Meet Jade and Portia Ngaha, the father, daughter duo taking the construction industry by storm.
Recently we got in touch with current students Jade and Portia to see what they had been up to lately. “Heaps!” – was the answer. They have been busy developing an app that encourages transparency and fairness in the construction industry.
“I have been in construction a long time and noticed that fairness and transparency wasn’t always there. We had an idea for an app that could solve a lot of those problems so in 2014 we paid a developer over $100k to develop our idea and unfortunately it amounted to nothing usable. So, when covid hit, I thought, why not learn to develop myself. That’s when I started with Mission Ready HQ.” Jade said.
Learning to Develop their App
Jade started from scratch on our Full Stack Developer Accelerator and quickly moved to Advanced Software Developer Accelerator. Halfway through on the recommendation of Mission Director, Diana Sharma, he jumped ship and joined the Tech Founders Accelerator Program. Not long after, he encouraged his daughter Portia to join him. She completed her Full Stack Developer Accelerator and is currently helping her dad develop the app.
“This process helped me not only learn how to develop and build what we wanted, but it helped us validate our idea and connect with so many people and experts. For example, Diana connected us up with Manaaki. Manaaki is a digital development company that aims to help Māori businesses to grow and thrive. They have been a great help.”
Help to Develop their App
Jade and Portia are working hard to try and have a fully functional app by the end of the year. They are putting in some serious Mahi and commitment to do so. They are in garage startup phase but loving it. You can see that they are super passionate about what they do. “Mission Ready was awesome because we had so much help. We had heaps of help from Youtube videos, classmates, and tutors. What was awesome is that you could tell that everyone really cared about us and what we were doing.” said Portia.
“Yeah, the amount of information they squeezed into the time was amazing. I remember going to a 4th and 5th-year lecture at uni and listening to the languages that they were learning there. I remember thinking, that’s 5 or 6 years old. What we have learned is so relevant to where coding is at in the market now.” Said Jade.
You can do it Too
We asked the pair what they would say to that person who is scrolling through and reading this thinking, I’m not sure if I could do this, yeah that’s you! Portia was super supportive. “I’m really shy and don’t like to come out of my comfort zone much. I was nervous but I thought, just do it. Just give it a go. I remember our tutor saying, it’s not about the finished product, it’s about giving it a go and learning something along the way.”
“Yeah, the amount of help is awesome. As a fella who has come from construction, I think coming from any background is going to help you.” – Jade. A lot of our business partners that help students to take on projects to stretch their dev, UX, or Salesforce skills, love having people from different backgrounds. Different backgrounds help to diversify the thought process. It brings in ideas and ways of solving problems that are beyond the norm of their day-to-day business.
Jade and Portia, we here at Mission Ready HQ are already so proud of how far you have got. We look forward to checking in at the end of the year and seeing where your app is at!
Feeling inspired? We are! If you are keen on a career in tech, have an idea, and would like to learn how to code we would be happy to have a friendly korero with you, just click the link here.
Let’s Korero!