7 African techies reveal what they do for fun when they are not knee-deep in work

‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ and African techies are quickly finding truth in the phrase and turning it into a national anthem.
A group of African techies are quickly disabusing this narrative, immediately they slap shut their laptops or hit shutdown on their Apple iMac Pro computers, they become everything but dull.
Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa decided to go out on a fun tour with 7 African techies who revealed what they do for fun when they are not knee-deep in work.

‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ is a century old classic phrase expounding the accrued benefits of having a health work balance and African techies are quickly finding truth in the phrase and turning it into a national anthem.

For a long time techies have been portrayed as all work and no fun and even as anti-social people who have a more candid relationship with their computers than with real people. The minute they sit in front of a computer with their grey hood on nothing excites them more than the softly glaring light of computers.

However, a group of African techies are quickly disabusing this narrative, immediately they slap shut their laptops or hit shutdown on their Apple iMac Pro computers, they become everything but dull.

Outdoors suddenly become their new work areas and they go about it with admirable zeal immersing and losing themselves in fun hobbies ranging from dancing, mountain climbing, gaming, mission works to reading, and by reading I mean fun books not coding books right!

Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa decided to go out on a fun tour with 7 African techies who revealed what they do for fun when they are not knee-deep in work.

Also read: How 3 African developers found their purpose and are now putting Africa on the world map

Mercy Orangi

Mercy Orangi by day is an experienced software developer ecosystem and community builder.

She currently works as the Developer Relations Manager at Andela and tasked with building Andela’s technical community through events, workshops and community engagements.

However, when she is not strategizing, planning or hosting developer outreach events at Andela and in the ecosystem, she’s comes a whole new other creature busy conquering one mountain after another.

“Mountains bring me back to my centre, to my core. Mountains humble me. But more so, conquering mountains is my constant reminder that my limit is just but the beginning of what I can achieve, with each mountain taking me to higher, tougher grounds.”

Allan Clinton Mukhwana

After a long week of working as the Business Development lead at Kenoobi Group, a diversified information and technology company, which through its subsidiary brands, provides innovative solutions and products to clients, nothing gets Allan’s blood pumping more than gaming.

The guy loves and lives for gaming and even participated in the recently concluded Comic Convention, NAICCON.

“I love gaming because I find it to be the best way for me to have fun, connect and socialise with friends.”

Roger Taracha

Roger’s daily work as a Technical Team Lead at Andela involves mentoring and leading teams of software developers at Andela to rapidly develop great software as well as support their professional development.

When he is not leading teams and developing products, you’ll find him emceeing at events and in weddings. He is also a dance choreographer and has choreographed for the Kenya Music Project.

This has had him tour Germany with the same troupe in the years 2012, 2015 and 2016.

“I am open to new experiences hence my love for travel, meeting new people and experiencing new cultures. I am also an adrenaline junkie,” says Roger.

You can now understand why his online alias is ‘TheDancerCodes’.

Dennis Paul Riungi

Dennis is well known in the tech community in Kenya for his role as a Country Mentor for Google Developers Groups in Kenya.

On a day to day, he works as a remote software engineer for eShare Ltd based in the UK, where he works on some of the most sought-after entity management software solutions.

So what feeds his soul you may ask? Doing Christian mission work is ultimately one of his greatest joys and escapes to it at every opportunity he gets.

Kennedy Kirui

By day, Mr Kirui is the CEO of Tanasuk Technologies Africa and has specialised in product design - using the design thinking approach to understand problems and generate solutions, working with the development teams to quickly prototype and test products, and taking the product to market and growing its usage.

From automating tedious processes for organizations and allowing them to engage their audience better, to helping individuals tell their stories better, he sees his day-to-day work as a platform to create a positive impact.

Prior to this, he worked at iHub Software Consulting, considered one of the premier tech hubs in Africa that has been the crux of the tech community.

After a hard day developing software products that can have positive impact on people's lives, Mr. Kirui loves hiking.

“I do it because it is challenging but in a different way. It is not easy and requires a certain level of preparedness and persistence that isn't ordinary. Walking for more than 10 hours non-stop on a Saturday that could have been spent in bed is actually fun,” says Kirui.

Muthoni Wanyoike

Muthoni maybe the team lead at Instadeep Kenya that offers Enterprise AI products, ranging from GPU-accelerated insights to self-learning decision making systems but don’t let that fool you.

She may look like the typical techie and even co-organises the Nairobi Women in Machine Learning and Data Science community which brings together AI enthusiasts but she is an addict, an unashamedly and proud addict at that.

"Reading, books are the drug for my imagination and creativity. And I am 100% addicted."

When she can’t find a book to inject her brains cells with raw information to get her heart pumping and mind racing with new ideas she seeks the company of friends and family.

Nadayar Egenesi

Nadayar Enegesi is the co-founder of Andela and the Director of Launchpad, Andela’s internal incubator for mission-critical initiatives and works out of the Andela Nigeria office.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Business from the University of Waterloo in Canada to back up his work ideas.

Together with Ebun Omoni, Director of Engineering at Andela, they produced slack and trello an ode to 2 productivity tools widely used by techies around the world and especially in Andela.

Nadayar however, has a life beyond Andela and actually has a lot going for him.

In addition to being a developer and program manager, Nadayar is a talented musician.

Fondly known as Nad by his colleagues, Nadayar blows his steam, frustrations, joys and ideas inside a music studio through his independent record label, RackCity Records.

“In future, I would love to materialise my record label, RackCity Records. I believe music empowers people to share happiness, perspectives and fun,”he says.