Childhood

I was born in Kenya, the son of two educators, one a university lecturer of electrical engineering and the other an Art and Physical Education teacher. I remember when I was young I would be excited to sit with my mum and paint stick figures of our family and I would excitedly wait for my dad to come home from work so that I could play Mario with him. Along with going to the same school as my mum and learning art from her, my dad gave me a junior circuit set that I loved building with. These things along with many others built up my formative years and most likely pushed me to be the person I am today.

Adolescence

From Middle School to High School I took every single techy and artsy elective course that I could. In Middle School I took Creative Board Games, creating a board game version of Minecraft; IT, learning various software; Robotics, where I got my first intro into programming. Joining the Robotics class was one of the best things that ever happened to me and is another one of those formative moments. My teacher had noted that I had shown the best understanding of the NXT robots, and asked me to take one home and program a demonstration to present to the entirety of the Middle School. It was one of the greatest moments of my life, and later in High School I learnt that my under-class men, and at the time my S.T.E.M (Science Technology Engineering and Math) teammates thought I “looked cool” presenting to the school. It was one of the reasons that they joined the school S.T.E.M and Robotics club. Minecraft and the Robotics club were the things that spurred me into programming and game development.

In High School I continued my pattern, and legitimately took every art and tech course offered. When it came to my junior year I had to choose whether to take the full International Baccalaureate (IB) program or the certificate version. I had planned to take the full IB program until I found out that I couldn’t take both IB HL (Higher Level) Computer Science and IB HL Visual Arts. When the IB counselor asked which one I liked more Art or Programming, I froze and couldn’t choose, Right then she and I realized that I loved both subjects the same; so even though it would limit my future options for universities countries outside the United States, I decided to take the certificate IB program so I could take both Art and Programming. During all this I joined the Robotics team and went to International Botball competitions, helping our school place 2nd in our first competition, 1st in the following two and in my last year being placed in charge of one of the three teams that were formed, and being given the responsibility to train the new recruits that would replace me when I graduated. This was my first foray into script programming as opposed to NXT's block programming.

Present Day

I have recently graduated from Full Sail University with a Bachelor’s degree in Game Development; a course that teaches Computer Science with a focus on the development of games. Thanks to this I was able to refine my skills and do things I had previously found hard to do. I was able to help develop two games. Past graduation I have been able to work on my own and develop an D&D application tools; applying everything I learned during my time at Full Sail, from memory management to graphics programming. I am excited to see what the future holds.

The Future

Since the middle of Middle School, I have wanted to give more to the world. In pursuit of that goal I aspire to advance the field of virtual reality someday, to bring a more in-depth experience to building worlds greater than the ones I grew up being a part of, and sharing what I made with the world. Currently that may mean that I lend my skills to others with grand visions and try to make them a reality, but in the future, I will build a company dedicated to bringing my own vision from simply machinations of my mind to fully tangible creations.