The first night in my single room at XMUM, sleep refused to come. My body was still running on Nairobi time, but that was not the real problem. It was not simply the excitement of finally being here either. What kept me awake was the silence: the absence of matatu engines at dawn, the missing sounds of my mother in the kitchen, and the sudden awareness that I was now 8,000 kilometers away from everything I knew.

Back home, ambition and comfort existed side by side. After long commutes on the Wamasaa bus, I would return to the smell of ugali and sukuma wiki, my mother’s way of softening the exhaustion of the day. Dreams felt real, but still safely distant. Malaysia was just a name on a scholarship portal, a possibility that felt almost too far away to take seriously. I never imagined that clicking “submit” would one day mean waking up thousands of kilometers from home.

The first month stripped me bare. I called home three times a day. My single room felt less like a space of independence and more like a cage. In the cafeteria, I watched groups of students laughing together while I sat alone, ordering nasi lemak every day because it was the Malaysian dish I had read about online. Each night brought the same question: Had I made a terrible mistake? I slowly learned that freedom often means trading the warmth of the familiar for the uncertainty of the new.

But isolation also forces you to look up. And when I did, I found people reaching out.

Dr. Abdulkhaliq taught me entrepreneurship, but what he really gave me was a mirror I did not know I needed. One afternoon after class, he asked about my journey. I told him about the matatu rides, the scholarship, and the loneliness of being so far from home. He leaned back, studied me for a moment, and said something that changed the way I saw myself:

“You already are an entrepreneur. You invested three hours daily in your future before you had proof it would pay off. Now you are investing in discomfort. That is the real currency.”

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I had never seen myself that way. Back in Kenya, I thought I was simply surviving: enduring long commutes, chasing a certificate in full-stack development, and trying to keep my dreams alive. But Dr. Abdulkhaliq helped me reframe survival itself as entrepreneurial. If I could endure those long journeys for a future I could not yet see, what else could I build?

Suddenly, entrepreneurship was no longer just a subject in class. It became a lens through which I understood my journey to Malaysia, my loneliness, and my growth. It became a framework for wanting more — not merely accepting opportunities, but learning how to create them.

That realization changed everything. I stopped only attending classes and started paying attention to real-world problems I could help solve with the knowledge I was gaining. I stopped only making friends and started building teams. The same student who once called home three times a day was now staying up late brainstorming startup ideas, thinking about gaps on campus, and asking what I could create rather than simply consume.

XMUM became the place where this transformation began to take shape. I joined the School of Computing and Data Science Student Council and helped organize events that brought students together. The cafeteria that once made me feel isolated slowly became a place of community and connection. I launched Amanah Logistics, a web application born from late-night brainstorming sessions and built with friends I had met in the very spaces where I once felt alone. Through opportunities facilitated by XMUM, I also attended events such as the ASEAN AI Summit, where I connected with professionals and saw how technology is shaping the region.

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I was not building a nation or changing the world overnight. I was building a life I could not have imagined two years earlier: a life where my study group includes voices from different countries, where my startup team meets in the library I once used as a refuge from loneliness, and where “investing in discomfort” has become more than a quote from a lecturer. It has become a way of living.

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On that first night, I was terrified of the silence. Now, I understand what it was making space for: my own voice. The voice that pitches Amanah Logistics to potential partners. The voice that contributes to student council discussions. The voice that now encourages freshmen who arrive looking as lost as I once did.

Dr. Abdulkhaliq saw an entrepreneur in a lonely student who only wanted to stop feeling homesick. The XMUM scholarship saw potential in someone doing homework on crowded buses in Nairobi. Both gave me more than belief. They gave me a platform to prove myself, a community to grow with, and the space to transform long commutes into reclaimed hours of possibility.

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Because freedom, I have learned, is not only about climbing out of your own circumstances. It is also about turning around and helping those who are climbing behind you.

It represents the belief that a student from Nairobi, once doing homework on a crowded matatu, could become someone who builds, leads, and gives back.

By Abdifatah Ibrahim 
2023/09
Computer Science and Technology