Obsolete varsity curriculum pushes Jkuat graduate to app development

When James Kiilu graduated from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Jkuat) with a bachelor's in Business Information Technology (BIT) six years ago, he was optimistic that his future would be rosy.

He dreamt of working at big technology corporations such as Google Kenya, Safaricom, IBM or Microsoft, where he believed the skills and knowledge he gained after four years of study would land him a role.

But after two years of job hunting in Kenya's technology sector, reality dawned on him.

"The skills I had spent so much time learning at Jkuat were already obsolete and the market was changing fast. I have never been as disappointed," he said during an interview with the Nation.

He realised that the content taught in all Kenyan universities has been bypassed by time as new technologies take over to mould the future of industries.

Months later, James registered for a three-month course in Westlands, Nairobi, that opened his eyes about the technologies needed as the Fourth Industrial Revolution unfolds.

"I acquired skills for the modern world. I learned how to create very useful mobile apps and software that can solve several challenges in our economy," he narrates.

Since then, James has designed over 10 mobile apps that seek to move most physical business and government operations to digital platforms, eliminating the often voluminous paperwork in most offices.

He has come up with a digital Occurrence Book app that he believes can help citizens to report crime instantaneously as it happens to police stations.

"The app can be connected to all police stations in the 47 counties and allows citizens to upload digital evidence, usually photos or videos, of any offence committed against the laws of Kenya, at different locations," he says.

Other apps

However, what he believes could end political squabbles every election year is an e-Vote app he created for universities, colleges, cooperative societies and high schools to elect leaders in a free and fair manner.

This, James says, is managed through a digital identity system to ensure nobody votes twice while the votes tally themselves in real time, and no candidate can make alterations or influence decisions.

"It is the most noble way to end political skirmishes in this country. Although I have only tested it with schools, it can be used in any election because its database can hold the real-time data of more than 100 million voters. It uses a Firebase database that has unlimited space," he explains.

To keep hacking, spoofing or brute forces off the voting system, he has encrypted every step of the voting process, only giving access to the returning officer and head of the voting committee to view results as they trickle into the system.

Another app he has created is a point of sale (POS) mobile software that helps supermarket owners or managers to monitor the flow of stock in the shelves, thereby helping them to make decisions about restocking.

"Once an item is sold, it indicates on the app all the details about that purchase in real time, wherever you are in the world. The person in charge can therefore see the movement of stock, sales per day, returns and the tellers on which various items were sold," James explains.

In a period where data privacy and protection has become critical for the management of user data, the innovator has created a secure SMS platform which locks out even the mobile network provider from accessing content of messages.

The messages are encrypted end to end to ensure any cyber attacker who plans to tap a user’s messages does not succeed. The messages are decrypted once they land on the receiver's phone.

A battery prompter for smartphones is another solution in the long list of apps he has created to solve various snags.

"This is aimed at protecting the batteries of smartphones. Once the battery is fully charged, it alerts you through a siren so you can hear from whichever corner of the house you are," he says, adding that it is on Playstore.

For students

During the Covid-19 period, where schools have been closed for several months, James has created School Diary, an app that enables students to maintain contact with teachers.

"Teachers can issue homework through the app. The good thing is that it solves the challenge of marking assignments online. Tutors can make and return the results to students and upload notes for them to read," he says, adding it can hold data for pupils in nursery school to Grade Seven as well as from Form One to Form Six,for all subjects.

Citing the challenge of slow smart technology adoption in Kenya, James says the Covid-19 monitoring app he created has not had as much impact as the others because it is difficult to access patients’ medical history.

He says Kenya's data protection law should be amended to ensure all the data held by public and private institutions is digitised to allow formation of solutions to various hurdles in the socio-economic and political arena of the country.

"We need to embrace digitisation of all the data in silos. We need to know our history through data so we can formulate solutions for the future. That is the only way we will manage to create a real time monitoring app for Covid-19," he opines.

The app developer, who has also ventured into mobile game development, however, still pities students in Kenyan universities taking courses such as Computer Science, IT or BIT.

"They are still teaching the obsolete content of the 1990s. Very tough calculus that cannot be applied anywhere. It is time these courses were revised to provide content that meets the market demand. I empathise with them because they have an IT degree but they cannot develop a simple app," he says.

Huge risk

Associate professor at the University of Nairobi's School of Business Bitange Ndemo says Kenya's delay to teach relevant content could hurt the country's digital transformation journey.

The tech expert says university courses should be updated and the curriculum overhauled from Grade One.

"We must begin to help children learn how to solve problems. We should start teaching them the real codes behind computer and mobile programmes. Nursery school children should be introduced to learning software that invokes their critical cognition and then to coding," he says.

He cites the Montessori school system as a perfect example to complement the current competency based curriculum, as a sure way of preparing future leaders for the economy.

“The current system where children are taught how to determine the correct answers in exams won't help us. The government needs to consider embedding the Montessori system into the current curriculum and making it affordable."

He asserts that it is the only way of ensuring the country arms itself against the tech tectonics that are already shaking the world.

In China, for instance, children are taught how to code from the early age of five to give them a leg up in the global job market.

Alongside mastering Mathematics and Chinese, the youngsters are equipped with technology skills.

Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Finland, Slovakia and the UK have integrated coding into their primary and secondary school curriculum such that when students go to college, they already understand how to formulate solutions using technology.

The United States of America's Silicon Valley proved that though difficult, it is possible to push coding into classrooms as it helped persuade 24 states to change their education policies and laws and allow computational classes in public schools.

Programs for Africa, like the African Girls Can Code Initiative, are a good step, but governments will need to nurture the coding talent across all public and private schools for an inclusive navigation towards Industry 4.0.