philosophy · hunhu · ubuntu

I am because we are.

I grew up with the idea of Hunhu - that a person is a person through other people. It's the lens I bring to engineering: who does the system reach, who on the team is growing, who gets left out if we're careless. This page is about that.

01 / the idea

The idea I was raised on.

Hunhu - Ubuntu, as most of the continent knows it - is the philosophy that our humanity is bound up in each other's.

In Shona we say "munhu munhu nevanhu" - a person is a person through other people. For me it's a practical thing, not a poster on a wall. It changes what counts as a result: did the system reach the people who needed it, did the engineers on the team come out stronger, would the client hand me the next hard problem?

It's easy enough to be a good engineer in isolation. The harder, more worthwhile thing is to share what you know freely, and to build for the people who can't yet afford the polished version of anything.

"Build systems that work for people - especially the ones the world tends to forget."

— the principle behind every project I take on

02 / the dare

The dare - where people come first.

The dare is the fireside council - the place where a community gathers to listen, mentor and decide together.

I try to run teams the way a dare runs. Everyone gets heard, decisions get explained rather than announced, and juniors get real work with real backup. People have left my teams more confident than they joined, and I count that alongside anything we shipped.

Outside the day job, it means mentoring upcoming developers and helping friends and founders shape rough ideas into something real. If I know something useful, I'd rather teach it than sit on it.

03 / beyond engineering

How Hunhu shows up in the work.

[ 01 ]

Technology for the many

I've built lending over USSD and WhatsApp so people without smartphones or data can still borrow and pay. That work means more to me than any dashboard I've shipped.

[ 02 ]