Common wisdom dictates that one should be wary of blowing their own horn. But common wisdom is called that for a reason—because it is common. Moses has never been much a fan of winnowed commonness, or rule books or you know, “email forward wisdom.” That’s why he blows his horns, toots his trumpets and lets those with an ear hear.
Isn’t that how he got to London at the age of 23? Before that, he already had the ear of the society of engineering students in his university.
“My first project was with Kenya Space Agency (KSA), where they wanted to have university students make a nanosatellite for regional surveillance. I was leading the subsystem for the on-board computer.”
With a hardware and computer engineering background, he says he didn’t see a future in it immediately. He decided to chuck all his chips on the software side, and that’s how he became a prophet of his own talents, telling everyone the truth and challenging the authority of commonplace assumptions and conventional wisdom.
"I keep telling people what I am doing, and people keep coming. Nobody will know you made/make the best projects if you don't talk about it."
“You have to tell people your accomplishments, especially if you are young. I keep posting on my LinkedIn whatever projects I have ever made. I make noise.”
That how—again—he was recruited by one of his lecturers to lead the electric subsystem as part of the team that created an electric wheelchair for the Association of the Physically Disabled in Kenya (APDK). By now, you must have assumed he was recruited (again) by someone looking for a software engineer at a logistics start-up. One thing led to another, and another recruiter from Bloomberg—a financial, software, data, and media company—reached out. Now he’s here. In case you are wondering, he’s never had to apply for a job. He just makes noise.
He says his next step is somewhere in finance, “something to do with fintech, but not in the banking space, geared towards security and bonds.”
He would also like to bag the Top 40 Under 40 Men again. It, however, comes at a cost, as he has no personal life. “Working throughout the week, pushing myself and sleeping through the weekends, juggling books, work, and personal projects.” Happy to say, none of the plates fell from the air.
“I stay hungry by always having goals. My current goal is to bring the finance system to ordinary Kenyans. Staying hungry is staying curious.” For this, he tips his hat to Zackaria Mwaniki, who paid for his course out of pocket to study machine learning.
“I keep telling people what I am doing, and people keep coming. Nobody will know you made/make the best projects if you don’t talk about it.”
It’s a thin line between boasting and marketing. Maybe it is not common wisdom. Perhaps this is his plain, double-breasted truth. After all, is it really bragging if you can back it up?
Eddy Ashioya