1. My name is Bhekusizi Dlodlo and I’m an Electrical Engineer. I hold a BEng Electronic Engineering degree from NUST. Im currently practising in Australia but I worked for about 7 years in Zimbabwe before leaving in early 2018.

2. I will be your curator for this day discussing electrical engineering, engineering in general and my journey. I would like to thank all the other engineering curators who have done such wonderful work this week sharing their stories. Its been an awesome week.

3. I grew up in the dusty streets of Entumbane, Bulawayo. My love for science and anything mechanical and electrical started at a young age. I loved just taking things apart to see how they worked but never putting it together. I loved reading and joined the library at a very..

4. . young age. The nearest library was at Njube , some distance off but I would walk there anyways. In secondary school I was vey good in science but not so good in math or any other subjects. I had a friend in form 1 whose brother was a computer repair tech in town..

5. so he would bring computers home. He invited me to his place so that I could see a computer. That was in 1997. The moment I laid my hands on the keyboard I was hooked. I found my love. The computer itself was very old, it ran on DOS..

6. To use it you had to know DOS commands. They was a DOS handbook that we went through and we were soon able to use it..mainly just to play games. Im hooked to computers upto now. The school that I attended was pretty poor and didn’t have any hard sciences or lab for that matter

7. When we got to form 3 a new young teacher joined. He fought hard to have science introduced , it was tough to convince the headmaster because the passrate was low as was. Anyways they eventually agreed that’s how one day I found myself in a chemistry class.

8. We didn’t have a lab and the only books we had was the one the teacher used to dictate notes. I would borrow his book after school and read further. Needless to say I got As in physical sciences , maths and biology. Im thankful to that teacher.

9. At that point I had decided I wanted to be a science teacher. I was inspired by my science teacher. I had not received any meangful career guidance. I went to Mpopoma High school for my A level doing Maths, physics and chemistry.

10. . In my A levels I met people who had received proper career guidance and they told me of other several other career choices available for people doing sciences. During my lower 6 we went to NUST for an electronic engineering open day

11. . What I saw that day blew my mind, I mingled with those last year students talked to lectrures , saw their final year projects. It was so awesome. I decided that I would be an electronic engineer. I studied hard, got 13 points at A level and went to NUST to do electronics

12. . In my second year at Varsity I applied for and got a busrsary with the Bulawayo City Council. They paid my fees and living expenses and also allowed me to work for them in the holidays. That also changed my life.

13. So in my university days I actually interacted with engineers at work and got involved in real life projects while at school. I understood things better. In 2009 when the country had just dollarized I graduated and joined the City Council as a graduate engineer. END.