The Nurse Who Codes: Michael Joshua’s Story

The Dilemma…

Tech can be learned by anyone at any time, and Michael Joshua proves this once again. After over seven years of practice as a nurse, Michael became Co-founder and CEO of Mikulhealth, a home healthcare company. He encountered challenges in accessing the right tech talent to help develop his startup, which was dynamic and tech-driven.

The Solution: His Decision to Do It Himself

Faced with that challenge, Michael was encouraged by his Co-founder to learn the software engineering skill himself. To achieve this, he sought advice from his friend and founder of Gada Health, a medical doctor. After learning about the techpreneurship program, Michael decided to take on this new challenge.

Michael’s entire life before Semicolon had been a search for purpose and self-awareness. After the death of his parents when he was a child, Michael was supported by relatives and sponsors into adulthood. This drove him to pursue compassionate professions and activities like organizing missionary and medical outreaches, having a foundation built on the heart of helping.

According to Michael, “coming to Semicolon was coming to meet myself again.” He knew that acquiring tech skills would be another opportunity to help others. Michael had always been interested in books and content related to design thinking, critical thinking, and self development. His life was built on empathy and learning to work with people, and beginning the program with those classes set the right foundation for him.

What He Got

For most people, learning something different comes with many emotions, and Michael was no exception. Michael first faced challenges in the program while studying the second chapter of Java. Michael describes that “it felt like gibberish. I began to question myself and ask if I was smart enough. Learning felt like new neural pathways were being formed in my brain.” It felt like a struggle, but he pushed through by staying consistent with the program and not missing classes.

Michael describes that “the activities during the program were life-transforming; from the privilege walk — an exercise that teaches the concept of privilege in society via personal experience, taught by Ashley Immanuel, to programming classes, and finally, the business management classes with Dr. Adeyinka Adewale. The combination of curricula and extracurricular activities made the program balanced.”

The end signified progress for Michael. His original mission to Semicolon was simple: acquire a tech skill to properly tech-enable his startup. However, going through the program brought the realization that his original mission was myopic, and this exposure came during his capstone project. Choosing to solve a problem in the logistics sector, Michael and his team decided to build a peer-to-peer platform that could help people solve problems with delivery. While working as the team lead for this project, Michael found a new interest and consciousness in the tech field. He realized his attraction to product management and envisioned a future immediately in that specialization.

To Michael, “the value now outweighs the price.” The techpreneurship program at Semicolon has not only equipped Michael with the skill set he uses to drive his company through tech, but he also has a broad professional network and community.