The Vision

In 1995 the young Kofi saw a computer for the first time. At the time Kofi was literate, he could read and write Asante-Twi (Akan). Kofi wondered why the qwerty keyboard was so limited with character sets. The alphabets on the keyboard were missing several familiar Afrikan characters. Since then, Kofi's intent was to become a change maker in Information Technology (I.T) and implement the availability of this minor, but highly effective omission. Kofi wasn’t far from his objectives; he was a student at Christ the King International School at Ayigya, Kumasi nearby his dream academia; the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). As fate would have it, he had to resettle with his Mother and Father who were in London some years prior.

The Education

On arrival to London, Kofi attended primary school at Coleraine Park Primary School in Tottenham and secondary school at the St. David’s and St. Katherine’s School (currently Greig City Academy) Hornsey, London; where he chose Art, I.T and Technology for GCSE to further this lifelong intent. He returned to Ghana, to study Elective Science and Visual Arts at the Kumasi Anglican Secondary School (KASS) and the Presbyterian Secondary School(PRESEC Bechem) respectively. On completing the WAEC SSCE A-levels Kofi returned to the UK to pursue an AVCE in I.C.T; on completing the AVCE, Kofi’s world asked for something challenging. Something to train, develop and support his capacity to provide, so Kofi joined the British Armed Forces as a Communicator serving for 7 years.

The Act

On retiring from the service Kofi worked at the London 2012 Olympics as a Communications Team Leader (CTL) and started his Computing (BSc) degree in the same year, graduating with a 2.1 Honours in 2015. With the experience gathered in I.C.T, Kofi noticed the challenge of writing in Ghanaian and many Afrikan languages was ever so cumbersome despite the advances in the technology field. Kofi applied the gathered knowledge to make I.T universal by including Afrikan languages on PC and Laptop keyboards. The diagrams, standards and coding were put to a test to generate the software driver for the initial Asiedu Information Systems and Technology Universal Keyboard (AiSTUK). This was the genesis of Asiedu Information Systems and Technology (AiST) and the AiST® Brand was born. The AiST® Universal Keyboard (Series) have been designed as a series of keyboards with a priority focus on writing Afrikan languages. They have gone through a transformation of being kwerty, to upgraded universal qwerty, and finally what they are today.