[WATCH] Local youngster coding for a better future
"My life as a whole is light years better than it was a few years ago, because I now have a stable source of income and have been able to address some domestic issues that have troubled my family for a long time."
Fueled by its inspirational and popular ‘Prosper’ philosophy, Absa launched a series of compelling films in 2014 in an effort to depict the power people have to realise their dreams and prosper when enabled by partners like Absa and Barclays Africa.
They are now thrilled to announce that 24-year-old Gopolang Lekoto from Kagiso is one of three coders who have been selected for their latest film, Coding a better future, which enables them to build a prosperous future for themselves with the help of Absa and the Digital Academy.
These three high-fliers can now take their newly acquired skills from the Digital Academy – which Absa partnered with in effort to educate the youth – into the real world, through their permanent positions at Absa as they have risen to the occasion and exceeded every expectation.
According to Gopolang, his Digital Academy experience was surprising and challenging as five teams comprising six members each competed against each other for the opportunity to join one of the world’s most recognised banks, Absa.
“I knew that hard work was expected, but the level of work at the academy challenged both my physical and emotional fortitude,” he said.
Gopolang worked on developing a crowd-sourcing platform with three of the members of his team.
“I was involved in the entire planning phase of the platform we had to build, and was predominantly tasked with designing the database and connecting it to the front-end. I also dabbled in building the user interface for our application,” he explained.
He also mentioned that he has grown tremendously as a person and a software developer.
“My life as a whole is light years better than it was a few years ago, because I now have a stable source of income and have been able to address some domestic issues that have troubled my family for a long time, like the condition of our house, improving security and my sister’s schooling,” he said.
The film is an on-point portrayal of Absa’s Shared Growth business strategy in action. The key focus areas of the strategy are those that will hopefully help solve some of the most pressing societal challenges the continent faces, including bridging the gap between education and the world of work and entrepreneurship, access to quality education, enterprise development and a shortage of affordable innovative financial services. It illustrates Absa’s commitment to education and skills development, through its partnership with Digital Academy – a learning institute that works with corporates to recruit and upskill motivated young people with a raw talent for web and software development.
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