Other Lessons and Experiences:

(Lesson) So far I have randomly met a young black boy in the past few months who happened to be a learner at one of the private high school, who came to ask for some Java programming language lessons. I have to say I was excited to see that we have black kids at the age of around 16 years who are interested in programming. Mind you my first encounter with programming was at the age of 19 years old at the then ML Sultan Technikon.

(Experiences) During the course of my programming life I came to learn that most of the white kids internationally get introduced to computer programming as early as 12 years or less, and they'll be busy cracking websites on the internet for fun. I also just recently read a Science magazine at one on the book stores about 12 years old kids in Korea, programming Human-like Robots (just like in the movie i-Robot starred by Will Smith), and finally got further shocked to find that one of the big Web and Mobile App companies in Durban, Umhlanga (Immedia) has a 24 years old Lead Developer (Mobile Apps Developer for iPhone) who started at the age of 19 years with the company.  

So what am I saying? I believe we all aware that in our black communities (Suburbs, and Townships) we are technologically challenged, meaning we have no computers in our homes never mind the internet. Yes? Well, I say No.

We have at 1 PC per house, 1 DSTV, and 1 mobile phone per person (in most cases a smartphone for the kids). In most cases the PC is used to burn pirated movies and music, and used for DJ'ing at parties.

I so believe that if more of these kids can learn computer programming on top of those activities either at private schools and most importantly have a Software Development FET College. Digital and Information age is where we at now, and if we could leverage in such a skill we could have kids making money out of developing Apps for iPhones and other mobile phones, build website that generate cash out of Google Adsense and Affiliate programs, sell eBooks about African content needed by the globally community and many more.

All this can be achieved if we could just leverage on the power of Software Development from the age as early as 10 years. Such an investment on a kid will pay off one day, when your kid become the next Facebook, Google or Apple company owner. Government lets invest like Korea is doing, and we such reap the rewards one day.