Nelly Cheboi, Kenyan Tech founder has been named CNN Hero of the Year for her work in building computer labs for Kenyan school children.
Nelly Cheboi, who left her high-income job as a software engineer, founded TechLit Africa, an organization that provided rural students in Kenya with access to (upcycled)computers that equipped them with tech literacy and skills to Tech oriented jobs.
During her acceptance speech, she mentioned that she grew up poor and “never forgot what it was like to sleep with a stomach churning because of hunger” and she thanked her mother for working hard to give her(and her sisters) quality education.
She started TechLit because she realized, when she started working as a software engineer, that large software companies just discarded computers when a newer model came in.
Knowing that there was also a population of children in Kenya who had no computer literacy whatsoever, she founded TechLit to bridge that gap. Her dream with TechLit is to create a generation of children in Kenya that are computer-literate enough to work with NASA and build problem-solving software.
The award comes with a $100,000 grant that will be shared among all the top 10 CNN heroes.
