RUNDOWN
• Kenya’s Nelly Cheboi has won this year’s CNN Hero of the Year.
• Cheboi’s nonprofit, TechLit Africa, has provided thousands of students across rural Kenya with access to donated.
• voters selected her from among this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes.
Nelly Cheboi, who in 2019 quit a lucrative software engineering job in Chicago to create computer labs for Kenyan school children, is the 2022 CNN Hero of the Year an award that recognizes individuals who have an impact on society.
Cheboi’s nonprofit, TechLit Africa, has provided thousands of students across rural Kenya with access to donated, upcycled computers — and the chance at a brighter future. According to CNN, online voters selected her from among this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes.
Accepting her award in the company of her mother, she narrated how her mother worked hard to educate her and in her acceptance speech, the mother and her daughter sang a song onstage that she explained had a special meaning when she was growing up.
Nelly will now receive Sh1.2 million ($100,000) to expand her work, as the CNN Hero of the Year and for attending the gala, the winner and the other top 10 CNN Heroes will receive Sh120, 000 ($10,000) cash award.
The heroes will also get additional grants, organizational training, and support from The Elevate Prize Foundation through a new collaboration with CNN Heroes.
Cheboi, 29, was born and brought up 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 where she graduated in 2015.
Later, she worked as a business analyst and lead software engineer for two US firms – New World Van Lines and User-Hero but in 2019, she left all that behind and came back to her village, aiming at empowering her community borrowing from her experiences in the US.
Returning to her village, Cheboi co-founded Technologically Literate Africa (TechLit Africa), a company that uses recycled computers to create tech labs in schools where today she is the CEO.
By Jane Kibathi.
