PERSONAL STATEMENT - Joseph Njoroge

MSc. Big Data Technologies

My story in data analytics is unique in that unlike most data analysts, my journey in data
started with the fear of coding. It all started in my second year of university class of
information science when I was introduced to database and programming. A couple of
lectures went by and I could hardly grasp what our lecturer was teaching. Why are we
writing all these commands? I felt it was not for me. Everything was Greek and at some
point, I contemplated changing my course. On the other hand, my best friend Alex seemed
to be enjoying the subject. In no time he was the coding master in our class. However, the
turning point came when one day I saw my friend type a string of code on his Ideapad, and a
line graph suddenly appeared on the screen. How did you do that? I asked. Another line of
code and voila! The line graph was now a bar chart. How was he doing this? I could not
believe how a bunch of statements could generate graphs and charts. This piqued my
curiosity.
Over the next couple of months, I spent hours on YouTube tutorials. By the end of the
semester, I had graduated from a "rookie" to "Rockstar" in Python and HTML. Everything
finally started making sense. During the semester break, I also did a course in excel to up my
data-crunching skills. I fell in love with data analysis and visualization. From basic excel to
advanced python scripts, there's so much I could do. I had finally found something I was
passionate about.
The skills I harnessed landed me my first job in a pay-go solar distribution company. Here, I
finally had massive real-life data to work with. From stock, sales, customer to payments
data. In my early months, I spent time creating dashboards and automating reports. This
went a long way in improving business efficiency and fast decision-making for the
management. It was also during this time that I got introduced to Business intelligence tools
such as Power Bi and Tableau. Data extraction, transformation, and reporting have never
been easier.
I am currently employed as a data analyst at Azuri Technologies, a startup company that
provides pay-go solar systems to people living in off-grid areas in Kenya and Zambia. Being
in the pay-go solar industry, a lot of decisions have to be data-driven. Be it unit economics,
location-specific competitive advantages, customer dynamics, and technology costs. Being a
relatively new industry there's a lot of gaps that need to be filled as far as data is concerned.
The Master's program in Big data technologies with not only expand my knowledge in big
data analytics, application of cloud-based systems, and how machine learning can be
utilized, but will also go a long way in equipping me with the skills that are in demand in the
industry. I am looking forward to being enrolled in this program. Thank you for considering
my application.