Hackathon at Google

Turning an Unexpected Detour into an Entrepreneurial Experience

In May 2025, I found myself restless in Kampala when I heard that the Global Learning Experiences department at ALU was organizing a trip to Mombasa as part of the Nairobi Nexus immersive experience. Always eager for adventure, I booked my ticket from Kampala to Nairobi, excited to join. Unfortunately, when I arrived, the trip was cancelled due to logistics.

Rather than returning home, I chose to spend three weeks in Nairobi. Some days I toured the city on my own, soaking in the experience. Other times, I joined Nexus participants at the hub to connect and learn informally. It was during this unplanned stay that one opportunity shifted from being just a casual outing to one of the most memorable entrepreneurial lessons of my year.

One morning, after staying out late, I had only managed to sleep at 6 am when Johnny, a close friend from my intake who was hosting me during the trip, shook me awake at 7. He reminded me that I had promised to join him for a hackathon at Google Africa Headquarters, mostly for the fun of collecting whatever gift Google might hand out. Half-asleep, I got on a motorbike in the cold Nairobi morning and made my way there.

At Google, my twin brother, Johnny, and I formed a team. The challenge: build a prototype in 90 minutes using Firebase. Although I don’t come from a strong technical background, I took the lead on defining the problem, brainstorming solutions, and designing our slides. We chose to tackle mobile money fraud, a challenge we had all encountered in one way or another.

Our solution was SimuSalama, a web app designed to help people avoid scams. It allowed users to:

Report suspicious transactions
Verify phone numbers against a fraud database
Receive real-time fraud likelihood scores
Learn fraud prevention tips tailored to their usage patterns

While my twin brother handled the coding, I worked on structuring the pitch and organizing the flow of the presentation. Johnny prepared the live demo, while I focused on communicating the problem, solution, and vision clearly, skills rooted in my entrepreneurial leadership training.

When it came time to pitch, we volunteered to go first. Halfway through my section, I blanked for two seconds that felt like eternity, needless to say, I still picked myself up, and pushed through before Johnny jumped in seamlessly with the demo, and together, we delivered one the most organized presentations of the day. Despite the rough start, our teamwork carried us through.