Spotlight on Our Technical Wizard: Kago Kagichiri

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Most technological tools, including MPrep, require to be engineered so that wonderful ideas can turn into platforms accessible by students and teachers alike. Luckily, at MPrep, we found an amazing developer to create the MPrep software that allows SMS interactions from over 4,000 students, as well a web application for teachers to track student performance.

Luckily, our developer, Kago Kagichiri has had vast experience with web and mobile applications. We wanted to give him the spotlight during this blog post, telling a bit about his background.

From an early age, he developed an interest in computers, how they work and how they can be used to organize information. In Form 3 at Starehe Boys’ Centre & School, where he attended high school, he found himself in charge of the computer labs when the lab technician resigned. This responsibility (and part time job) gave him an opportunity to learn and develop software, including a mobile social network dubbed XMS that was used by his friends and their peers. His love for perfection in his apps also required him to learn how to make not just usable apps, but good looking interfaces as well.

After high school, Kago worked as an ICT specialist at Image Registrars, reconciling data with stock brokers for the Kengen & Eveready IPOs before joining Knowing Limited as a to develop stocks-related web applications. This and consequent IT related jobs inspired him into working as a freelancer, a long time dream of his. In 2008, he followed this dream, and soon enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in Business & Information Technology (BIT) at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT). Soon after, in 2009, he received an Honors award for the best performance in his degree programme. In university, Kago would often hold extra classes to teach Math and Programming to schoolmates.

In 2011, 11 years after developing his first email application, Kago had the opportunity to create a platform for MPrep. We were looking for a system that would facilitate enrolling students, creating quizzes and monitoring student performance. What started as a fairly basic application is now constantly growing, owing to great ideas that Kago and the MPrep team come up with to make the MPrep platform a better tool for the students and teachers who use it.

Asked about his experience with us, Kago had this to say: “MPrep was and is exciting to develop. As soon as I saw the idea on paper, I knew this was an opportunity not to just develop another cool application, but to change lives that otherwise would have missed out on such a fun means of education. I’m always thinking of ways to make the system simpler for the users who add content to it, as well as those who access analytical data from it. The greatest thing is logging on and seeing all this real data being managed by my code. It’s awesome!”

For the future of MPrep: “MPrep is now past just the locality level. The platform is being tailored to support global users. As I discuss new features with the team, I always see greater heights for MPrep. I imagine a day in the not too distant future where you can take a fun quiz on how to register a business in your locality, or how the stock market works. Everyone can learn. Everyone should learn. To have the skill to bring that to reality is an honour I have to keep living up to every time I sit to hack out MPrep code.”

We wanted to thank Kago for all he’s done so far. Developers often don’t get the limelight as much as they should, and now is Kago’s chance to shine!

Congrats on a job well done, Kago! We’re excited about more iterations to come… in Kenya and throughout the rest of the world!

— The MPrep Team

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