Why I Build

A letter to the Freedom Makers, and to the kid I was.

Dear fourteen-year-old me,

You're standing in front of the Irish President, Mary Robinson. You and James have been chosen to present her a gift because she just donated computers to your school, probably the first public school in Zimbabwe to have them.

You're elated. You don't fully understand how lucky you are.

Your siblings won't touch a computer until they're in their twenties. Most kids in Chitungwiza, in the high-density townships where you grew up, will never see one. Your classroom at Vimbai Primary had 48 students for every teacher. Some kids came in the morning, others in the afternoon. That was normal.

But you got lucky. Arbitrary, random luck.

Here's what I wish I could tell you:

That expat teacher from the UK can't actually program. You'll figure this out soon. And instead of waiting for someone to teach you, you and your classmates will teach yourselves, QuickBasic, then Pascal, line by line, error by error.

That instinct? Keep it. It's going to define your life.

You won't own a computer until you're 29. At university, there will be 20 refurbished machines for the entire campus. You'll wait in line. You'll make the most of every minute you get. And when you finally buy your own computer, a year before you turn 30, you'll understand something most people don't:

Access isn't a given. It's a gift. And gifts shouldn't be random.

That's why I build.

I build IoT Makerspaces in townships like Mbare, Chitungwiza, Odzi because luck shouldn't determine who gets to create.

I teach teenagers to build agricultural robots, not apps, not games, things that feed their families, because technology that doesn't solve real problems isn't worth building.

I design systems that work offline-first because I know what it's like when the infrastructure isn't there. When the power cuts. When the internet shuts down. When you're on your own.

I build the Economy of Things because I believe devices can become economic actors, and when they do, the communities that own them will finally own their futures.

To the Freedom Makers in Mbare, Chitungwiza, Odzi and to every kid teaching themselves to code right now because no one else will teach them:

You're not behind. You're building something the people with all the resources never had to learn: how to make something from nothing.

That's not a disadvantage. That's a superpower.

One day, you'll build things that beat the universities. You'll stand on stages in New York. You'll publish research that gets cited around the world.

But none of that matters as much as this:

You'll know, in your bones, that you built it yourself.

— Solomon Kembo

Community Builder. Freedom Maker