The Sh5m-a-month deal that got away

Engineer Bolton Majale and his partner Helson Ongeso at their workshop in Norwich Tower in Nairobi on 02/11/2020. [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, they would show up at a mobile phone repair shop in town every morning without fail. They were there to learn the craft. As apprentices. And learn they did. With big dreams and slightly hazy visions, Helson Ongeso and Bolton Majale hoped they would make it in the big city. They would, however, soon go separate ways, Ongeso to the university to study linguistics while Majale slowly made his way through different service centres including Nokia and Samsung.

14 years later today, Ongeso, 36, and Majale 35, own Boltech Training Institute; a training ground for phone repair technicians, an endeavour seven years in the making. The school attracts students from all over Africa. They have still retained a phone repair wing.  They speak to HUSTLE about their ups and downs setting up roots in the informal tech market space.