At 7 years old, in 2013, Zora Ball became the youngest person to
create a mobile video game. Now 10 years, the wizard programmer whose parents are immigrants from Kenya, is on scholarship funded by the United State Government.
The app she developed was unveiled at the FATE Bootstrap Expo,
held at the University of Pennsylvania. Ball developed the game using programming language
Bootstrap, which is usually taught to students between the ages of 12 and 16,
to help them learn concepts of algebra via video game development.
According to Mashable, Ball also successfully
reconfigured the app when asked to do so at the Expo, silencing anyone who
may have thought that her older brother — a STEM scholar of the year — helped
her program the game.
Staff at Harambee Institute of Science and Technology, where
Ball attends first grade and an after-school program, anticipate she’ll do
great things, the Philadelphia Tribune reported.
“I am proud of all my students,” Tariq Al-Nasir, who heads
the STEMnasium Learning Academy, told the Tribune’s Damon Williams. “Their
dedication to this program is phenomenal, and they come to class every
Saturday, including holiday breaks.”
Next time you see a mobile app, check for the programmer, it might turn out to be our very own Zora Ball. Africa is indeed rising, from Nigeria to Kenya, South Africa and up to Egypt and Morocco.
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