About the Developer

My name is Ebrima Bah, and many people know parts of my story, but not all of it.

There was a time when I took the Backway, searching for opportunity and a better future. I experienced the risks, hardship and uncertainty that come with that journey. I eventually returned home to The Gambia, determined to rebuild my life.

Today, I am also facing health challenges.

My journey has never followed the normal path. I never completed my schooling. I never went to university. I don't have a degree, and I have no traditional background in IT, programming or software development.

But I refused to let those things decide what I could become.

I didn't even have experience using a computer or laptop. In fact, I built 9Digit entirely from my smartphone.

With no computer of my own and no technical background, I used modern AI tools to help me learn and work through each technical step. The learning, building, testing, fixing problems and preparing 9Digit for release were all done from my phone.

When The Gambia began the transition from 7-digit to 9-digit phone numbers, I saw a problem. Many of us have hundreds or even thousands of Gambian numbers saved in our phones. Updating them manually, one by one, would take a lot of time.

I asked myself one simple question:

That question became 9Digit. 🇬🇲

Building it was not easy. Sometimes I didn't even understand the technical problem in front of me. I made mistakes. Things broke. I had to go back, learn, test, correct them and try again.

There were moments when giving up would have been easier.

But I kept going.

To someone else, 9Digit may simply be another app. To me, it represents a journey.

From taking the Backway in search of a better future, to returning home and trying to build one.

From someone who never completed school, to someone who built a technology solution for a real problem in his country.

From “I don't know how to do this” to “I will learn.”

And that is why 9Digit means so much more to me than an app.

I want other young Gambians, especially those who feel they have no qualifications, no opportunities, or that the Backway is their only hope, to know this:

Your beginning does not have to be your ending.

You may not have a degree. You may not have had the opportunities others had. You may be starting with very little.

Start with what you have.

Learn. Ask questions. Use the tools available to you. Solve a problem around you. Keep trying when it doesn't work the first time.

You might surprise yourself with what you can build.

I don't know how far 9Digit will go. But I will always know where it started:

Ebrima Bah
Founder, 9Digit
Developed by HOLAREH 🇬🇲