Eliokono Arupe Mathews

Veterinary Professional|Animal Scientist|Detective|Entrepreneur|Country leader for Kenya in the Young World Leader Program

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

Grab your copy. "Getting Things Done" by @GeoffreyKaituko

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@Mizaniafrica DR.PROTUS AKUJAH,PhD

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

Choose @egertonunikenya, a World Class University for the Advancement of Humanity!

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@earthcurated Hi

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The truth will set you free

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

Congratulations President - elect Donald J. Trump once again!

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

My Heartiest congratulations to @realDonaldTrump on your historic election victory as the POTUS. Make America great again!

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

https://t.co/quDfYM8CZ1

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@_KasKazini Stupid coward! Why run?

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@HELBpage

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@AokoOtieno_ Dm all his info. I will blew it up for him

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@Itumbi_Denis Why is Bonface Mwangi free now? This dude needs to face justice for Kenyans who lost their lives. Sponsoring anarchy is treasonable

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@mucinakigoro @paulinenjoroge

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@C_NyaKundiH Kijana anatafuta kazi kwa vujo! Mwambie atulie Kuna wale wako mbele yake. Mbio mbio tawe!

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@HELBpage Batch 5315
Selyne

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@HELBpage 5315

For Selyne Atieno

[Zone01 Kisumu @Zone01Kisumu]

@gabrieloguda It was a pleasure having you at Zone01 Kisumu.Welcome back again 🙏🙏

[Gabriel Oguda @gabrieloguda]

Let me beat you guys a story.

Three weeks ago I found myself stranded in Kisumu. One of the organizations that had been sitting on my monies had warned me that if I did not find the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) offices in Kisumu to set up my eTIMS account within two days, I was going to see my December voucher on Viusasa.

I did not know where it was, so I was told to find my way to the Mamboleo junction where I’d see a giant architectural monument overlooking the newly constructed Kisumu-Kakamega overpass. Kenya’s Europe has their own expressway that doesn’t flood in the rain, and it terminates at the Lake Basin Mall.

Mamboleo junction should be the last of the places that should confuse me. I grew up in Miwani and that’s the route we would use every time I went communing with my ancestors in Seme, or crisscrossed the city to and from Maseno School for Sons of African Chiefs, established in 1906.

Those days, Mamboleo was just a pocket-sized dusty junction marred by a bedlam of coughing cane trucks wrestling with overloaded matatu minivans struggling up the Kiboswa hill. When I went there three weeks ago, Mamboleo not only had a stadium that aspires to be international, but it also anchored the Lake Basin Mall that has more potential than Jude Bellingham.

Lake Basin Mall doesn’t get the credit it deserves. On the North Wing is a spacious automobile-care centre where I found school buses coming for medical checkup. There’s a welcoming water fountain struggling to jumpstart its nozzle in the centre circle, and if you dribble one floor up the left wing, you will come across an artificial football pitch waiting for you to unlock your talent at a revolutionary tuition-free coding school called Zone 01 Kisumu.

From the outside, @Zone01Kisumu looks like just any other tenant whistling in clients coming into the Lake Basin Mall. But looks can be deceiving. You do not need to get past the last step into the upstairs hallway for you to discover you’re now entering a mind-blowing space full of aspiring tech gurus ready to wow you with raw talent.

Built and fine-tuned from the learnings of acclaimed information technology wizards the field has ever produced, Zone 01 Kisumu is the brainchild of @odedejames, a computer science whiz-kid who has modelled more trailblazing tech hubs from the palm of his hands than your average clay works factory.

James is credited with not only raising funding from Google, but also overseeing the implementation of Computer Science for High School (CS4HS) students program, named by Facebook among the 40 young Icons of Change in Africa, and built the Western region’s first co-working tech space. Some of us, given half the things this guy has done with his life, would be contented with retiring to the village and taking up a fulltime career in refereeing hippos boxing by the lakeshore through the evening sunset.

But James is not some of us. From the things I saw when I went to kill time over there as I waited for those KRA guys to thank the Lord for a new day, James is a man on a mission, and it won’t be long before Zone 01 Kisumu becomes the premier tech solutions company South of Takaba North of Longido.

