To any students who felt kicked in the teeth by their final results, let Basani Moahi’s story remind you that being down, need not mean being out. From struggling student to a successful app developer, and from someone living food-to-mouth to a woman teeming with inspiration, this is Basani’s story.
Pretoria, South Africa (16 January 2025) — Pretoria’s Basani Moahi knows all too well the feeling many in the class of 2024 are experiencing right now. Disappointment from certain marks, concern about the future and that niggling feeling that more could’ve been done even for those who gave their final exams their all. Long before Basani was a successful app developer, she was once a struggling student who stared at her maths report card, feeling let down and beaten by the challenge of the subject.
The year was 2008 when she completed her matric. Back then, there wasn’t a slew of motivational videos to remind one that everything would be okay; you had to lean on inner resilience.
And lean on resilience, as Basani did. Despite the personal setback of not receiving the grades she’d hoped for, she still attended University and put her heart and soul into the next few years at UNISA.
Here, she’d eventually prove those final marks wrong and graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Chemistry!
But the journey to success was still set to be winding. Despite having her degree, joining the working world was another story entirely.
For a year, she worked for peanuts, earning just R3,000 on the streets. However, when the opportunity to join the Youth Employment Service (YES) programme presented itself a year later, Basani grabbed it with both hands.
Armed with her first smartphone, thanks to the programme, a whole new digital world opened up to a young Basani, a world she’d later become a part of improving.
Through the programme, Basani was exposed to corporate landscapes, which enabled her to apply her knowledge and gain practical experience. She was able to land a job that paid R10,000 a month at a bank which allowed her to support not only herself but her family too!
The YES programme also opened her eyes to new skills, some of which became critical to her career.
In 2022, Basani made her mark, developing an app to help bank branches capture funeral policy claims for clients who needed the service. Her ideas were innovative, money and paper-saving, and so beneficial to customers that it became an app used across all the bank’s branches in the country!
Not only did this solidify her status as a powerhouse, it also earned her significant accolades, including “Most Innovative Candidate”.
Last year, she was also nominated as one of the top 10 achievers in her field within the bank and has gone on to host master classes to inspire other candidates.
All those years ago, as a despondent student, she certainly couldn’t have known what would become of her life. But Basani didn’t just trust the process. She trusted herself.
So, to anyone feeling kicked in the teeth by their matric results, remember this: you can still get into the fields you always dreamed about; it might just take some extra elbow grease. Your first job and its earnings are not an indication of the rest of your life. And when life gives you opportunities to grow, remember to say YES.
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