If I were to choose a word to describe my bioinformatics internship at International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology, that word would be eye-opening!

I joined the mentorship and incubation program on 3rd June 2021 with the hope of getting to learn more about bioinformatics that was just slightly introduced to me in my undergraduate. I

never fancied wet lab as I regarded it as boring and so immediately after graduating, I knew it was time to find a new path that is exciting and fulfilling for me. I sought guidance from Dr. Caleb, a Bioinformatician at icipe. I got to learn about the amazing opportunity to be mentored and learn more about bioinformatics, and successfully applied for the Bioinformatics Incubation and Mentorship Program.

My bioinformatics journey began with an onboarding activity where we were introduced to the program, how it will run and some rules to abide by. We were then asked to put pen on paper concerning the short-term and the long-term goals together with a road map to achieving them. Writing down my goals ensured that I never lost sight of the bigger picture and helped me get my vision clearer.

The first week, I got to learn about collaborative tools like slack for communications and Git and GitHub for version control. The second week, I got introduced to Bioinformatics where I learned Next-generation sequencing, biological databases, genomics, phylogenetics, Open Science, and project management. Then came the week to learn Python, Bash, and R programming languages which I had never encountered before. I was a bit scared of programming because of the notion that it was hard. At first, I was only concerned with getting the code running and then slowly into knowing what the code does to my data.

There was no better way to conquer my fear of programming than through learning by problem- solving. I got to reproduce a research paper on RNA-Seq analysis with my partner Dorcus Namikelwa. This experience enabled me to hone my problem-solving skills together with collaborative skills. As I completed my first bioinformatics project, I felt a sense of accomplishment, self-confidence, and deep satisfaction. It was then that I realized, bioinformatics is the career for me. With the newfound enthusiasm for bioinformatics, I was eager to do much more for the mini-project.

The beauty of the internship was the collaborative spirit and the positive environment created by the great team at icipe. As I did my mini-project on the identification of Fungal Species from Bee pollen metagenomics data, I would occasionally encounter code errors and would seek help from the EANBit fellows who were always ready to help us. Learning in an environment with no judgment and great support from my supervisors Festus Nyasimi and Dr.Caleb together with the EANBit fellows, enabled me to grow my bioinformatics skills together with self-confidence.

I am grateful to my supervisors, the EANBiT fellows for mentoring me and enabling me to discover my niche, which is bioinformatics. I now continue with my pursuit of gaining mastery in Bioinformatics and to eventually be able to solve the disease burden in Africa. Cheers!