I met these three guys during my first visit to Congo in May 2023. I chose them for Cohort-1 because they were already well prepared and they are a good mix of technical abilities and experiences.
Jean Bahati Philemon

I first had contact with Philémon about in 2022 when he was getting started on Upwork. He is a true pioneer in this field. I gave him some recommendations about what international clients will expect to see when evaluating web developers. One of my recommendations was to get a GitHub account and start posting his work. He jumped right on that and took off. He not only has a 100% job success rating, but is also Top Rated. When you see the Top Rated badge on an Upwork profile, it means that person is considered to be in the top 10% of all Upwork users.
Not only is he a pioneer, he is also a leader and mentor. He spends a fair amount of time encouraging and advising others who wish to follow in his footsteps.
His contributions to this site are shown on his contributions page.
Philémon says: “I am a Frontend Web Developer with 5+ years of experience in developing websites. I have a passion for creating user-friendly, visually appealing, and functional websites. My expertise lies in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, React js, Tailwind, and Bootstrap. I have a strong understanding of web standards and accessibility guidelines.”
Github: https://github.com/bahati7
Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01f54e6da3d373b5f2
Ashuza Destin

Hello! I’m ASHUZA Destin, a tech enthusiast with a particular passion for development, especially in applications and websites. I’m primarily focused on backend development, specializing in the PHP programming language, particularly with the Laravel framework. However, I also have some knowledge in frontend development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Bootstrap.
GitHub: https://github.com/AshDest
Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01c7a3ec16524a860
Ash has wide experience in full stack development and does excellent work. His contributions page for this site shows that he has made major editing and development of several of the pages.
Efatha Byamungu Rutakaza

Efatha is the least experienced of this group, but he more than makes up for that by being a very eager and enthusiastic student and worker. He has learned some important aspects of working as part of a team, and others are wise to learn from him.
“Staying updated, leveraging, networking, and follow all of the instructions.”
“Clear and consistent communication is essential, and realized that collaboration is far more productive than competition…” “When team members support each other and share knowledge freely it creates a positive and productive work environment.”
Efatha says: “I am an experienced Front-End Web Developer with a strong background in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap. I specialize in creating responsive, modern web templates, visually appealing websites and applications. Skilful in Figma for designing user-friendly interfaces, I bring a comprehensive approach to aesthetic excellence. Let’s collaborate to bring your vision to life!”
Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01f4543035bc52ff94
GitHub: https://github.com/efatha/
Their work together
These three have collaborated on a full stack solution that presents a selection of question/answer surveys. Once completed and submitted, the results are written out in JSON file format and submitted to a backend server where the data is written to SQL tables. The survey results can then be queried from the database and viewed.
You can try their demo on our demo server: https://demo.MichaelKentBurns.com
More important than the finished product is the code and process they used to build the demo. You can view all that in the GitHub repository they used to do the work.