Doudou at Google in Switzerland, where he worked as an intern software engineer for three months
Working for Google is something many IT students and graduates can only ever dream of, but for Doudou ‘Doug’ Kisabaka that dream came true when he secured an internship with the massive search engine company in 2010 – something he describes as a ‘bit of a miracle’.
This humble young man, who was born and raised in a modest home in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), shares his story in the hope that he can motivate and inspire Africans, irrespective of ethnicity and race, to keep going, because dreams can become reality and you can make a difference.
“We don’t know what the future holds, so I don’t see the point in not trying to be the best I can with what I have. The idea of doing an internship with a big company like Google never crossed my mind except in my dreams where I dreamt of other fictitious things like saving the earth from a Martian attack. It’s only since then that I started realising that all things are truly possible.”
The BSc student says he is a simple guy who just does his best to live by the principles set in the Bible, especially the book of Proverbs. He moved to South Africa during his grade nine year for a few reasons, one of them being that he got bored with technical school in the DRC.
“I went to a private school in Kinshasa and then started high school in a Catholic school and did one year of technical school before moving to South Africa. The move from these high discipline schools to a public school (Wendywood High) wasn’t very easy and I adapted really slowly. Back home, I was a very competent student and always came in the top three spots in class before moving to South Africa, where dependency on textbooks, which I couldn’t always afford, meant I misunderstood one or two chapters in a couple of subjects.”
As is often the case, many things didn’t go as Doudou planned after finishing high school in 2007. “My family wasn’t doing well financially and I didn’t get a scholarship. It was very frustrating. So I started spending many more hours in front of the computer because I didn’t find anything better to do. I spent many hours, day and night, coding away on an old Pentium II given to me by a friend, teaching myself anything I saw as interesting while I couldn’t afford university… I also read lots of books and articles on computer science, maths and physics.”
Doudou also shared his skills with others, which finally gave him the chance for tertiary study in 2009. “I tutored maths and IT and, in return, I received just enough money to pay Unisa’s fees, which are perhaps priced the best for education in the country.”
Also in 2009, Google started a special programme to get more African student interns and early in 2010 it organised an African edition of its online coding competition, the Google code jam (GCJ).
“Being a programming addict, I decided to participate and see how well I’d do in comparison to the more than 280 brains on the continent who also entered. While registering, there was a checkbox asking something along the lines of ‘do you want Google to contact you for employment opportunities’. So I took a chance and chose yes.”
A few days later Doudou was contacted by a recruiter. At first he thought this was a hoax call, given the number of people participating in the competition. “So I ignored the first message until another message came which had a more serious tone, and from that I sent my CV, had two technical phone interviews and got accepted.”
While at Google Zurich in Switzerland, the largest Google engineering office outside the US, Doudou worked with products relevant to Africa and got to understand the reality of the continent in relation to the rest of the world, the digital divide, and how this is affecting the continent and its future. “I met many interesting people and it was great chatting to them and learning from them. The most special moment for me was when I had a photo of me taken with Bjarne Stroustrup, the guy behind the C++ programming language, perhaps the most widely used programming language in the world.”
So why does Doudou feel it is important to gain work experience while studying? “I think it’s a way to become more creative and expressive than school allows or teaches us to be… Another thing is that the academic setting is so different from the work environment that gaining experience while studying helps you adjust your academic goals and focus areas.”
He concludes with this advice: “What kept me going was the fact that, in the real world, work competencies matter a lot more than background. If I let the hurdles I encountered gain the better of me, I wouldn’t have been able to arrive at this point, and there’s still a long way to go… I dreaded (and I still dread) the idea of not using the resources in my disposition to achieve something good, no matter how little I have. When I took part in the South African Computer Olympiad final in 2007, I only had a little knowledge of computers; I didn’t quite know what I was doing, although I was doing it well. So I kept on doing it… I was fortunate, I had a computer and I could have limited access to the internet from several places, so I used these resources to achieve whatever I could. And it’s amazing how much you can squeeze when resources are scarce!”
*Source: Inspired Vol 7, No 2; May 2011
