The time was 3:05 PM in Accra. It was in a hall packed with young men and women who are making big strides in business, politics, civil organizations and public services. It was the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), Accra Regional Learning Center. These are the young leaders who had been commissioned to rescue Africa from an imminent, irredeemable doldrums it is bound for.

In the penultimate week, series of successful leaders in business had been invited from across Africa to come and tell their story, share and rekindle fire among these young people and then came this very beautiful young lady who after being briefly introduced, people were seen casting long glances and waiting excitedly to hear her story. The hall was silent.

Be Inspired...Farida did it, you too can!
Be Inspired...Farida did it, you too can!

BIRTH, EARLY LIFE AND DIAGNOSIS WITH PALSY

Farida Bedwei, a multi-million dollar tech guru and software engineer was born in Lagos , Nigeria in 1979 to Ghanaian parents. According to her, she was diagnosed ten days after her birth with cerebral palsy- an incurable neurological disorder that affects body movement and muscle coordination but does not affect cognitive abilities like attention, memory, judgement, evaluation, reasoning, computation, comprehension etc.

EDUCATION AND CHALLENGES

As a result of the commitment of her father with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), at the time, she had to move between Nigeria, Dominica, Grenada and the United Kingdom before returning home to Ghana in 1989 when she was ten years old.

Her disability could not allow her start school like every other children at a very young age. She was home-schooled by her mother until the age of 12 when she started at the 2nd grade and got to make her first out-of-home interaction with other school children. During the 11 years Farida spent at home being home-taught by her parents, they discovered that their little girl had a burning passion for computers and made a strategic and life-changing decision to enroll her into a one-year computer course and also make her skip high school. She recounted how she felt lonely in the class and how she struggled to be accepted by his mates given her young age and her disability. She said they thought she was wasting her time. She however used the time and solitude to affirm her resolve to carve a niche for herself in the field of software engineering by learning all the skills that made her the success she is today.

THE BOLD STEPS, THE BIG BREAK AND TERTIARY EDUCATION

After the conclusion of her training at the technology school, Farida thought that though, she now had all the textbook knowledge of programming, the best way to be really good is through a hands-on , on-the-job experience in a software engineering company.

In her words: "I went to see the head of the technical division and I told him, I want a job here, I don't have any experience, but I am inspired to learn...if you give me the chance, I promise that you will never regret it". So he said, ''OK, fine...come and join'' And that was it!

When asked about what gave her the courage to go to the company despite her obvious physical disability and inexperience, she quipped: ''I was prepared to be rejected. He wouldn't have said more than a 'no'. If you fear rejection, you may never succeed''. When asked again if she had ever been discriminated against. She also added, ''I have never experienced any discrimination. If you are able to prove yourself, there is no need for anyone to discriminate against you''.

She went ahead to spend the next 3 years of her life working for Soft, Ghana's first software company and that was in 1998. In 2001, Farida moved on to Rancard solutions where she was employed as a Senior Software Architect and worked there for nine years where she was able to study part-time to get a diploma in Information Systems and a Diploma in e-technology but still needed to get a degree as African societies place more values on certificates. She later headed to the University of Hertfordshire in England for a degree in computer science.

BUSINESS INITIATIVES, AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

In 2012, she felt the need to be on her own and together with a former colleague at Rancard launched there own company, Logiciel (logiciel is the french word for software), a software company. She is considered as one of the most powerful women in financial technology on the continent. South Africa's CEO magazine in 2013 named Farida as the most influential woman in business and government in Africa for the financial sector. She developed a cloud software platform that is being used by 130 micro-finance companies nationwide. These institutions give loans to their customers by sending a code to their mobile phones via SMS. This code can be converted to money at any branch, availing loans to small businesses without hassles.

Farida Bedwei is definitely one of the great examples of people who had come out of extreme physical disorders to make successes out of their lives. She organizes ICT boot camps for young people and has been able to serve as a beacon of hope to thousands of them. She wrote a book in 2013 titled: "The Definition of a Miracle'' where she wrote her life story to encourage physically challenged persons that, in her words, ''that you are physically disabled does not mean that you are mentally disabled''. She also counsel

ed parents while alluding to the tremendous support she got from her parent and family on the need to accept and take care of their physically challenged children instead of throwing them into the sea or bush paths to be eaten by animals.


All the people seated were greatly moved by her story and were greatly motivated. Many of them came out to tell her how much they have been inspired by her story and how it has challenged them to move beyond their disabilities and make abilities out of them.

Ability in disability