Before I get into projects and technical write-ups, I want to share where I came from. Context matters, and mine is unusual.

I grew up in Ghana.

At age two, I lost the sight in my right eye after surgery for suspected retinoblastoma, a rare childhood eye cancer. I missed years of early schooling because of the surgeries and recovery. When I eventually returned, I was around six or seven while many of my classmates were already ahead. I had to catch up without anyone acknowledging how significant that gap was.

Growing up monocular, I dreamed of becoming a pilot. That dream was taken from me when I learned that monocular vision closes that door. I was young when I found out and it stung. But it was the first time I had to redirect a dream rather than abandon it. It would not be the last.

I also faced bullying growing up. There were periods that were genuinely dark. I struggled with confidence and cared too much about what other people thought. What I learned, slowly and through repetition, is that the opinions of people who want to diminish you are not data. They are noise. Consistency beats cruelty every time.

My father.

My father was a mechanical and refrigeration engineer. During school holidays I would go to work with him and watch him fix things other people had given up on. He was calm, methodical and deliberate. He had a phrase: always strive to make things better.

In 2021, I lost him. It was one of the hardest moments of my life. It was also a turning point. I decided I wanted to carry his problem-solving mindset forward, not as sentiment but as practice. Engineering felt like honouring something he left behind.

Adisadel College.

I spent my senior high school years at Adisadel College in Cape Coast, one of the most prestigious schools in Ghana, founded in 1910. The motto is Vel Primus, Vel Cum Primis: either the first, or with the first. That is not decorative. It is a standard the school actually holds you to.

I served as Dispensary Prefect, House Secretary and Vice President of my church group. I was active in the Robotics Club, Scripture Union, PENSA and the Debate Society. Adisadel taught me what real accountability looks like and gave me a standard for excellence that I carry into every project I start.

Moving to the UK.

In April 2022, my mother was posted to the UK for work and I came with her. Starting again in a new country and a completely new education system was harder than I expected. My background was in General Arts. I had no formal technical foundation.

I enrolled at Stanmore College in London on a business course. After two months I knew it was wrong. I approached the college, sat the necessary assessments to demonstrate my aptitude and transferred onto the engineering programme, joining two months after it had already started.

I caught up. I graduated DDD: Distinction, Distinction, Distinction in the Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma in Engineering. I was named Best and Most Hardworking Student at Stanmore College. Every day at that college I thought about my father.

Building for my own constraints.

Being partially sighted shaped what I build. At university, reading lecture slides and dense textbook pages was often genuinely difficult. So I built something to fix it.

The project is called Zaccess. It photographs lecture material, extracts the text with OCR and converts it into high-contrast, large-text notes with text-to-speech support. I built it for myself. Then I shared it with another visually impaired student and he told me it saved him hours every week.

That moment changed how I think about my constraints. The limitations I live with are not separate from the engineer I am becoming. They are part of why I build what I build.

Where I am now.

I am studying BEng Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Aston University, working towards a First Class degree. I am a Student Member of the IET and active in the Computing Society. In 2026 I was named a Top 40 Finalist for the Black Heritage Undergraduate of the Year Award.

None of it is finished. That is the point. My father said it best: always strive to make things better.

Zac