A 17-year-old teen is 1st African to win Google coding challenge (photos)

A 17-year-old teen is 1st African to win Google coding challenge (photos)

- A Cameroonian teenager is among this year's winners of Google's coding challenge, becoming the first African to do so

- This is despite not having internet due to government shutdowns

- He is scheduled to travel to Google's headquarters in June this year

A Cameroonian teenager is among this year's 34 winners of Google's annual coding challenge for young programmers, becoming the first African to do so despite not having internet in his region due to government shutdowns.

Nji Collins Gbah becomes the first African to win the challenge

17-year-old Nji Collins Gbah was forced to ask his uncle for money to travel from northwestern Cameroon, where the government has shut down internet due to unrest, to a French-speaking town where the internet was available so he could take part in the challenge.

Nji's father jokingly says he used to punish him for spending too much time on the computer and had to lock it away sometimes to force him to focus on his studies. Now he is thankful that all that time was not in vain.

Nji had to travel far to access the internet in order to participate in the challenge

Nji is scheduled to join his fellow winners from across the world on a visit to Google's headquarters in California in June this year.

More than 1,500 young programmers aged between 13 and 17 and drawn from more than 60 countries took part in the challenge.

To see just how challenging coding can get, check out this video from Google below.

  

 

​SOURCE:Legit.ng