Soso’s life changed when a new school was
built nearby, in honour of Nelson Mandela. It was the first school in the area
with a computer lab, and surrounding schools were invited to send promising
students to attend digital literacy classes once a week
“I was one of only 10 students chosen from my school, and it was my first encounter with technology. It was 2002, I was in my last year of high school, and I didn’t even know how a computer works.
“Nobody, not even our teachers, had any idea of what we were going to do. But it was exciting being chosen for such a programme. It was an honour and it meant I was really working towards something. I wouldn’t miss a Wednesday. I didn’t even know what it was going to lead to, but it was fascinating to learn about something new. The first class was fascinating. We thought the screen was the computer. They told us what is a mouse, what is a CPU, what is a processor. My mind was blown away.”
The class was taught by volunteer students
from Rhodes University, and they joined Soso’s list of role models.
“I saw those students and I wanted to be
like them. I wanted to be at a university and be like them.”
When school ended she sent off applications
for scholarships, all via traditional mail.
“I got a scholarship in June, and was invited
to Johannesburg to study further. I was 15, turning 16, and went to Johannesburg
by myself. That was the most exciting
thing that ever happened to me.”
She studied business classes, including business
economics and accounting, and then applied to CIDA city campus, the first free
university in South Africa. She enrolled for a Bachelor of Business Administration
degree, but on arrival realised they also had a Cisco Networking Academy. Cisco
has a corporate social responsibility (CSR) department, of which the flagship programme
is the Academy. It offers Cisco’s internationally accredited courses to people
who otherwise would not be able to afford them, through non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), schools, and
colleges. CIDA was an NGO partner with Cisco, and Soso saw the opportunity to
accelerate her studies there.
“During my studies of business courses, I
enrolled in the Networking Academy. You do those in the afternoon, so I was studying
both a degree and an international certificate in IT. So when I graduated in
2007, I graduated in both.”
Her first job was as an IT technician at
the Queens Casino in Queenstown. Within three months, she was promoted to
network administrator, overseeing the rest of the IT technicians in the casino.
But that wasn’t enough: she felt unfulfilled in her role. Then came the call
that changed her life yet again.
“I got a call in 2009 from CIDA’s ICT
academy, to say they needed somebody who could train their ICT students for
their Cisco courses. I went back to Joburg, back to the school where I started,
and became an instructor. Within first three months, I was trained to be a
trainer of trainers.
For the next five years, she training other
instructors, and felt she had finally found her niche.
“I had to mould other students and, coming
from the industry, I could add more value to what they were learning in the
academy. That’s the first time I really came to the attention of Cisco, because
they took notice of the students I was producing. Cisco used to run a national
competition among students, and the first African winner, Raymond Mazibuko,
came from that academy where I was teaching.”
Since then, Soso has become an iconic
figure at Cisco. She joined one of the company’s channel partners as a Cisco
solutions engineer, but never stopped working at the academy, as a consultant
to the instructors. Last year, Cisco appointed her as programme manager of its CSR programme for the whole of South Africa.
She was put in charge of the academies, and responsible for bringing new academies
into the programme.
The job has since evolved to technical
manager for South Africa, responsible for growing the instructor community.
“This is where I wanted to be. Because I’m
from a rural area, I refer to it as a well. I drank from the well and now I
feel like I’m part of the team that maintains it for other people to be able to
drink.”
She never forgot her roots.
“My first salary ever went to getting
material to build a proper structure for my family to live in. I needed to
build a brick structure so my family could live in a house. Within six months
of starting her first job, they moved out of the shack into the new house.”
Her legacy extends to the next generation.
“My 11-year-old daughter is starting her
own non-profit organisation, looking at assisting people who are less
fortunate, especially the homeless, to get them into a route that is going to lead
them to education or get them out of that situation. Each and every one of them,
according to her, is a unique story.”
- Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief
of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee
Pages: 1 2
