“With 42 Luanda, I have the opportunity to make a positive impact on my country and society.”
In 2023, Nyanga Tyitapeka co-founded 42 Luanda. Having already dedicated herself to improving the tech sector in Angola for 10 years, she and her colleague came across an article about 42. Immediately seeing the potential positive impact of a free and innovative coding school in their city, she set out to establish a campus in Angola. With a passion for the present and a vision for the future, Tyitapeka shares her journey and explains her decision to bring 42 to her home country.
What is your educational background? What were you before launching the 42 campus in Luanda?
I got my Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in the US before earning a Master of Science in System Science, Theory for Energy and Environmental Analysis. During my Masters degree, I worked with large data sets and had the opportunity to work with a lot of statistical packages. That is when I first came across coding.
I then returned to Angola and I started working for SonAngol, as an environmental technician. Then after freelancing for a year, I started working for the technical unit where I still work today. We give technical support to the presidency of Angola on issues related to skills development. All the systems we use are related to organizing data related to education in Angola.
What do you like the most about managing a 42 campus?
I like having the opportunity to strengthen our technological ecosystem through 42 Luanda. Where it’s currently lacking is with highly skilled local talent. I think 42 Luanda will help with that. What motivates me is the opportunity to make a positive impact on my country and society. The impact of having programmers who can produce what companies need, helping them overcome some challenges is really good. It gets me going especially because I’ve personally experienced the struggles of not having enough qualified programmers. So, in terms of impacting the tech community, it’s what really drives me.
42 has four pillars: openness, excellence, tech, and ethics. Which one is the most important to you and why?
I would say ethics. That’s what makes you sustainable. Ethics are what’s lacking in our market. You can be really good at what you do, but if you are not ethical, you won’t last.
What’s your vision for the future of education? How do you think education is going to evolve? Do you think it’s going more in 42’s direction?
Definitely. 42 is interesting because it’s just sort of going back to the roots. Before formal education people were learning in shops, in factories or in smaller craftsmen stores. We all learned with the help of each other and I think the world will tend to go more towards learning methods similar to 42’s.
With tools like Google or AI, I think that in the future if you really want to stay ahead, you will have to learn from experts at the top of their field. It won’t be a professor who knows how to teach but lacks real-world experience. Instead, specialized knowledge will come from people who are actually working in the field, as they are far more accessible than they were previously.
