A young man from Africa becomes Google's coding champion, proving that when you have true talent and ability, nothing can stand in your way.
The story is about 17-year-old Nji Collins Gbah, who lives in a small, rural town outside the capital of Cameroon and is Africa's first coding champion. Google Code-in is a competition open to students around the world, aged 13 to 17.
However, what makes this particular champion different is that Collins used the knowledge he gained after two years of learning how to code, from reading books along with online resources to beat the rest of his 1,299 competitors from around the world, who have regular access to wireless networks.
Collins is from the city of Bamenda in the predominantly English-speaking northwest region of Cameroon, where there has been unrest between English-speaking and French-speaking residents.
In response to the protests spearheaded by locals, the government cut off internet access to towns across the region, including Collins's, as punishment. The internet was disconnected just one day after Collins had sent in his final submission for the competition. His hometown was without internet for almost a month.
Fortunately, by the time registration closed, Collins had completed 20 assignments, covering all five categories set by Google, despite having no access to the Internet and no place to study. Due to ongoing anti-Anglophone protests in the predominantly French-speaking nation, his school was closed. There was also no Wi-Fi at home.
Later, Collins received the unexpected news that he had been selected as one of Google's 34 grand winners!
"I was actually quite surprised," Collins said.
As part of his prize from Google, the young winner received a four-day trip to Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley, where he will meet with its top engineers and gain insights into one of the most successful businesses in the world.
"I hope that one day I can work there, if that's possible," he said.
In the future, Collins hopes to finish school back in Bamenda and then study computer science in college. Currently, he says he is working hard to develop his knowledge of artificial intelligence, neural networks and deep learning.
"I'm trying to develop my own model for data compression, using deep learning and machine learning," he says.
