Nelly Cheboi, the 2022 CNN Heroes award winner, revealed that Raila Odinga facilitated her journey to the US, where she enrolled for a scholarship.
Speaking in an interview with Sucess Afrika Cheboi revealed that she would have been stuck in Kenya if it were not for Raila.
“I went to Maryhill Girls High School, got an A in my studies, and was to travel to the United States for my scholarship. I had a deadline of two weeks to report.
My area MP organised my passport, but I was stuck, I had no visa or travel air ticket until I met Raila, who gave me Ksh 300,000,” she recalled in the mid-December 2022 interview.
Cheboi received a full scholarship to Augustana College in Illinois in 2012 to pursue computer science.
She is a Kenyan software engineer turned philanthropist who bagged the 2022 CNN Hero of the Year Award on Sunday, December 11, securing a Ksh74 million reward.
In the event hosted at the American Museum of Natural History, CNN veteran journalist, Anderson Cooper, announced Cheboi as the winner emerging top among 10 other nominees.
Cheboi, in 2019, quit her lucrative software engineering job in Chicago to create computer labs for Kenyan schoolchildren through her non-profit company, TechLit Africa.
“I feel so accomplished seeing kids that are seven years old touch-typing, knowing that I just learned how to touch-type less than five years ago,” she remarked.
In 2018, she began transporting donated computers back to Kenya in her personal luggage, handling customs fees and taxes herself.
“At one point, I was bringing 44 computers, and I paid more for the luggage than I did for the air ticket,” she revealed.
A year later, she co-founded TechLit Africa with a fellow software engineer after both quit their jobs. The nonprofit firm accepts computer donations from companies, universities and individuals.
Her organization currently serves 10 schools and hopes to partner with 100 more within the next year.
“My hope is that when the first TechLit kids graduate high school, they’re able to get a job online because they will know how to code, they will know how to do graphic design, they will know how to do marketing,” Cheboi stated.
