Closing ceremony

@Atomic_izzy I see a politician potential

We will be voting 😂

Home sweet home 🎉

nice to have this while I am in bed

I’m currently pushing deeper into system design, and today’s topic was horizontal scaling vs vertical scaling and load balancers. Vertical scaling improves a single server by increasing its resources, while horizontal scaling adds more servers to handle growing traffic. A load balancer then distributes requests across those servers to keep systems fast, reliable, and scalable.

working on this currently, understanding the navigation and also Models. I think it is a bit challenging to work with Jetpack UI wise but we are not wasting time on that.

We are here.

Replaced dummy data and setup retrofit, coroutines and a viewmodel

Don't mind the setting icon (too lazy to replace it with bookmark icon). I couldn't find in the default one that's why but for sure will be swapped

* Retrofit: A library used in Android to make API/network requests easier.
* Coroutines: A lightweight way to handle background tasks asynchronously without blocking the app.
* ViewModel: A component that stores and manages UI-related data safely across screen changes.

Hey amazing peeps 👋

I finally wanted to share something I’ve been building for months.

When IShowSpeed came to Ethiopia, many of us enjoyed the tour, the energy, and the crazy moments.

But one moment stayed with me differently.

You definitely remember the guy “Ethiopian IShowSpeed.” He got a rare chance to be around one of the biggest streamers in the world. For many people, that kind of moment could open doors.

But there was one painful problem:

He could not communicate confidently in English.

I’m not saying this to make fun of him. It made me think about a much bigger problem:

How many opportunities do young Ethiopians lose because they cannot express themselves in English?

A lot of students understand English when they read it.
A lot of people can pass exams.
A lot of people know grammar rules.

But when it is time to speak, we freeze.

-Fear.
-No exposure.
-No safe place to practice.
-Fear of making mistakes.
-Fear of being laughed at.

I understand this personally too. I am a 3rd year university student, and for a long time, presentations and public speaking were painful for me. Not because I had no ideas, but because expressing those ideas confidently in English was hard.

So I started building something.

Introducing Voxa 🚀

Voxa is an AI-powered English learning platform designed for Ethiopian learners.

The goal is simple:
Speak English without fear.

Voxa is not just another chatbot. It connects the real things learners need:

• Speaking practice
• Mistake correction
• Structured lessons
• Speaking drills
• Reading books with AI
• Personalized review
• Progress tracking
• Amharic and Afaan Oromo support

With Voxa, learners can practice English speaking with AI, get gentle corrections, and turn mistakes into review so they do not forget them.

If the internet is weak, Voxa also has recorded voice practice. You can record your answer, Voxa transcribes it, replies, corrects you, and even lets you play the AI reply aloud.

Another big part of Voxa is reading.
During my research, I noticed that many people want to read books, PDFs, and learning materials, but struggle to understand them deeply or connect reading with speaking.

So I built Saba, the AI reading companion inside Voxa.

With Saba, you can upload a PDF or book and:
• understand pages with AI
• summarize ideas
• explain selected text
• save vocabulary, phrases, and key ideas
• create review items
• choose from 4 different reading themes
• listen to reading audio
• practice reading aloud
• turn what you read into speaking practice

Voxa also has a Reading Notebook where everything you save from books becomes organized: key ideas, vocabulary, phrases, comprehension notes, and speaking prompts.

The bigger vision is this:
Speak → get corrected → review your mistake → learn the pattern → read better → speak about what you read → track your growth.

That is Voxa.

It is not perfect, and I am still improving it, but it is real.

English should not be the reason talented students miss opportunities.
Some of the technologies/features behind Voxa include AI chat, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, PDF reading, voice practice, personalized review, progress intelligence, and multilingual support for Amharic and Afaan Oromo.

Live demo 👇
https://voxa-platform.onrender.com
I would really appreciate your feedback, ideas, and honest thoughts.

@pocodes

tried it. loved it. @pocodes nice job

let's call it a day😴

since I reached my token limit, let me say sth about this.

Well, I started saying “life is unpredictable” since 1st year (wasn’t alone, @must_Code was there too 😁). I never imagined I’d end up in Adama (ASTU), but somehow life took me there in the most “unpredictable” way possible.

At first, I hated every single day of it. I kept saying, “I wasn’t supposed to be here,” and constantly asked God why. But that feeling didn’t last long. Slowly, I started loving the place, and suddenly life started making sense again.

1st year was fun, new friends, getting closer with old classmates (@must_Code and that huge guy 😂), a completely new environment. Academic pressure wasn’t that serious yet. Freshman year was just memories, laughter, and vibes.

2nd year… mehhh
It ended in the blink of an eye.

3rd year? Well, 3rd year is “Agelgil.” It had everything.
So many unforgettable memories, some of my lowest moments, and a lot of growth. I saw myself changing and progressing in so many ways.

Through all these years, one thing stayed constant, God’s love. I experienced it in every high and low. Even when I doubted Him, He still showed me mercy and love.

Like I said, back in freshman year, I really questioned everything, but you know:

“ለእናንተ የማስባትን አሳብ እኔ አውቃለሁ፤ ፍጻሜና ተስፋ እሰጣችሁ ዘንድ የሰላም አሳብ ነው እንጂ የክፉ ነገር አይደለም።”
— ኤርምያስ 29፥11

And honestly, I’ve seen it for myself.
At this point, I can’t imagine myself anywhere else. This place and the people around me really helped shape who I am today. And yes, I still have a lot to improve on and achieve.

So yeah… sometimes the unexpected path turns into something beautiful.

ዕንባቆም 3
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
¹⁷ ምንም እንኳ በለስም ባታፈራ፥ በወይንም ሐረግ ፍሬ ባይገኝ፥ የወይራ ሥራ ቢጐድል፥ እርሾችም መብልን ባይሰጡ፥ በጎች ከበረቱ ቢጠፉ፥ ላሞችም በጋጡ ውስጥ ባይገኙ፥
¹⁸ እኔ ግን በእግዚአብሔር ደስ ይለኛል፤ በመድኃኒቴ አምላክ ሐሤት አደርጋለሁ።
¹⁹ ጌታ እግዚአብሔር ኃይሌ ነው፤ እግሮቼን እንደ ዋላ እግሮች ያደርጋል፤ በከፍታዎችም ላይ ያስሄደኛል።

Verse of the year. Got me through a lot

Was busy with another project. I couldn't do much here but played with navigation a bit.

Implemented local database for offline access. It really gave me hard time with all the dependency stuff and syncing the project again and again but we go on ⚡️

Persist Strive and Grow.

waaazzzupppp, Time to share (I guess).

I spent a long time feeling totally lost with Android development. But a few weeks ago, while I was preparing (or whatever you call it😂) for my "Mobile Architecture" final exam, something actually started making sense. I’ve always learned best by just building, so I decided to work on Pulse.

I’ve always wanted a simple way to keep up with trending tech articles, so I built Pulse to curate the top ones, get AI summaries, and save for offline reading.

It’s a very simple app, but building it taught me so much:
* Designing with Jetpack Compose & Material 3.
* Structuring apps with MVVM.
* Making things work offline using Room.
* Diving into the full stack with Express/TS & Postgres to implement the curation.
* Integrating Gemini AI for instant insights.

The process was fun and challenging at the same time and of course will continue updating it. If you want to take a look at the code or try the app out yourself, you can download the APK and check the repo here:

Download: https://github.com/bemnet-21/pulse/releases/download/v1.0.0/Pulse.apk
Repo: https://github.com/bemnet-21/pulse

Let me know what y'all think

A new side quest😂, can you guess the language?