Tamerat Zewdie was born and reared in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's beautiful capital city. He attended Medhane Alem Secondary School before immigrating to the United States in 1969. After attending the Temple Language School, he entered Western Senior High School in Washington, D.C. After graduation from high school, he was accepted at the Federal City College and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology.

Tamerat continued post-graduate studies in Instructional Systems Technology, concentrating in Computer Sciences at the University of the District of Columbia, and received his Master of Science degree in 1982 . After graduation, he moved to Sacramento, California, and joined  Computer Sciences Corporation as a Programmer Analyst.

He later relocated to the San Francisco Bay area to join the credit card giant Visa International as a Senior Programmer Analyst. At Visa he has held positions ranging from Project Leader to Information Center Manager and  from Product Manager to Director. Tamerat is married to the former Zewditu Beyene Zewdie and has two children, Bethlehem Tamerat, and Samson Tamerat.

Tamerat founded the Ethio-Software Development Company in 1993. Since then he has spent many hours developing his dream product EthioSoft '96 and may other programs related to education.