BENNY GETENG
An entry in The Crocodile prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism
LIFE is filled with inspiring stories of quiet and unsung geniuses and in Papua New Guinea one such person is the man behind the development of the new Telikom smart phone application, RaitAPP, launched recently and now on the local and world markets.
RaitAPP enables phone users to check their balance, bundles, top-ups and transfer credits, and displays transactions in both English and Pidgin.
Meet designer Shadrach Jaungere, 29 years of age and an android developer with Telikom PNG.
He is an easygoing, quietly spoken whizz kid from Morobe parentage who has gone one step ahead in Telikom PNG’s drive to make life easier for its customers.
Shadrach said the development of RaitAPP is part of Telikom PNG’s business drive to make their customers’ lives easier.
His genius exemplifies the old saying that “success is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”.
“The inspiration in me to study science and technology was felt in my final two years of secondary education at Bumayong Lutheran Secondary School in Lae City where I did my Grades 11 and 12,” he told me.
“From there I was selected to do Science Foundation at the University of Papua New Guinea in 2004. After the first year, my lecturer gave me an F in Database Design so I re-enrolled in 2005 to repeat Science Foundation.
“After completing it, I was selected to do Physic Electronics and Minor Computer Science. I failed again in 2007 while studying C++ from the same lecturer and left school with very low self-esteem”.
Shadrach says since this time he has come to realise that he is an introvert, particularly having conflicting views with text books and lecturers.
He re-enrolled to study in 2008 despite resentment from some of his lecturers and went on to score A’s in Computer Programming.
“By God’s mercy and grace, I aced Java and C# programming and graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science majoring in Physics Electronics with a minor in Computer Science.
“Prior to graduating I was offered to tutor a computer science course at the PNG University of Technology. I continued teaching computer programming with Business Information Technology Students until 2012.
He then joined Telikom in January 2013 and has been developing innovative solutions with the co-creator of RaitAPP, Harry Tau-Vali.
The idea of creating mobile applications came from Telikom’s former divisional manager for ICT, Mahlon Isimeli, who pushed the company to establish a mobile application development team.
“This eventually allowed us to be employed to develop mobile applications.” says Shadrach.
“Both of us were tasked with developing the application which we worked on for some time.
“The whole idea behind the creation of RaitAPP was for Telikom’s customers to be enabled to have a computer in the palm of their hand and to make life easier for them and we succeeded in doing so.
“The unique thing is that it is the first of its kind for PNG on the world market.”
Shadrach praised his company’s business drive and for giving him the opportunity to give something back to the people of PNG.
His encouraging message to students in schools across the country is to never give up especially with the dreams they have to become successful.
“Hold onto to your dreams and never let go.”