When Kenyan tech entrepreneur Paul Akwabi visited a juvenile prison on the outskirts of Mombasa, he didn’t see younger criminals — he noticed himself.
Having grown up in a few of Nairobi’s poorest neighborhoods like Kibera, among the many world’s largest slums, childhood reminiscences of delivering medicine, weapons and different unlawful objects for older boys flooded again.
“I thought, ‘This could have been me,’” Akwabi recalled to NCS.
Instead, as a younger teenager, Akwabi taught himself primary electronics by books and by repairing radios. After ending secondary college, he labored as a avenue vendor to help himself and studied Computer Science on the Technical University of Mombasa.
“Technology became more than an interest, it became my pathway to possibility,” Akwabi mentioned.
Born from that recognition, and a perception in second possibilities, was his choice to carry his group TechKidz Africa, the Mombasa-based know-how academy he based to empower younger Kenyan innovators, into Shimo La Tewa Borstal Institution and Boys Education Centre.
With packages spanning robotics, software program engineering, pc literacy, coding, animation, and on-line security, Akwabi’s academy for 4- to 19-year-olds usually works with faculties.
In 2024, TechKidz collaborated with Close the Gap Kenya — a nonprofit that refurbishes and donates IT gear — to put in a pc lab in the prison and develop a three-month digital literacy course that teaches younger offenders Information and Communications Technology (ICT) abilities particularly targeted on employability and on-line security.
Of the primary 25 authentic individuals in the course, 21 had no prior publicity to this know-how.
TechKidz makes use of the time period “learners” to consult with inmates in the course. NCS despatched them questions by the TechKidz workers, who forwarded their replies. NCS will not be utilizing their names.
One 19-year-old learner from Nyeri County wrote in response to a NCS query that, “at first, it was difficult to operate the computer,” having by no means interacted with one earlier than. An 18-year-old from Meru County wrote, “I was able to use a computer for the first time and enjoyed typing activities,” including that he hopes to make use of his new graphic design abilities to advertise his plumbing enterprise upon launch.
While Kenya’s tech innovation sector continues to develop, a disparity stays in entry to know-how, affordability and ICT abilities. A government survey in 2024 confirmed that whereas simply over 50% of Kenyans use cell phones, solely 11.6% of the inhabitants makes use of computer systems.
The Center for International Governance Innovation famous city areas see a lot increased digital literacy and web entry in comparison with rural and marginalized communities.
Jostinah Wawasi Mwang’ombe, senior superintendent of Shimo La Tewa Institution, instructed NCS that Kenya’s youth prisons have an overrepresentation of inmates from decrease revenue rural communities, with various ranges of schooling and literacy. Often probably the most pc entry they’ve had — if any — is watching films in cybercafés.
“We had to start from way, way lower — just understanding even what computers are and their purpose before we started teaching them how to use them,” Akwabi mentioned.
In Kenya’s grownup prisons, overcrowding is “untenabable,” in keeping with the nation’s chief justice, however in latest years the judiciary has carried out “decongestion” efforts, and shifted its strategy to deal with “rehabilitation and reintegration” of inmates.
Shimo La Tewa Borstal Institution incarcerates, rehabilitates and reintegrates boys aged 15 to 18 on the time of committing critical prison offenses. It requires the boys to enroll in both formal schooling, vocational coaching, or agricultural programming throughout their normal three-year sentences, although they’ve a likelihood to spend the final two years on probation in their neighborhood.
Mwang’ombe says the institute now ensures all boys get primary “digital hygiene” coaching to make sure they will use tech in a safe approach with constructive habits in the long run. The three-month course is delivered to 25 boys chosen based mostly on finishing their vocational coaching examination and is designed to construct on their respective abilities.
The TechKidz curriculum strikes from digital ethics and knowledge safety, {hardware} repairs, and electronic mail etiquette, to Microsoft Excel and Word abilities earlier than masking coding, internet design and at last, robotics, video manufacturing, and graphic design.
“Most of (the learners) have hands-on skills like carpentry, barber, salonist, agriculture, masonry … (but) when they come out, they don’t know how to (market) themselves,” Akwabi mentioned.
One learner mentioned he deliberate to create posters to promote his abilities as a barber, whereas one other mentioned he hoped to change into an ICT trainer upon launch to assist different younger folks entry tech coaching.
“I am confident of making more sales in my tailoring business through the website I am building,” wrote a 20-year-old learner from Kilifi County, who liked the creativity of internet growth.
In September 2025, TechKidz and Close the Gap Kenya helped the learners create a “digital booth” in the yard by repurposing a backyard shed and putting in tech gear, so the inmates can use a pc to name their households or for counseling periods.
According to a TechKidz report shared with NCS, prison workers noticed a rise in motivation throughout all packages in the prison, not simply the pc lab, as a result of inmates hoped to qualify for the TechKidz course.
Beyond motivation, Mwang’ombe mentioned this system has been key in elevating vanity, a priceless useful resource in rehabilitation.
“The happiness alone that they are now accessing something that they thought was for the elite, built their self-esteem,” Mwang’ombe mentioned. “They are more confident in going back home because they feel they haven’t missed what happened outside.”
Three boys who have been semi-literate upon arrival have been unable to proceed their formal schooling, so that they educated in agricultural practices, she added. Through the course, they designed a 3D mannequin of a greenhouse with computerized robotic irrigation programs.
“It embodied the curiosity that adolescents have plus the skills that they lacked, and they were even able to develop and explain it,” mentioned Mwang’ombe. The boys introduced the mannequin throughout the challenge’s commencement celebration, planning to search out funding to make it a actuality upon launch.
Now, TechKidz Africa and Close the Gap plan to increase their program with assist from Kenya Prison Services to 14 extra prisons throughout the nation, together with extra juvenile establishments and girls’s establishments.
They will maintain coaching days with prison officers to develop extra digital literacy educators, who will take TechKidz curriculums and donated computer systems into every prison.
“Digital literacy is a flat battleground that doesn’t choose where you’re coming from,” mentioned Akwabi.
He is assured that these abilities can open doorways, simply as they as soon as did for him, and supply younger offenders new oppurtunities no matter how they grew up.
“I am committed to ensuring that children from backgrounds like mine, full of crime and hardship, can dream bigger, innovate earlier, and build a future that once seemed impossible,” mentioned Akwabi.