language, C++, Data Structures, Visual Basic and others. But believe me displaying in the syllabus and practicing the syllabus to reach to the student’s requirement and be able to prepare the students as a programmer these are two different things.

When I was in second year Computer Science students at my college I got a chance to admit two guys from University of Dar es Salaam who just now appear to be my best friends. The first one was college dropout of engineering background and the other one college dropout of Computer Science first year. With other challenges they face the main reason for the computer science dropout to quit University of Dar es Salaam, his father who just appear to be a civil engineer realizes his son was not having lab sessions in whatever is practicing and if he had the opportunity it was just for the purpose of passing the exams meaning that, clamming few lines of codes ready to answer the exams then that’s it. He was not ready to face the challenges that are coming outside there for programmers .The guy was even surprised to see that it is compulsory to attend lab and have the lab record book and submit project report for almost every language you are practicing at the college when he was admitted to our college. I remember him asking me that if during the exams the lab results counts, I told him without passing the lab exams you are not going to get your degree and it means you have to pay another ticket fees to come and clear your mess in the fourth year after finishing your course if you didn’t attend third year’s lab. 

This is what  makes people to develop interest in coding in most of the universities overseas and reputed universities in Africa coding is taken seriously since it is what distinguish a Computer science student (software engineering student) from other people in the industry. It is so disturbing to see someone graduated with clean and sensational GPA but he cannot even declare variables in C-Language or explains to you the concept of function overloading in Java and do it practically. In universities like Harvard and other reputed universities they consider coding as the measurement of students creativity and involvement in the study while to us is just another exam you have to pass. I wonder that’s why each college graduate you ask in Dar es Salaam want to be a network professional. Am not saying this is not good but for a country like ours were by we have few resources and most of the people are poor and cannot even afford to buy a router to practice at home how do you expect them to be good network administrators or engineers. I say programming is the get way for people who are coming in the tough background all you do is to download Borland C, NetBeans, Eclipse or whatever and up you go start to develop your applications don’t wait for the college to teach you or the college to accomplish whatever is mentioned in the syllabus course that will never happen.

Final advice programming is an art; you have to develop passion on it in order to understand it. Don’t create a state of mind that told you it is hard to code believe me it is easier hundreds time compared to networking and system administration if you decide to practice and be frequent on it. They are a lot of resource available online W3Schools is there waiting for you to go and practice. Youtube videos for beginners training for each and every possibly known computer language go and try out because the University will never give you that. You can even go for the bigger projects and download them; there is a lot of open source projects waiting for people to exploit them for example PHP project OpenCMS, Orange HRM, Open Source Commerceand others. For Java students you can always Google for free projects available online download them and edit the codes and start developing the interfaces. If you want to for Visual Basic or C# am there for you with a lot of projects contact me I will give them to you personally. By the way it is my way of giving back to the community. For although who have read this article and they are PHP and MySQL developers am giving this gift to them OPENCART . Have fun with coding guys ……….

By Jumanne Mtambalike

Six Things you should do in order to survive in the ICT industry in Tanzania

Have something more than Just your Graduation Certificate

Don’t expect to be competitive in the ICT industry these days by just being a graduate from a reputable University and that is the biggest mistake most of us we are falling into. Always remember people they don’t care on what you have people they only care of you can deliver to them. Practice few things and add on some certificates if possible that’s make you to be competent enough in a specific area in the ICT industry for example: we expect someone competing for a job for management information systems to have at least CISA (certified information system auditor) in his back pack before stepping in and competing for a particular position in reputed organization the same thing for network professionals you can opt for networking courses such as CCNA or security courses such as Ethical Hacking or CCNA security and so on.

Join ICT communities, groups and association in your local town, college or institution

Get Up we have several ICT communities in town what are you waiting for G-Tanzania the Tanzania Google group, we have TanzICT Tanzania ICT based association based at COSTECH and several hubs waiting for you to portray your creativity and show up your skills. Believe me if you are a great coder but you stay inside there doing your projects, hiding yourself it is not helping at all. Learn to share the ideas and invite challenges allow people to criticize your work and others to appreciate only then you will be able to produce quality products and get a chance to know people of your own kind geeks!!! But the most importance thing is to be recognized and get benefited from your work.

You’re Ideas and Project should impact the community directly

Be realistic if it’s a mobile app or PC software should meet the demand and the requirements of the community and the environments surrounding them we don’t expect you to develop applications for smart phones only while almost half of the population they are using the basic mobile phone. I will understand if you develop a USSD application were people receive information about a particular topic through SMS rather than making a very good app with astonishing interface but its working only in the most expensive phone. When I say impacting I mean it should touch the society direct for example giving details about HIV (AIDS) and ways to overcome or challenges facing them in their daily agriculture activities.

 

Get connected with professionals

There is nothing wrong following someone on twitter or adding someone in your circle or adding someone as a friend in Facebook if you share the same interest. It increases your chances of getting known and become a professional. Utilize the social networking sites to meets people who share the same missions and goals like you. If there already more successful then it becomes even more important to mingle with them since you can learn the challenges faced them during their route to success.  Don’t say am wasting my time trying to talk or chart with this guy or how would he think about me. Know that people who have the guts to bring themselves down and get what they want they are the most successful people in this world. Take your shoot talk to them if the despise you don’t die at least you release its expensive to be in top position lol

Attend seminars and events

A lot of events are being prepared daily with ICT communities to teach you different kinds of stuffs in technology. Even if you know the topic to be discussed just attend and get a chance to interact with people in these kind of gatherings people they would usually speak about new technologies, job opportunities or projects to be released you can always have a chance to participate in these activities which would give you the chance to enhance your skills and increase your knowledge without forgetting getting a chance to get new deals and make money, by the way we all need to make money at the end of the day.

