Nancy Ngugi- 1000WIDesign Study Team Lead

Ingressive for Good partnered with Geneza School of Design to help 1000 women build skills and careers in design. During the training, we realized the need and benefits of study buddies to better help the women learn and complete their courses. So we created study groups. At the end of the program, we recorded over 70% completions. Nancy Ngugi tells us about her experience leading a study group, the impact she made and the impact it had on her.

“Hi, I am Nancy Ngugi, a graduate Civil and Structural Engineer from Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya. I work as a Sales Engineer at Timescope Group Limited. As you can see, I don’t have a computer science degree or computer background, but I’m a tech enthusiast.

In my search for opportunities to learn some tech skills, I found the Ingressive for Good (I4G) in partnership with Geneza for the 1000 Women in Design Scholarship, which I applied for. I was more than excited when I received an email confirming that I have been selected to join the 1000 women in learning UI/UX Product Design. The learning experience exceeded my expectations. The weekly lessons, and assignments made sure that everything was crystal clear to the learner. The social media platforms were a very good motivation to showcase my progress too.

What I love the most about the opportunity is my experience as a volunteer to lead a team of 20 fellow learners. I volunteered to lead because I wanted to enhance my leadership skills, especially in a new environment. It wasn’t easy but it was a great way to learn in a challenging environment, especially when I had to help fellows who were on a different track from mine. I learned to focus and give an extra effort to understand each area my team hada challenge with and do my best to help.

As a leader, I learned that with guidance and mentorship from the scholarship organizing staff we can help each other, and learn from each other. Being part of such a widely diverse group of international students of different age ranges, cultures, and working backgrounds was inspiring. And to be able to achieve that in just 4 weeks is a credit to the high caliber of the I4G and Geneza teams.

Learning design has really been an eye opener for me and a great addition to my tech skills. It has helped me kick start my journey to incorporating some tech skills into my career path. I am very grateful to the entire I4G and Geneza team. The only thing that they asked of me was hard work and dedication and I delivered successfully.

The image below is one of my works that I am very proud of because I designed it from scratch as a newbie in design and I couldn’t believe how I did it with so little knowledge in the design software too. I’m becoming a better version of myself and I’m grateful for the opportunity that has brought me this far.”