Programmed to solve

Eleazer Allnice Afotey, ’22, is a solutions-oriented kind of guy. This disposition explains how he picked his major, how he started his career, and where he sees it going. He uses it like a superpower.

His solution-oriented mindset comes from his childhood in Ghana. Growing up, he wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, but computer science offered the breadth of careers and applicable skills he was looking for. Even better, it offered modern solutions to problems his community faced, such as a weak economy.

“Technology gives us a huge advantage and opportunity to solve most of the problems we have,” Afotey says.

Afotey’s solutions superpower is not limited to technology. When searching for a job in the United States after graduation, he encountered additional hurdles as an international applicant. For example, any employer would have to sponsor him on a visa, which is an additional cost. However, Afotey was not discouraged. He prepared himself to each company’s standards and exhibited high levels of productivity and programming knowledge.

It paid off in the end, and now Afotey earns a living at Kinsale Insurance in Richmond as a professional problem solver. As a software developer, he manages the company’s applications and fixes bugs. He also implements new features in the company’s applications to improve its systems. He gets the best of both worlds — he’s in a field he desired with a job that suits his personal interests.

Afotey hopes to expand on both in the future. He wants to grow in the industry and offer his solution-oriented skill set to others through consulting roles. His main goal is to eventually create a company that uses software to provide solutions across industries.

“Even though it wasn’t easy when I started,” he says, “it’s extremely rewarding when you get things right at the end.”