Akram Nsengiyumva
Engineer | Founder
“Take a simple idea, take it very seriously.”
— C. Munger
The Timeline
My work best makes sense in the context of my story. For just my Portfolio or About, use the menu above. However, the timeline below includes all my projects and more.
2005
I was born in Botswana to refugees of the Rwandan genocide. Once on death row for belonging to the wrong tribe, my father was given a chance at a new life. From a truck driver to owning a fleet of trucks to building one of the biggest travelling agencies in the country, he instilled the importance of hard work in me.
pops and I
First poster in my bare room
Early Signs
In middle school, a classmate got the card-playing game "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and it took recess by storm. Everyone wanted a deck, but Botswana didn't have the stores. I downloaded hundreds of cards from the directory, went to an internet cafe to print and paste the images onto old decks of cards, and sold them at school. I eventually started selling posters too.
Learning to Code
At 15, during Covid, I couldn't afford a computer that could run the games my friends played, so I decided to learn how to make my own, along with my own music and my own art. To learn, I audited college classes on Coursera. This is when I fell in love with Software Engineering.
Blurry art of my first game
Schedule over school break
“Prodigy” to dropout
I had always done well in school, skipped a grade, ranked at the top of my class, and received Botswana’s ‘Top Achievers’ Scholarship, the most prestigious award given to students that guarantees any amount of education funding from the government. However, I hated the path I was set on. I would end up at just another African college and later at a job with no great impact. So I dropped out.
First Business
Botswana was slow to adapt to new technologies/platforms. I noticed this gap and began a marketing agency at 16 that commissioned websites and ran digital ads. At 17, I signed Ethiopian Airlines Botswana as a client, an achievement I’m deeply proud of, but I knew there was something more.
Took advantage of the low ad rates
Building a duolingo style philosophy learning app
The U.S.
My geography limited me, and the only way to get into the U.S. at my age was through college. I prepared my application and built a mobile app to prove my competence in CS. I was rejected by all the IVYs for not completing my last year, but was accepted to UMiami, and one acceptance was all I needed.
Frustration
Once in the US, I started networking and building. I won a hackathon my freshman year and built websites for clubs at the school, but I still felt constrained by classes. I can't drop out without being kicked out, so I began building a project that could warrant an O-1 visa. I stayed on campus for Fall, spring, summer, and winter breaks, but the startup eventually fell flat after co-founder issues.
The productivity app I launched in 2025 (side project)
Following the latest software developments
Now
Technology has done so much for me, and yet it is still so feared among the general public. My goal is to build a startup that meets people where they are and diffuses the latest in tech to the rest of the population. In the same spirit that Apple made computers approachable, I want to make things like Openclaw/agent harnesses accessible to non-technical users. I'm starting with agents for family homes, and I'm willing to go house by house to make this real.