'I want make the world better through science and philanthropy'

Fredrick Omondi Okello, 31, has dedicated his time to fulfil his two passions in life: science and philanthropy.

The tech-guru plans to use his software development skills to help improve the community around him, having already founded the Kazi Mtaani Initiative that helps the youth get job opportunities.

“I was born and bred in Uhuru Estate in the Eastlands side of Nairobi. I am the sixth of seven children of a father who worked for the East Africa Industries and a mother who was a seamstress.

For me, philanthropy started a while back. I have been a volunteer at the St John’s Ambulance since 2003. I rose up to become a Corps Staff Officer in charge of Nairobi. I did some courses while there: Basic incidence command systems

Science has been an area of interest for me since an early age, which is why I ended up pursuing Computer Science and Engineering at The Presbyterian University of East Africa.

Over the five years of my experience, I have innovated various start-ups in my sphere of study as well as security, medicine, aviation and sociology.

I have been at the forefront of innovation and policy changes within various sectors, through the providence of working solutions towards various factions of problems within the African continent.

PRACTICAL THINKING

And as a visionary in Africa’s ICT Sphere and an avid reader of books, I have dedicated my life to the discovery of practical thinking and the application of academic solutions to everyday problems to change Africa’s Social Economic and Technological landscape.

In 2017, I decided to tackle one of my goals, which was vying for a Member of County Assembly seat in Parliament.

What motivated me was the fact that I had seen bad governance in my home area and unaccountability of leadership. A lot had been neglected in the community.

Campaigning was a learning experience for me because I got to learn about power, governance, corporates and navigating the government offices. I campaigned door-to-door because I did not have the money.

I garnered 125 votes, which to me was a milestone because I had never done it before.

Because of my rising influence after the elections, I started getting a lot of job adverts on my WhatsApp. I decided to do something useful with it.

I created a Telegram channel where I would share these jobs with the members, who were mostly from my community. This was in February 2018. I named it Kazi Mtaani Initiative.

So far, we have shared over 1000 jobs on the platform and I personally know a huge number of people who have gotten an employment opportunities.

That’s the most encouraging and fulfilling part of the job: the satisfaction that someone has gotten out of a low situation in their life.

The Constitution for All Project I am currently working on is an online platform that aims at increasing public participation and accountability of governing elected officials.

We do so through tracking, documenting and sharing all activities they conduct, as well as counter-checking their viability and legality in the Constitution.

This in turn help all citizens collect, analyse and hold accountable their elected representatives by enabling them to gather relevant information and inclusive participation in governance during Legislation and ascension of relevant laws.

The platform will also help citizens, not only in Kenya but the entire continent, track the conduct, schedules, expenditure, documentation, and records, of all public servants at no cost.

This will be through an RSS-style portal which will be attached to a constitutional database to act as a single reference resource point.

All I have done thus far has been a testament of the people I have rubbed shoulders with and I hope that I can do it more for the betterment of the community.”