Insights from interviews

Words of Wisdom

It’s the role of people such as myself who have our fingers on the pulse to speak about these things and make examples so that people from under-represented communities can really look at these things and say ‘Wait, you built this dance move rating thing using this complex tech and you didn’t go to university? How do I do it?’

Babusi Nyoni, self-taught machine learning and AI innovator
Starting in grade eight, all of our family vacations were like "We're going to Australia to see this university". The next holiday, "We're going to Singapore." Then we also went to the U.S. and Canada. We saw 20-30 different universities in China. We started that in grade eight and we had a good four to five years to get that done. My brother just turned 14 so we're starting everything for him again.

Tracy Qian, first-year Engineering student, leader of team which won 2020 MIT COVID-19 Challenge
When everyone else was going for entertainment and other things, I’d go and lock myself up in this old chemistry lab that I had been given given access to because I was Vice President of the Science Club...That was my space where I could be creative and build stuff. In that lab, I built radio communication systems, a dishwasher, a multipurpose cooking device, a system for my science and maths quiz team, science projects, robots and other things.

Isaac Sesi, Inventor of tech for African farmers, recipient of MIT’s 2019 'Innovators Under 35' Award
Take classes in critical thinking, math, statistics. Explore how to organize data. Explore how to stay on top of your schedule. All of these skills are important because once you get to the coding part, all you’re doing is taking all of those skills and using a new language and way of organizing them to tell a story or create a product.

Miral Kotb, dancer, software developer and CEO
Start to get educated on some of the issues [around technology and innovation]. Are you going after news sources? Are you reading some of those interesting articles? Are you following what your Members of Parliament and government leaders are doing? It’s important to focus on your education and career streams but are you aware where government policy is taking us? Where is the world going? How might you contribute to that conversation? One person can have an impact.

Natalie Raffoul, IP and patent lawyer
What I wanted to do didn’t neatly fit into a curriculum so I found a curriculum that I could mildly adapt to me. Then I would fit whatever my interests were to that. I had to work ahead and work beyond what my skills were. Don’t forget to follow your dream and where it leads. You can write down all those skills like a path, like paving stones on a sidewalk.

David Hanson, inventor of human-like robots
If you hear a child express interest in an rea, then our responsibility is to help them connect with those areas of interest. They may change their mind which is completely great and valid. They’re allowed to change their mind. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s one of the fantastic things about being a kid. You have the freedom to explore.

Kate Edwards, geographer, inventor of digital content culturalization field
There are so many tools out there now that you can use today to start playing around [with game design]. By the time you’re old enough to go to school for a game program, it’s really good to have stuff in your portfolio. I know students who’ve paid for their college by building Roblox [game] levels.

JP van Seventer, head of game incubator