Sitting Down with Educate!'s Tech Expert: Sam Mbugua

On April 7, 2021, Head of External Relations Rachael Miller Buck sat down with Acting Head of Tech and Head of Performance Metrics Samson Mbugua to chat about his role, what this past year has taught him, and what he's looking forward to.

To kick us off, I would love it if you could tell me what your work is like these days?

My work has moved from thinking around technology and its different [performance] numbers and information to technology to deliver the program itself. Right now, I'm working as Acting Head of Tech with that in mind — looking at the program delivery component and how we can use technology to, now on a slightly more expanded scope, deliver the program and also track the impact. 

Unlike previously, the work was more cohort-based around the school; now, we are more individual-based around the student, which is really, really cool! We're able to interact directly with the student and follow the progress of individual students at the student level whereas before it felt more of a cohort-based experience with the school. 

My work right now is twofold: 

I am working on ensuring that the programs and the various teams have the tech solutions that they need in order to be able to deliver on impact. So that's the Programs Teams, the Design Teams, and the Monitoring Teams. That's one aspect which is a very here and now aspect. 

Then, the other facet of my focus is to build out the tech function so that we are able to see how we want tech to operate within the space of Educate! right now. This is a more long-term view and a more strategic perspective. So that we build out the function, and we're able to strategize and ensure that we are solving the need the priorities of the organization from a comprehensive perspective. There's not just waking up and saying that we need an SMS system that can be delivered, but also looking at: What are the rules of engagement? How do other departments interact with tech? How does tech interact with other departments? Where do we want to operate? Where do we not want to operate? 

It sounds like your role is one that interacts with maybe every team! Could you tell me more about who is your team? Who do you collaborate with the most? What does that interaction really look like? 

Yes, I do have a team! I have Charity, who is recently hired. She is a product owner based in Uganda. Then we have a new incoming hire, who's starting in two weeks’ time. She's called Letitia, and Letitia is coming in to help with our data systems. She is based in Rwanda, so [we’re] really [working] across East Africa. It's a very remarkable turn of events. We have [staff in] Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda. We have equal gender representation in a tech team — that never happens! 

So, those are my team members, but we interact pretty closely with the Monitoring and Evaluation Team because Educate! prides itself in being very data-driven. We really work hard to ensure that we have data tools and processes that are collecting data from the field, processing it as quickly as possible, and pushing out information to the front line for decision-making. 

We also [work with] the Programs Teams. As we scale the [virtual VIP] Bootcamp processes, being very specific about program delivery components becomes increasingly important. Being very deliberate about providing tech to the Mentors to be able to manage that scale is a big component, especially in the next oncoming Bootcamp. That's part of the reason why it's going to be a bit of a busy season. 

In the pilot process, we have one major customer, who is the VIP or the student, who we are targeting. But as you grow towards scale you also add in the Programs Team as a customer because they need tools and techniques to manage that scale. Managing a program with 4,000 students in a pilot is a very different animal to working with 10,000 - 20,000 students. You need to be very deliberate. You need to be very efficient. 

The third component, which is what I've just talked about, is looking at the impact delivery. [Technology] that's delivering impact to the students. That's usually the purview of the Design Team — interacting with the Design Team around what technologies can we use to reach the students, and how do they interact with those technologies to imbibe the skills that we recommend on our Impact Bar.

What has maybe surprised you the most about the past year, and specifically, has there been anything that's unexpectedly positive? Any silver linings of the pandemic? 

Taking on this new role pushed me to learn a lot of new things, and that was unexpectedly fun! For example, I can confidently say my JavaScript fields are much better now than they were before. We've also been able to explore and find really cool platforms that we will use even outside the Bootcamp delivery process but discovered as a result of the Bootcamp. Also, the expansion of the technological capabilities that we have as an organization. I feel like they'll have a lot of positive effects whenever we go back into schools.

One of the things that we have worked on over the last few months is how to personalize experiences for students. We can also apply that to Mentor management. How do you personalize the experience or the journey of a Mentor as we work with them throughout their fellowship period? Discovering these new technologies and processes in the midst of running the Bootcamp — processes that will eventually reap benefits when we go back to schools — is a big positive for me. 

I'm curious what you're nerding out on right now?

I think the one thing I want to nerd out on right now is PHP. It's the language we write our USSD systems in. With [former staff member] Nick stepping out, someone else needs to step in and step up, so that’s me! 

What are you feeling excited about looking ahead to the next 12 months?

Looking back at Bootcamp iteration #3, ha! Being on the other side of this would make me very happy. I think from a work perspective, we're trying out a bunch of new strategies to increase the capacity of the team so that we are able to be more responsive to the needs of the organization. I'm really curious to see where that goes!