Seven rooms, one idea.
Every place I have built answers the question I asked out loud in 2021: why is everyone building alone?
The full story is the memoir- Kiamariga
A market village in Nyeri
Red soil that turns to river when it rains, and a market that opens on Tuesday whatever you are grieving. I lost my mother at seven and was raised by my grandparents on the slopes of Mount Kenya. My grandmother told me a storm shows you what you are made of, and I have held on to that ever since.
- 2012
Koelel High School, Gilgil, then Strathmore
Books were the way out of the village, so I read them. Informatics and Computer Science at Strathmore University from 2017, and the data analytics seat at the Strathmore Business Club, where I first noticed that the ideas students built died quietly after the competition ended.
- 2016
Rainown Studios, at eighteen
A second-hand laptop, a stationery shop as the first client, and a name that meant owning the rain. It became Oshenia, a small studio building websites and tools for Nairobi businesses while I was still in lectures. My first lesson in failure, invoices and starting before you feel ready.
- 2020
Strathcube
A student-run incubator inside Strathmore, launched weeks before the pandemic shut the campus and kept alive on video calls. The first room. It taught me that the programme matters less than the belief in the room.
- 2021
Startinev
Co-founded in April 2021, the month I graduated. Startup weekends, hackathons and a launchpad for founders who walk in with an idea and a thousand doubts. Techstars Startup Weekend Nairobi runs from here.
- 2021
Attic Chapter
The honest room. Friday gatherings for the people who did not fit the incubator mould: freelancers, self-taught coders, side-hustle founders. Community first, and the honest truths young founders need to hear.
- 2024
AfricaHackon
Dr Bright Gameli Mawudor's cybersecurity community, where I came in to widen the door. The hackers and the hustlers at one table, and the AfricaHackon Academy training the next defenders. Bold and safe, side by side.
- 2025
Hackhouse Africa
The rooms finally get a home at 124 Manyani East Road. Four walls and a heartbeat, a twelve-week residency, and demo days that investors turn up for. Where builders build.
- 2026
Three cohorts through the residency
The year the rooms filled. Three cohorts have now gone through the twelve-week residency at Manyani East Road, and Cohort 3 walked into its Demo Day on 20 August with an investor Deal Book in every hand. We hosted the Nexus Kenya Creative Tech Jam hackathon and the AfricaHackon Cybersecurity Summit 2026, the national one. From October two cohorts run at once. Still where builders build.