Ronnex Wataya, Malawi

I am based in Blantyre City, Malawi but i was born in northern part of Malawi.  Growing up as a child, I fell in love with video gaming from which I developed an art of creativity. Many people found it hard to understand me because I was very messy and inpatient, I kept on breaking things because I was always trying to alter or fix things which were not even broken. As a kid with huge passion in computers and games I was fortunate enough to have an access to a home computer at such a young age. I did a lot of things on that laptop, which belonged to my aunt, I taught myself to create a website when I was like 15 years old and wrote so many algorithms of which some helped to access internet for free through alterations of ISP provider’s access addresses. After secondary school I went to college to pursue computer science (National College of Information Technology) and I ended up dropping out in my final year, surprisingly the reason of dropping out was to chase my new career and that is Software engineering. Many people laughed and parents really got mad at me and to be honest I felt like I had wasted my 4 years studying something I really did not like and I had to give myself a chance to jump into the industry and explore real technologies and real applications but I am still very grateful for the 4 years I spent in college campus they prepared me for another step in life and those basics we learnt back then in class are very much applicable in day to day life as a developer and innovator. Fast forward in 2016 I won my first ICT innovation Award with my first startup “Droidfx Technologies”, I developed an auto fare collection system for public transport which charged a customer per distance travelled automatically. Founding Droidfx Technologies was a break through, met so many mentors , entrepreneurs and innovators on the way from whom I have learnt so much and shaped me well for future ventures. In 2018 Droidfx was one of top 20 shortlisted SAIS Innovators to showcase products in Cape town, South Africa where I came across my first International client and mentor. fast forward to 2019 “Mi Wallet” Idea was born and now we are a private company limited with focus on providing best and smart digital finance in Malawi and neighboring countries. I am 28 years old as of today and I am believing before I go for retirement my work would have impacted a good population and made a difference .