As a continent with the largest youth population in the world, Africa has in recent time been taking the lead in innovation and with the remarkable feat exuded by a 9-year-old boy, the world is more than ever very much convinced of the continent’s technological prowess.
Basil Okpara Jr., a 9-year-old boy is building a hide and seek game, using a free programming application called Scratch 2. The game involves a bat he has programmed to hide. The player gets a point every time he catches the bat when it emerges from its hiding place.
Scratch 2 allows users to create games, animations, and stories online or offline. So far, Basil has used it to generate more than 30 mobile games.
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Speaking to CNN, Basil said, “I learned how to build games at a boot camp. Now, I build to keep me busy when I am bored.”
According to Basil’s father, he signed the 9-year-old up for a five-day boot camp for children aged 5 to 15 in March.
The camp, organized by Codefest International, was put in place to give children like Basil access to emerging technologies like robotics and virtual reality.
“Growing up, Basil used to play a lot of mobile games. I bought him a tablet when he was 4 years old because I saw that he was always grabbing phones to play games with. He played Candy Crush and Temple Run a lot,” the father told CNN.
But Basil’s interest in creating his games grew at age 7 after he got scolded for spending all of his time playing.
“There was this day he was on the tablet, as usual, he was so carried away with the game he was playing that I got upset with him,” his father said.
“Out of annoyance, I said to him, ‘you are always playing games, can’t you think about building your own games so others can play yours too?’. I was angry when I said it, and I did not know he took it seriously,” he added.