Alex’s own computer fundi

Alexandra’s own computer scientist Lebogang Nkoane, developer of an online application that informs commuters of taxi routes and bus times, hopes to pursue his computer science studies to a PhD level.

Nkoane, who was born and bred in Alexandra, is the developer of the application, awayto.be, which was inspired by his own unfortunate circumstances when he was involved in a car accident and had to rely on public transport, hopes his programme will go a long way to ease the public transport blues.

Born in the township 36 years ago, Nkoane moved to Mpumalanga when he was a baby and his family returned when he was five years old. He attended Carter Primary School until Grade 4 and then went into exile with his mother and sister to Tanzania where he was introduced to computers. “It was in 1988 when I started programming and I wanted to do robotic engineering,” said Nkoane.

Nkoane returned with his sister in 1991 and they stayed with their uncle and aunt. “We moved between Alexandra and Hillbrow,” he said. Nkoane completed his matric in 1995 at Woodmead High School. He was accepted to study electrical engineering at Wits University, but a year later changed to computer studies. He said, “It’s not that I failed electrical engineering, I just got bored with it.” After his undergraduate studies Nkoane worked for 18 months while doing his honours at the University of Pretoria.

He then quit his job to teach at the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa. “Being fresh out of university I felt that my skills were being under-utilised at the company,” he said. Nkoane wanted to train people from disadvantaged backgrounds and also share his knowledge. “This was a way for me to give back to the community.”

Nkoane stopped teaching after 10 years to focus on and realise his ideas. “I also felt that I had nothing new to teach,” he said. Nkoane wants to study his masters and PhD in computer sciences. His life and work philosophy is ‘bridge the divide digital’, and said technology should be brought to people instead of telling people to go and acquire certain skills, especially with limited resources.

Nkoane has an interest in just about anything and includes fashion, design, film, law, music and architecture. “I would like to study architecture, not to do the profession but to enhance my knowledge.” He also used to play basketball and sometimes composed music.