Beyond the day to day activities involved in running a tech department, tech leaders also engage in different community building initiatives in their free time. Paul Kioi, head of technology at ICEA Lion , Paul Njoroge, head of ICT at Hand in Hand Eastern Africa, and Raymond Machary, principal ICT officer at Ocean Road Cancer Institute, reveal how their off-duty passions sharpen their leadership and uplift their communities.
It’s no secret that tech leaders work in a high stakes environment, sometimes pulling long hours at work. As a result, most of them value spending time with their families and on their hobbies. For some, however, their days away from work are spent giving back to the communities around them in a bid to make the world a better place.
An example is Paul Kioi, the head of technology and transformation at ICEA Lion. What began as a simple idea from his wife to find a place to plant his trees that were slowly filling up his compound has now grown to a passion for environmental conversation.
It started with a desire to restore a piece of land from his childhood after visiting and noticing that there was barely any tree cover.
"Going back, it was really a shock for me. It had been exploited, trees had been cut and it was almost getting into a desert" he recalls.
He began with a 1000 trees that soon became a thriving sanctuary of over 5,000 indigenous species. His actions inspired his neighbours and before long one had started planting her own forest that now has over 10000 trees.
To him tree planting and conservation is his small way of promoting development.
There’s development that heals, development that restores land, air, water, and people. That’s what I’m after,” Paul says.
Touching lives beyond the server room
While Paul has taken conservation as his way of giving back to society, Paul Njoroge, head of ICT at Hand in Hand Eastern Africa has taken a different route. He uses his free counseling couples, an initiative he says has helped him better understand human relationships which he describes as an asset in his work.
“It is something that gives me fulfillment. Some people are in tech, while others are in business. So, you find there’s something new that you learn from different people. That exchange of knowledge is always valuable. It helps me become a better leader and professional,” he reveals.
Beyond borders, at the Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Tanzania, Raymond Machary leads complex IT strategies. But as chairman and executive director of the Bethsaida Education Foundation, his influence extends far beyond healthcare systems. Raymond mobilises resources to provide full secondary and higher-education scholarships for more than 130 orphaned girls across Tanzania. To date, his foundation has impacted over 700 children directly.
For Raymond, using digital intelligence to streamline corporate operations and funding scholarships for vulnerable youth are two sides of the same coin. Both demand ethical resource allocation and a long-term view of human potential.
"Seeing how technology and education change lives reminds me that innovation should always serve people first. When I see a child from a rural area using digital learning tools, it reminds me why I do what I do to create simple solutions for all," he says.
