class Chantel:
    location = "🇿🇦 South Africa"
    currently = "WeThinkCode_"

    interests = [
        "systems integration",
        "data engineering",
        "AI & machine learning",
        "backend development",
        "building useful products",
    ]

    building = [
        "systems that talk to each other",
        "data-driven applications",
        "AI-powered solutions",
        "whatever problem looks interesting",
    ]

    philosophy = "Understand the problem. Build the solution."

I'm a software developer interested in the space where systems, data and software engineering meet.

I enjoy taking a problem apart, understanding how the pieces fit together, and turning that understanding into something useful — whether that's a microservices system, a data pipeline, a client-server application, or an AI-powered product.

I've also found myself increasingly interested in the product and problem-solving side of technology: understanding the people affected by a problem, refining ideas, and working with a team to turn an idea into something that can actually be built.

Geekulcha Annual Hackathon 2026
_{🥇 Overall Winner · Limi}

Cisco × WeThinkCode_ Hackathon
_{🥈 2nd Place · KiloWhat}

1st Place · Overall Winner

Worked as part of the team behind Limi, a solution focused on South African Sign Language accessibility.

My contributions included:

• Conducting research around South African Sign Language and the problem space
• Collecting and organising sign-language data
• Speaking to people and gathering user insights
• Researching SASL and the needs of Deaf users
• Helping refine the problem statement and solution
• Contributing to the product/business side of the solution
• Presenting the solution and representing the team

The project also pushed me to engage directly with users and think beyond simply building the technology.

2nd Place

Worked on KiloWhat, a solution focused on helping households better understand and manage their electricity usage.

The project explored how technology and AI could provide users with more useful recommendations around electricity consumption and energy management.

Focus: AI Energy Software Development Product Design

Built SHIELD 360, a fintech security concept focused on protecting users and businesses against social-engineering and phishing scams.

My contributions included:

• Refining the problem statement
• Helping shape the product and solution
• Building the frontend for the application
• Contributing to the SIM-swap encryption/security feature
• Helping translate the security problem into a usable product experience

The solution focused on identifying suspicious activity and helping users avoid scams before sensitive actions take place.

Focus: Cybersecurity Fintech React Social Engineering Security

A computer-vision project focused on South African Sign Language (SASL) recognition.

The project involves building a dataset of isolated SASL signs and developing a detection pipeline while working towards validation with Deaf users and SASL interpreters.

The project places emphasis not only on model development, but also on making sure the data represents real signs, sentence formation and actual user needs.

Focus: Python Computer Vision Machine Learning SASL

A microservices-based logistics system focused on systems integration and communication.

The project explores how independent services communicate through REST APIs and asynchronous messaging using message queues.

It involved working with service boundaries, producers and consumers, JSON messages, persistence and asynchronous communication.

Focus: Java REST Microservices JMS ActiveMQ Docker

A client-server robot simulation involving HTTP communication, sockets, concurrency, serialization and world management.

The system allows robots to interact with a shared world, move, respond to commands and engage in combat.

The project involved working with:

• HTTP requests and responses
• TCP communication
• Sockets
• Clients and servers
• Threads and concurrency
• Serialization and deserialization
• JSON
• Robot movement and collision logic
• Combat systems
• Automated testing

Focus: Java HTTP Sockets Concurrency Maven

A data engineering and machine-learning project exploring how a collections team could identify accounts worth prioritising for debt recovery.

The project involved combining multiple datasets, cleaning and transforming data, exploring patterns and testing whether machine learning could meaningfully predict payment behaviour.

Rather than forcing a model to produce a convenient answer, the project also highlighted the importance of recognising when the available data isn't sufficient to answer the original question.

Focus: Python Pandas Data Engineering Machine Learning

A fintech security concept designed around preventing social-engineering attacks.

The solution explored ways to identify suspicious recipients and transactions before sensitive actions occur, with a focus on phishing, fraudulent accounts and SIM-swap-related risks.

Focus: Cybersecurity Fintech React Security

An energy-focused product developed during the Cisco × WeThinkCode_ hackathon.

The project explored how users could better understand their electricity consumption and receive recommendations for managing energy usage.

Achievement: 🥈 2nd Place — Cisco × WeThinkCode_ Hackathon

Focus: AI Energy Product Development

Currently developing my skills across:

• Systems Integration
• Data Engineering
• Backend Development
• Machine Learning
• Cloud Computing
• Software Architecture
• APIs & Distributed Systems
• Cybersecurity

I've worked with both greenfield and brownfield projects, and I enjoy learning by building systems that force me to understand what is actually happening underneath the abstractions.