Nelly Cheboi: 29-Year-Old Kenyan Wins CNN Prize, Receives Ksh75 Million

UPDATE: President William Ruto, in his Jamhuri Day speech on Monday, December 12, congratulated 29-year-old Nelly Cheboi after she won the CNN Hero of the Year Award.

"We also congratulate 29-year-old, Nelly Cheboi, the founder of Techlit Africa who this morning was declared the CNN hero of the year, for her work in creating computer labs for Kenyan children to access the opportunities in the digital world.

"Congratulations Nelly for connecting and inspiring thousands of Kenyan children," the Head of State stated. 

Kenyan software engineer turned philanthropist Nelly Cheboi won the 2022 CNN Hero of the Year award on Sunday, December 11.

The event hosted at the American Museum of Natural History saw CNN veteran journalist Anderson Cooper name Cheboi as the winner, bettering 10 other nominees.

Cheboi was overcome with tears of joy and invited her family to join her on the podium as she received her prize.

She won the award thanks to her philanthropic work through her company, TechLit Africa whereby she secured computers for children in her rural village.

Congratulations to Nelly Cheboi, the 2022 CNN Hero of the Year!

Learn more about her at https://t.co/MkgzSoE3Zf #CNNHeroes pic.twitter.com/n6Dy3bQuPo — CNN Heroes (@CNNHeroes) December 12, 2022

Speaking after receiving the award, Cheboi said that the funds she would receive from the award will help her transform her drive of empowering school going children with computer knowledge.

"Every year, people are graduating into the corporate world without ever using a computer. This forces them to go back to the village with their education

"I want to get to 100 schools which translates to 40,000 school-going children. We need to rewrite what it means to grow up in rural Africa because people can work glamorous jobs and still work in your community," she said.

She added that she would expand her work to include countries such as Uganda, among others.

Born in a poor family in Mogotio, Baringo County, her fortunes changed when she secured a scholarship through Zawadi Africa to study computer science at Augustana College in Illinois, graduating in 2015.

Thereafter, Cheboi worked as a business analyst and lead software engineer for two US firms - New World Van Lines and User-Hero. But she left all that behind and came back to her village in 2019 with the sole aim of empowering her community borrowing from her experiences in the US.

Ms Cheboi co-founded Technologically Literate Africa (TechLit Africa), a company that uses recycled computers to create tech labs in schools. She serves as its CEO.

But her first mission while still in campus was to uplift her family. Through a work-study programme, she secured a job as a janitor, which her Ksh40,000 a month thanks to the extra hours she put in. Out of her earnings, she saved 80 per cent over one year and came back to Kenya.

“After a year, I returned home. I first went to a local market in Nairobi and did some shopping for my mother, showed up in our village with a pick up full of shopping and relocated my mother to a better place and for the first time, we were able to invite our friends to visit. I continued to work and upgrade the lives of my family and my neighbours,” she stated in a past interview with The Standard.