The story behind the work.

My grandmother used to bring home a magazine from work. She was a domestic worker. Every few weeks, she'd come home with a copy of NAG — a tech magazine — that her employer's kid had finished with. I don't know if they ever knew what those old magazines meant to the kid waiting for her at home.

I'd read every page. Cover to cover. Multiple times. I was reading about computers I had never touched. Learning how to fix hardware I didn't own. Memorising specs for machines I couldn't afford. But something about it felt like a door — and I was determined to find a way through it.

Eventually, I built my own computer from a broken one she brought from her employer. Then I started fixing other people's. By the time I was in high school, I was charging my teachers to repair their laptops. Not because I was chasing money — because I had finally found the thing I was made to do.

I studied Computer Science. I spent time at internet cafes — not just browsing, but fixing computer towers and laptops on the side, installing Windows and Microsoft Office for people in the community, learning the business from the inside out. And eventually, I opened NETCAFE Tech in Etwatwa, Daveyton.

I thought I was opening a business. I didn't realise I was opening a door.

They started coming in to do their homework research. Standard stuff — except most of them had never used a computer before. You know township schools don't have computer labs mos. Nobody had taught them. So I'd stop what I was doing and show them. Not because it was in my business plan, but because I remembered being that kid nami — hungry to learn, just missing the access.

Word spread. More kids came. I formalised it into computer classes on weekends. Then one day a boy, uLwandle, told me he couldn't afford the lessons. He stayed with his grandmother and his younger sibling. She was a pensioner. That was all they had.

I taught him for free. Then others. Some of them were sharp — genuinely brilliant — just born into the wrong circumstances. Some would tell me their dream was to own a computer one day, the way I used to dream about it. So I started collecting broken computers from people I'd repaired for, salvaging parts, and donating rebuilt laptops to the kids who needed them most.

Then I met Mandla. He used to come in every week to apply for universities and NSFAS. He was in matric. At some point he mentioned that he'd been using his lunch money to pay for internet time. I started helping him for free — told him he could pay me back with his skills one day when he had his degree. He wanted to study IT. Never owned a computer in his life. His mom was unemployed. I donated a laptop to him, and spent time teaching him what he'd need to know — because I was aware he'd be studying alongside kids from well-off backgrounds who had done computer from primary school.

One kid I could help with my own hands. But there were hundreds more I couldn't reach alone.

That's when Astute Tech Foundation was born — a nonprofit to refurbish donated devices, teach digital skills, and get technology into the hands of people who needed it, not just people who could afford it.

At NETCAFE, I started helping people apply for jobs online. People would come in with screenshots of "job opportunity" links from Facebook, asking for help. The problem was that most of them were looking for general work — no degree, no formal experience, just willing hands and a need to provide. And the big platforms — Indeed, PNet and others — weren't built for them. Too corporate. Too filtered. And those Facebook links? Most of them were scams. Fake listings designed to harvest the details of desperate people.

I watched this happen over and over again. And I thought: someone needs to build something honest for these people. So I did. JobLaunchSA.co.za — a job portal built specifically for South African youth and entry-level job seekers. Real listings. Simple process. No exploitation.

Every single thing I've built started the same way. Not with a business plan. Not with funding. Not with a mentor or an accelerator or a pitch competition. It started with a person in front of me who had a problem I recognised — and each time, the question was the same: If not me, then who?

I grew up reading about computers in magazines I didn't buy, dreaming about a world I hadn't been invited into yet. Now I spend my days building the door wider — so the next kid from Etwatwa doesn't have to wait for someone else's leftovers to find their way in.

The vision is bigger than any single platform or business. It's a Community Tech Hub and Entrepreneur Centre — a space where local people identify local problems, build local solutions, and create real employment in the communities they actually live in. Because the best people to solve township problems are the people living in the township. That's always been the point.