The ‘average’ student who is causing waves on campus

Software developer, budding film maker, script writer, pianist, guitarist, animator, graphic artist, web developer, inventor and more all rolled into one.

It takes a lifetime for most people to make any sense out of any of these — let alone impress at — but Imani Marori Nyabwengi, only just 20, is all these in addition to being a first year student at university.

“At his level, he is way above an average student,” said his IT lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Mr Francis Kamunyu Thiong’o, recalling how Imani once suggested to him ways to better secure his work!

The lecturer also recalls Imani’s offer to create a website with which he could present his lectures notes better than the use of PowerPoint.

Imani in no ordinary student. During interviews for this story last week at the university outside Nairobi, one fellow student described him as “weird”.
Another described the information technology student as a “genius”.

But unassuming Imani considers himself an “average” student, pointing out that he only achieved three A’s and thee B’s last semester. Indeed, he scored C-minus in his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education and has had to work his way through a certificate course at JKUAT to qualify for the diploma course he is now pursuing.

What’s not in doubt is that Imani can do what few achieve so early in his life. At his relatively young age, he has designed computer programmes, has deployed websites, has written scripts and directed movies, designed graphics for broadcast and print and created his own computer games.

When he is not attending lectures, he is to be seen on campus at Juja shooting a film with his friends or cooped in a laboratory working on his 3D animations or ad graphics.

This week, he was shooting scenes of his horror movie project with a cast that includes students from Kenyatta University.

One of the softwares he has developed is Ichlassys, a chemistry software, which, he says, can be used in secondary schools and colleges.

“I wanted to give a chance to students who can’t get access to a laboratory. I wanted to develop my own lab and do my own simulations without the help of a teacher,” says the former student of Kitura High School in Baringo.

He started working on the software when he was in Form Three in 2006 after one of his teachers encouraged him to develop software that could be used in e-learning.

“My computer teacher said I was a genius and he said I should work ahead towards developing an application to help improve the current education system,” he reminisces.

He was not allowed to carry the laptop that his father had bought him to school and would instead spend time in the school’s laboratory working on the project. He would embark on the project when schools closed for holidays. He completed it a year ago.

Currently, he is working on a CPU cooler, a rapid heating system and highway security.

Today, he often skips lectures to catch up with his creative work at a clandestine location within the campus, though he sometimes allocates two hours for his creative work outside the school schedule and occasionally burns the midnight oil.

Imani started using a computer when he was seven years old in Kisii. His father, Charles Manyara, a high school teacher had an old desktop computer that he would use to type his school reports and newsletters.

Young Imani would sneak out of school to use their home computer when his father was away. Soon, his interest in electrical and computer skills earned him the nickname “engineer”.

In spite of his obvious talent, Imani can only recall earning Sh4,000 and the gift of a camera for his skills from two clients.

“When I present myself to people, they really don’t believe I can do this because they look at my age and say it is outside my ability,” commented Imani this week.

“They think I have downloaded (the work) from the Internet. I tried twice but without success.”

The only two people who have bothered to look closely at his work were both American, one of whom he did film sound effects for.

The other, Andrew Duncan, was so impressed that he wrote to Saturday Nation alerting this writer to size him up.

Says Duncan, who was visiting Kenya when he bumped into Imani: “I have spent almost 16 years gravelling around the world. I have met and worked with many professionals but for him I think he tops, because you see on normal circumstances it’s hard to find somebody who can do multiple things professionally, and he doesn’t do only one thing but multiple tasks at a go.

“Ask him questions outside his fields of interest and he will answer them professionally. He is just 20, I mean the age also explains it all. How many of his age mates can do stuff he does?” wonders Duncan, a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, US.

In Kenya, Duncan looked at Imani’s movie scripts, watched his commercial and trailers and concluded that Imani had the exceptional talent of bringing the illusion of sci-fi, adventure, fantasy and real life into a script and execute them in 3D animation and on film.

Duncan, who has a master’s degree in film technology, plans a documentary on Imani and some of his bosses in Los Angeles will be travelling to Nairobi to have a discussion with Imani in a month’s time.

Asked to offer an assessment of Imani skills, a former JKUAT student, who was himself an inniovator while still at college, Mr George Njoroge, said: “He is very innovative. I like what he is doing. He is someone I would like to hire because he is exemplary.”

“The job market is not about papers but skills,” said Mr Njoroge, who is now managing director of East African Data Handlers and inventor of Ujanja, a mobile phone tracking device.

Finally, Imani is out of the shadows. Whether he will make the leap and join the distinguished list of IT prodigies that now includes the founder of Facebook, only time will tell.