BRIAN NYAGOL

When I first called Brian Nyagol three months ago I thought he was any other kawaida guy. High on campus fever. Ailing or terribly low bank account balance.HELB is bae.Sportpesa is mpango wa kando.Posts pics of girls with big behinds on whatsapp groups. Follows girls with bigger behinds on Instagram.Uploads photos of gigantic vodka bottles on Facebook every once a Friday to show the world how badass he is.He gets wasted and shit. Never mind he does not really drink vodka. One of those masquerading Amarulla-guarana guys. Loves Arsenal but hates Arsene Wenger. Attitude is crap. His attitude has an attitude. Probably plays a lot of FIFA and has three girlfriends who are actually other people’s girlfriends. You know, ordinary campus chap trying to figure out what life is all about. Still finding his feet…

Brian did not pick my call. Instead he texted that he was outside the country and we could only communicate through whatsapp. Pssst! was his voice made of platinum and red ochre or something? Anyone can be out of the country nowadays, I thought. All you have to do is dandia a chopper and advisedly wear an invincible Superman-ish outfit .Being the doubting ‘Thomasess’ that I am, I rushed to whatsapp only to meet this picture-perfect TDH. A thin, dark and handsome fellah in a dark suit. Hehe.Schooled pose. Growing moustache (or what are those hairs Brian?)Not bad for business. He had designed a website I was to update on and I needed the login credentials. We got talking and as they say, the rest is history.

I could end this story here but I would be doing gross injustice to the smart, hardworking and immensely talented man that is also the brains behind the vastly growing social app VibeCampo;CEO of  Brain Verse Technologies Ltd;Director and IT Systems Manager  at  Writers Guild Kenya; employee at Davis and Shirtliff and to crown it all, an Electrical and electronics engineer.

Let’s start from the top…

Meet Brian Nyagol, 24 years of age and second-born in a family of four. He hails from the coastal regions of Nyanza, Homa bay County (read homa-beiii),Rodi Kopany village. Nyagol is among the few  Luos I’ve met who can say ‘’seashells on the seashore’’ without either biting their tongues off or destroying our diplomatic relations with England. Foolishness is not a good look on Brian so Brian is smart. I mean, when your village is called Rodi Kopany it’s an imposed obligation to be smart. Comes with the title. He is an agile man, always on the move both literally and upstairs. His speed is what Hon.Magufuli would recommend on a good day. When I ‘apped him on Tuesday last week to ask whether I could cover his story as the first in this new segment he replied “So, what would you like to write about me”…very apt guy. And humble. I called him on Thursday and we had a long conversation…

Growing up…

Brian describes his childhood as difficult. Both parents were primary school teachers earning ‘peanuts’ as Sossion would put it.It was a struggle making ends meet but as his lucky stars would have it, Brian attended and sat for his KCPE exams at St. Francis Assisi academy. His excellent performance credited him a place in the highly decorated Kanga School in Migori County where he progressed to shine his star that was clearly marked for greatness. At Kanga Brian was agitated for the Lord, serving in the SDA church as a leader. I’m told he was well-versed with the Book of Revelations, so much so he had mastered everything on the horses and had advanced to the donkeys. Which don’t exist. At least not in my Bible. Hallelujah Brian.Haha.

Brian also participated actively in Math club which foreseeably prepared him for the engineering life ahead. He was a boy with a vision though blurry. Ever since he was young he had been nursing a dream to be an engineer and so he placed his interests and priorities strategically in tandem.

On campus life and discovering his path…

In Brian’s own words, campus is supposed to be a powerhouse of ideas. It should be this stage in life where the mind is freed to roam within the constraints of reason and an individual molded to outgrow limitations. It is in campus that Brian started his engineering dream. It is in campus that Brian stumbled across blogging which sparked his curiosity to programming .It is in campus that he founded Vibecampo through lots and lots of coding .It is in the same campus that Brian interned at Davis and Shirtliff and impressed them enough to involve him in their projects, some taking him as far as Arusha and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. In campus, Brian and friends like Gabriel Dinda started Writers Guild, an outfit that empowers young bloggers in their writing journey. He also managed to chair one of the most powerful student organizations in Moi University, the Consortium of International and Professional Organizations CIPA. Were it not for campus Brian wouldn’t know the power of networking and selling your brand by good communication skills.

By the time Brian was clearing his 5^th year in April 2016 he had discovered his strong and weak points. He knew what turned him on career wise. He knew his meat and his poisons. Brain believes that what is most important is to know who you really are as a person, how you are designed and wired. He says that a person might know where they’ve come from and have an illusion of where they want to go but first they must be in touch with themselves right now.

Brian in Arusha where he was working on a  project

On programming and what it takes…

Brian can write code eyes closed. He has mastered five languages: PHP, MySQL,JAVASCRIPT,Angular Space and HTML/CSS without attending any web development class. He trained himself from scratch with tutorials and all. While the rest of campus boiled beans and caused crazy power surges with their coils(people should stop doing this BTW),he used his to warm the room and code his way to success. It has not been an easy journey he admits. He has gone through long sleepless nights in end especially when working on important projects like Vibecampo. Passion and determination have kept him on radar and these he recommends to any young programmer .It’s like math, it needs constant practice but the fruits are sweet. An 80-year old programming would freak me out but Brian says he wants to do it for the rest of his life. It’s happily-ever-after for him and coding .For better for worse, until death do them part.

Other matters Brian…

When I ask Brian whether he is taken he giggles. I giggle back because I know he knows I know. Spoiler alert to teamfisilets out there, Brian is someone’s property…move on and acquire yours. He tells me wedding bells will surely chime, no expensive wedding though, just cake and love. His romantic bandwidth spans between pulling a chair or/and opening a door but not carrying her purse in public. That he says ni kukaliwa.Luos are the arguably the most romantic so I believe him. Where, pray do tell, have you seen a Mogaka open a soda bottle, leave alone a door, for Nyasuguta? I have no ground for objection.

Brian draws his inspiration from his mother; it’s not cliché for him, never has and never will be. He watches movies to unwind, his best being “Knight Rider”. Soft rock is what he jams to and he particularly likes ‘Gold’ by Owl City. He does not bet, likes his money clean and hard-earned. Chapati does it for him anytime but I get this feeling omena is secretly bae.I don’t ask. You never ask the obvious.

After exactly one hour and fifty two minutes we wind up the interview. Words are not enough to accommodate a person, especially if it’s Brian Nyagol. He continues to be an inspiration to me and many people out there, touching lives and shaping destinies.Here is his work.Read more on his profile on LinkedIn at Brian Nyagol.

Brainverse Technologies®

 VibeCampo Social Network®

 Writers Guild Kenya®

Cell: +254 713 396 827 

 

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