Fifteen-year-old University of Technology (UTech) student, Jada Wright, has charged high-school students to embrace the power of programming.
In January 2024, she became the youngest-ever student to successfully matriculate to UTech, where she is pursuing an undergraduate degree in computer science.
She recalled that for about two years, she had her sights set on becoming a neurosurgeon until she decided to create a to-do application for her mother who was struggling to keep track of tasks.
“It was one of my first coding projects. It just was not working out, but then when it finally did work, when I finally saw what I accomplished, what I created, I screamed so hard and ran so much, someone came up to me and asked if I was having a heart attack,” Jada recounted.
She addressed a gathering of more than 700 students during Friday’s (March 28) Universal Service Fund (USF) Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Club Conference, at Jamaica College in St. Andrew.
“That is the power of programming. That’s the power of exploring your passion. It makes you motivated; it gives you a spark inside that pushes you to be better, pushes you to be bold and take those big moves. Programming is not just about writing lines of code. Programming is a mindset. It’s your perception on the things around you and how you choose to react to challenges,” she said.
Meanwhile, Jada encouraged the students to be curious and explore the wide-ranging career options available to them.
“Be curious. See solutions where others see problems. See opportunities where others see challenges,” she said.
Jada further shared that the future of technology will be built by young people with the courage to dream big, those with passion to drive change and those who make use of one of their most valuable assets – their creativity.
“We can think outside of the box. We have active imaginations that can completely change the world around us, the possibilities of what we can create, the impact that we can have on not just Jamaica but the entire world is only as limited as our imagination,” Jada shared.
