I am Rumbidzayi Pfende, a business owner and race relations activist.
I worked in blue chip corporate for almost 20 years before feeling the powerful calling to do more impactful work, and leaving as a result to become a startup consultant. I was drawn to building up women specifically, who had amazing ideas and needed someone to help them commercialise their idea and guide them to their initial funding rounds. After 8 years of this very rewarding work, myself and my current business partner have built MAMA.codes – a creative coding school where we have taught almost 5000 3-13yr olds how to code.
Currently, 50% of our time and money is spent on outreach – working with partner charities and primary schools in high deprivation areas to offer children free code clubs (and devices when we are able). Over the past 18 months since we launched, we have taught over 200 children to code who otherwise would never have had exposure to their potential, and through sponsored support we plan to expand the programme to as many more children as we can.
We’re also very excited about the imminent launch of Looparoo – our learn-to-code & digital wellbeing app aimed at 3-7yr olds. Through this platform we plan to level the educational playing field for disadvantaged children all over the world, and are currently fundraising so please get in touch to learn more!
