When June Odongo interviewed early-job electrical engineer Cynthia Wacheke for a software engineering position at her corporation, Wacheke lacked understanding of computer science principle but showed prospective in complicated dilemma-solving.
Determined to give Wacheke a shot, Odongo turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to create a 6-thirty day period “bridging course” modeled just after the lessons she once took as a pc science pupil. Portion of MIT Open up Learning, OpenCourseWare delivers cost-free, on the net, open up academic assets from far more than 2,500 programs that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum.
“Wacheke experienced the potential and interest to do the perform that desired to be finished, so the way to solve this was for me to practically generate a route for her to get that get the job done completed,” states Odongo, founder and CEO of Senga Systems.
Builders, Odongo claims, are not easy to discover. The OpenCourseWare academic assets offered a way to near that gap. “We set Wacheke by the training course final yr, and she is so remarkable,” Odongo says. “Right now, she is performing our to start with machine discovering versions. It is crazy how excellent of a staff member she is. She has accomplished so considerably in these a quick time.”
Earning high-high quality candidates work-completely ready
Wacheke, who holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nairobi, started out her expert career as a hardware engineer. She found out a enthusiasm for software when operating on a dashboard design and style undertaking, and decided to pivot from components to software program engineering. That’s when she found Senga Technologies, a logistics software package and companies business in Kenya catering to businesses that ship in Africa.
Odongo launched Senga with the aim of simplifying and easing the supply chain and logistics working experience, from the motion of products to software package equipment. Senga’s top target, Odongo suggests, is to have most of their services pushed by computer software. That indicates staff members — and candidates — need to be ready to consider as a result of elaborate troubles applying computer system science idea.
“A whole lot of individuals are focused on programming, but we care considerably less about programming and far more about issue-resolving,” suggests Odongo, who gained a bachelor’s diploma in personal computer science from the College of Massachusetts at Lowell and an MBA from Harvard Enterprise Faculty. “We actually use the points men and women learn in computer system science courses.”
Wacheke started off the bridging class in June 2022 and was given six months to complete the curriculum on the MIT OpenCourseWare web page. She took 9 programs, such as: Introduction to Algorithms Mathematics for Personal computer Science Style and Assessment of Algorithms Features of Software program Design Automata, Computability, and Complexity Databases Techniques Ideas of Autonomy and Conclusion Building Introduction to Device Learning and Networks.
“The bridging program aided me study how to feel through matters,” Wacheke says. “It’s 1 point to know how to do a little something, but it’s a different to layout that thing from scratch and apply it.”
In the course of the bridging system, Wacheke was paired with a computer software engineer at Senga, who mentored her and answered inquiries together the way. She uncovered Ruby on Rails, a server-aspect web software framework below the MIT License. Wacheke also done other projects to complement the concept she was understanding. She designed a new web site that integrated an integration to channel exterior requests to Slack, a cross-platform team interaction software applied by the company’s workers.
Continuous mastering for team users
The bridging class concluded with a presentation to Senga workers, during which Wacheke stated how the corporation could use graph theory for determination-earning. “If you want to get from position A to B, there are algorithms you can use to discover the shortest route,” Wacheke states. “Since we’re a logistics corporation, I considered we could use this when we’re determining which routes our vehicles consider.”
The presentation, which is the final need for the bridging program, is also a skilled advancement prospect for Senga workforce. “This method is valuable for our group members, specifically individuals who have been out of faculty for a although,” Odongo says. “The candidates current what they’ve acquired in relation to Senga. It’s a way of executing continual studying for the present crew associates.”
Immediately after effectively completing the bridging system in November 2022, Wacheke transitioned to a complete-time computer software engineer purpose. She is at this time developing a “machine” that can interpret and categorize hundreds of files, which include supply notes, funds flows, and receipts.
“The aim is to help our customers to simply just feed all those paperwork into our machine, and then we can a lot more accurately go through and change them to electronic formats to travel automation,” Odongo says. “The device will also permit somebody to request a document a problem, this sort of as ‘What did I deliver to retailer X on day Y?’ or ‘What is the whole rate of the items sent?’”
The bridging course, which was to begin with tailor made-built for Wacheke, is now a permanent plan at Senga. A second workforce member completed the course in October 2023 and has joined the software program team complete time.
“Developers are not uncomplicated to find, and you also want higher-high quality builders,” Odongo suggests. “At minimum when we do this, we know that the person has absent by way of what we want.”