It’s hard not to ache for lost talent, unrealized potential, and abandoned dreams.

What is a greater loss to society than the loss of hope; the loss of belief in a future better than today?

By the time I graduated from high school, I’d only used a computer a handful of times. They had a few old ones at my school, but between the hundreds of students waiting for their turn, and the intermittent electricity, there just wasn’t much of an opportunity to really play around with those wondrous machines.

But I knew they existed. I’d used them. I had a phone, I’d used social media. I was aware of a world entirely different to my own, that existed in parallel, so close but so out of touch. A world where money led to opportunity, and where opportunity allowed young people like me to dream, not about a fantasy life, but about a not so distant reality.

When I joined Uncommon, everything changed.

Here was a chance to not just use a computer, but to own one. To not just imagine a future that was better than my present, but to create it.

When I joined Uncommon I dove head first into the world of technology, taking crash courses in Product Design, Software Development, and Digital Marketing.

It was Software Development that shook me to my core. I wasn’t just learning the language of code, I was gaining access to the keys that unlocked infinite potential. Any idea I could ever imagine, I could build with code.

When I joined Uncommon I committed to betting on myself. In exchange for 12 months of free, structured learning, I would go with my peers to provide free computer coding lessons at the nearby Government schools each day.

That is the Uncommon way. Learning not just to better oneself, but to better one’s community as well.

Today, I am a front-end software developer at the Girls in STEM Trust.

Uncommon has over 200 young people like me enrolled in its Bootcamps studying for the technology workforce. And those young people are helping teach computer coding to over 10,000 kids annually in Harare, Bulawayo, and Victoria Falls.

Their goal is to expand nationally, to help all Zimbabwean youth learn the skills that are shaping the future. And to ensure that more young people like me never stop dreaming.

Zimbabwe's tech revolution is happening now, and there's a place for you in it.