Think about the community

Be ready to give back to the community and serve the community first forget your personal interest although not completely but it should not be your main goal. Serve the community, my slogan is “Do something for free get known then you will have thousands with a good price tag”. Utilize every weakness the system shows by implementing the solution through the knowledge you have through technology to tackle the problems facing your community.

10 Things you should do to be an ICT professional entrepreneur in Tanzania

Business card:

It’s awkward to go and try negotiating the deal with someone without a business card to explain were you are coming from, what are you doing in your company and just in case someone need to reach you what should that person do. Business card tends to increase credibility from your clients. Is where you display summary of your information like your job title and contact details, You might say but I have my phone and I can just give out my number but in cooperate world we don’t work that way so if you don’t have one go quick and print one it will hardly cost you 5000 Tanzania shillings for 100 pieces at local shops Kariakoo.

Have a bank account

I have seen this most of the time, you finish whatever task the client as given you on time and the client are satisfied with the work which you have done and he wants to wire you the money through your bank accounts suddenly it is not possible to do that because you don’t have an account in the first place. If the problem is the startup money at list buy a mobile phone chip which will be reserved purposely for just putting your money during your cooperate transactions wither its TIGOPESAor MPESA I don’t care, but still you have to realize not having a bank account makes you to suffer with customer’s bouncing cheques in banks at the same time makes you to appear as an amateur in front of your customer most of the time.

Register your small company

It will hardly cost you 6000 Tanzanian shillings to go to BRELA the authority selected by the government of united republic of Tanzania to register your company name and get your name fixed in the local authorities records as someone who is doing his business legitimately. You can also pay for your tax payers identification number (TIN) and valued added tax (VAT) for your small business it is not enough but it is enough to portray you as a pro in the ICT entrepreneurship industry. In the future when the company grows a bit you can have the partnership deed, Business license and other stuffs which will help you get tenders from the local government, that is what people does in order to blend in the system and get the chance to exist. 

Respect your work

What you do is valuable that why people are coming to you, if you are doing something for yourself then remember you are reflecting the whole ICT community of Tanzania. Don’t be cheap and don’t be too demanding set the price according to the task given. If is the website you are developing, a flyer you are designing or even industry standard software make sure you don’t kill the market for others . For example the website development business was very good business but now people can’t even make good money out of it because of too many unprofessional people in the ICT industry of Tanzania. If someone underestimates your potential then tell him to go and find someone who can do that work cheaply for him. Never get confused with the money go through the task you are doing and evaluate the cost.

Contracts and agreement

Franklyn speaking most of the people they think what we are doing is very easy because we can do it quickly and effectively and give them the result they need on time. This reach to a point that they think the agreement you made prior to the beginning of the task makes you to earn more money than the task you have done. My advice is you can download or prepare your own business contract displaying what the customer should pay you before the commencement of the project and after if its 20 percent or 40 you just choose yourself and indicate clearly the costs of terminating the contract and the duration of the task just in case he didn’t provided the resources you need to do your work on time. Believe me this will make you to be a pro and always you will be able to monitor your projects and finish them in time. Then if you can afford you can have a low cost lawyer by your side to view all your agreements and contracts.

Have your own website

This is inevitable, sell yourself online you can just create a simple attractive site with just home, contact us, about us and portfolio of works you have done. It is easy when a customer comes and you just tell him to visit your website and look at your works, this will also increase your credibility and trust. Then if you can’t afford a website then at least a blog site or a page in a social or professional networking sites like LinkedIn and others.

Dress code and confidence

Dress code is an art and you have to be the master of the art, I don’t blame you that why in the cooperate world they have a joke“don’t send a geek to negotiate a deal you will end up crying” lol, but it isn’t true if you decide to change the facts. Learn to dress neatly during the time you visit your client or fellow entrepreneur  show them you mean business and that you share mutual benefit and is not like he is helping you or giving you assistance. When you set your terms of agreements they should be ready to respect them as you respect theirs and just in case they don’t meet your requirements don’t hesitate to move on to another client. This make them realize IT is not just playing with your PC is something valuable and is someone’s career so a bit of respect is required.

 Read newspapers and magazines, follow business news

Most of the time in the newspapers you will see small ads of people looking for professional or advertising their skills for free just by having a copy of the newspaper and take out the coupon you will be able to advertise yourself. In the news you will learn new trends of business in your local city and were the market is more demanding wither people want websites, mobile apps or just small payroll systems and so on. You will be able to have a chance to consolidate yourself in those areas before approaching the customers.

Advertise yourself

You have the Facebook pages, blogger pages, twitter accounts and YouTube videos all of them waiting for you to advertise your business or your potential and what you can do. Take your time design a flyer and post it on Facebook instead of all day posting your girlfriends picture lol. You can create a small video about what you do and upload it in YouTube and start share it to your friends and ask them to share to others and so on. Through slide share you can upload your paper works and projects you have been doing and put the links in your info page in the social networking site you are using.

Discipline and Trust

Finish people work in time and try your level best to meet their expectations and you will get more clients, this is the promise am giving to you. Make sure you don’t receive the money unless you can finish the task on time of you have someone you trust who can finish the project on time and meets the customer requirements at the same time.

If you follow these 10 things effectively you will be among the successful ICT entrepreneurs who are coming from the scratch to build your business, at some point of time try to find a source of large capital which will consolidate your business.

TECH360 Correspondent