Usually when you arrive at the registration desk of any company, the questions you’re asked not only determines the seriousness of the organization but also whether you’d sacrifice your fulltime job for a shot at being the next big thing. Zone 01 might have computer programming at its core, but that place is more than a tech hub.

The world of ICT has become extremely fluid and needs people who can adapt to the fast pace without missing a beat. The guys at Zone 01 Kisumu begin from the premise that creators are not taught, they are innovative with ideas that just need to be polished, and how can you nurture thinking outside the box when you have a teacher sitting there belching out instructions from a manual modelled around tunnel-vision?

Which is why the Zone 01 pedagogy is premised around peer-learning, where those who make it through the filtering stage only get to be given rules of engagement and nothing else.

They get to decide when to come to the hub and when to leave, there are no strict instructions and if you prefer learning at night when you’re most creative, you will find your fellow night owls already at the hub spreading the cheer for you to be sufficiently motivated.

When it was my turn at the inquiry desk, the dangerously beautiful lady with an infectious smile and bewitching eyes, noticed I monetarily lost concentration when she mentioned that I could try exploring my potential in data engineering. I had to check twice whether I was in a witchdoctor’s den, because how did this woman know that research is my daily bread?

“Data is the new oil”, she began speaking like Albert Einstein, “and the world is looking for data engineers to mine this precious gem.”

It was like I had just discovered my purpose in life. You mean I had been an engineer all my life without knowing, only that I did not have the tech skills required to break my professional ceiling and have the world at my feet?

“That’s not all”, she interrupted my dreams with another zinger.

“Here, we also help our creatives to become fulltime software engineers, AI developers, 3D animators, e-commerce consultants, business intelligence analysts, computer forensics investigators, game developers, block chain specialists, telecoms engineers, network administrators, cyber security analysts, and mobile app developers.”

At that point, I just told her to save my time and give me the application form for me to fill, only to be informed not so fast.

To make it to the crucible I was required to first log into their website and go through a rigorous online cognitive test consisting of two video games. Only when you pass the test that you will be admitted into the shark tank called a piscine, a French terminology simply translated to, “swim or sink.”

“The setup you see here is one of a kind”, Dorcas Owino, the Managing Director, tells me as she leans over to point to the board. Through the partnership with the County Government of Kisumu, United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA) and Lakehub, Zone 01 Kisumu has managed to harness the power of collaborative synergy to arrive at the best talents the region can produce.

They gave me a t-shirt for my troubles. I said I wanted a black one not only because that’s the week we were mourning back home but also because how many people do you know who were in dead professions and needed an eye-opening career-talk to kick them back to life again?

“When you make it past the piscine, we give you a five year job contract. The first two years, you'll be trained on these key competencies, but for the last three years you'll be given a real job, fully-funded, and for those five years you're paid. We start with stipend for the two years you'll be under training, and then a competitive salary for the next three years when you're on the job.”

“Did I hear that right?”

“Yes, you did.”

“You pay me as I study, for real?”

“Go and take the test, and if you make it to the training stage, come and see for yourself.”

Times are currently tough for everyone – and if you live in Kenya, making it back home with a packet of milk is a miracle by itself. The unemployment rate is blowing through the roof and the bulging youth population is unforgiving in its surge. Lately, people have done worse things to make ends meet, even selling their eyeballs for the price of a mathematical set.

“At Zone 01 Kisumu, they can come over and skill themselves at some pay”, Dorcas confirms, just in case I didn’t hear her the first time. “You do not require any programming experience or academic qualifications to apply, for as long as you’re above 18 years old, you’re welcome to upskill yourself and who knows, you may be the next big thing.”

These people don’t know what they did to me. This year, I’m going to do some radical things in my life and you will hear about them very soon.

Believe me.

[Eliokono Arupe Mathews @ArupeMathews]

@PeterSalasyah Sad that a whole Member of Parliament of your status would have such queer character. The people of Mumias East in particular and the Alumni of Egerton must be a shamed of you @PeterSalasyah!

[OFFICIAL HELB PAGE @HELBpage]

Civil servants, this one’s for you! Application is now open for the Training Revolving Fund – TRF Loans. See requirements and apply: https://t.co/H6D0E8fX0v