Young Motswana tech geek shakes the world
He is the Head of Information Security at Intel in Dubai
When your parents are nonentities in society, you are disadvantaged by background and some people end up disillusioned to the extent that they abandon their dreams.
But not so with 21- year- old Dr. Bright Jefferson Ketlhaotswe, a native of Lecheng, Old Palapye, who grew up in Orapa! His father worked as a security officer for Debswana in Orapa and was retrenched in 2008 whilst his mother sells veggies.
The young tech geek – a certified Information Expert and a certified Artificial Intelligence expert - is causing waves in the international scene.
Here is a young man that has rubbed shoulders with the late chief executive officer of Apple Steve Jobs and has recently met with Microsoft’s Chief Executive Bill Gates.
Dr. Ketlhaotswe is sought by the world’s biggest economies, the USA, Russia and certainly the leading world’s tech giant, China!.
“All the countries that I visit want to give me citizenship because they want to use me optimally so that when I retire I will have developed their technology to a point where they are at par or better than China, which is way ahead in technology and already using Apple cars – self- driven cars made in Apple Technology,” he confides during an interview with Botswana Guardian. And to be sure, Dubai has gone out of its way to offer him citizenship!
The confident young man is not ashamed to proclaim himself the “gemstone” to develop this country’s technology ecosystem and wants this country to strike the hammer while the iron is hot. Perhaps he will find a footing here through his pet project, Jettum Academy, which is trying to create an education system that is specialised and doesn’t follow a specified algorithm.
Jettum Academy will be a future university or online institution at which students will do what they are specifically good at.
When Dr. Ketlhaotswe waltzed into the Botswana Guardian newsroom late Tuesday for an interview, he was fresh from New York at the invitation of the White House. The young man, did his PhD at the Minnesota State University ( USA) and among other attributes he is a Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, a Deep Learning
Expert and an Ethical Hacker as well as IT Expert. His big break in the international tech world came late last year via the Expo2020Dubai where by a stroke of Providence, he joined the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre’s ( BITC) innovation week and showcased his project, the Jettum Academy – an online cyber- security and network security institution. Students at this academy are taught ethical hacking for security testing and are certified through the Ethical Hacking Council to do this; as well as penetration testing.
“I got my PhD at the age of 21 years – it is Doctor of Information Technology ( DIT), this was by skilled recognition from the Minnesota State University”. Skilled recognition is whereby the high intelligence quotient ( IQ) of a top postgraduate student is recognised and duly honoured. Bright is an Information Technology graduate from the same university. Recounting his success story from the Expo2020Dubai, he said that he met Daruosh Ghodrati, the president of New Era College, who would later in Botswana introduce him to Alexander Rosso, the head of the Cyber Security division of Intel, an international company that makes computer processing chips. Rosso was looking for a Cyber Security Engineer and as fate would have it, Bright was called for an online interview with Daniel Hatcher of Intel’s office in Sharjah, UAE. Bright impressed the Intel management and started his job as a Cyber Security Engineer at Intel in Dubai in February 2022.
“At present, I am working as the Head of Information Security department of Intel located in Burjuman, Dubai”. This is the man who designs the automation system and the processing power for Intel laptop ( computer) processors. But how is it possible for a young Motswana to head a multinational company of Intel’s calibre?
“When you are not afraid of people, you just expand your knowledge with them, you share ideas and then you happen to meet the right people during the course, that is what happened with me, I was trying to network and I actually met an opportunity through networking”.
He is eternally grateful to BITC for taking him to the Expo2020Dubai because without them he would not have got this break. Bright also helps students doing robotics and artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT) – a renowned institution of technology - to get more into the industry and also helps them to figure out what to do when they finish their course. “I am basically going around the world. I will be in New Zealand on the 15th of May at the New Zealand Institute of Technology also preaching about the importance of cyber- security and artificial intelligence”.
WHAT ABOUT HERE AT HOME?
Jettum bridges the gap, which he identified in formal education, which he says condemns students by subjecting them to a specified algorithm where one has to face a standard procedure by doing a lot of subjects that one doesn’t need. This is unlike in developed nations like China where one specialises in a subject of one’s interest, graduates and becomes a certified expert in that area.
“My interest mostly was in IT and developing the upcoming youngsters, because I see Botswana growing to the 4th Industrial Revolution ( 4IR) where machines will be used more instead of people. “And so instead of them doing a lot of courses that the system will eliminate them in the end, for example we see a lot of graduates sitting at home complaining about unemployment.
“But the fact is, the industry does not cater for them, for example, right now a bank teller has been replaced by an ATM ( automated teller machine), but opportunities are coming to those people who are fixing those machines and making programmes for those machines”.
Bright was inspired by this when he came up with Jettum to create courses for IT, information security, artificial intelligence and machine learning, deep learning and neural networks.
“We are designing brain implants to increase IQ, I am trying to create a curriculum in which most people will join and not be eliminated by the formal education system whereby there are specified entry points”. With Jettum, one is given a trial exam with three modules of each and every course one is interested in. If you pass that module by at least 55 percent then the school accepts you for free and you get certified by the American Institute of Information Technology, by the MIT, and Jettum is also working hand in hand with FAS, which is a Federal Bureau of Investigations ( FBI) institution that trains certified ethical hackers.
“When I was in New York I talked to them ( FAS) about registering my institution hand in hand with them using their curriculum.
“My dream is to expand it to Botswana and I am about to meet Botswana Qualifications Authority and introduce myself with the certifications I have and register so that I can expand and develop young Batswana”. The young man, who returns to Dubai this Friday, March 25th has big dreams for the education of this country and prays for an audience with President Dr, Mokgweetsi Masisi to apprise him of his plans, which he believes are in congruence with the president’s Reset Agenda and the country’s vision to transition to a knowledge economy.