The Closing Bracket (Issue 2 2021)

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THE CLOSING BRACKET

End call

UCT’s Annual Student Developer Magazine

Edition 2 2021

Page 12

Your Digital Self Page 32

State of the UCT Developer Nation Page 40

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Automating Boringness

Sponsored by

Opening Statement Hi there, Putting this magazine together has been an absolutely enriching experience. The Developer Community at UCT is filled with diversity and a multitude of experiences. It was inspiring to read everyone’s stories and gain perspective on how they relate to development.

From podcasts to tech startups, this magazine aims to capture the amazing ventures that UCT students have achieved during 2021. This idea was brought to life by our predecessors of the three prominent developer clubs at UCT (Devsoc, WICS, and the GDSC) who released the first issue of The Closing Bracket last year.

Their goal was to create an end of year report that would display the achievements of the developer community. As they did such a phenomenal job last year, we tried our best to continue their legacy.

The magazine follows a similar format and encompasses many of the same aspects. We added an additional chapter of stories from other universities, as they engage with starting similar communities.

Enough with the pre-waffle, let’s dive into what this wonderful magazine is all about! Firstly, our story begins where the community starts and that is with our developer communities. Each soci-

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ety gives a brief rundown of 2021 about their achievements, activities and operations. Followed by their vision and mission for 2022 written by the new chairs of the committees. Afterwhich, we highlight some of the exciting new student-run startup ventures. We get some insight into their ideas, achievements and challenges they face along the way. Many students have not pursued the start-up route and have gone to join different establishments, we focus on these paths in our careers section.

This focuses on recent UCT alumni and graduates who give insight into their current trajectories and share some excellent advice.

We then have a much more in-depth look into some of the statistics of the developer community at UCT. This analysis aims to gain a better understanding of what students are wanting from developer communities and how they can better be assisted. Afterwards, we have a look at some of the hackathons hosted in 2021 and the experiences of the winning developers. We then shift to the experiences of other universities who are starting developer clubs, discussing the development of their societies and the challenges that come along with it. A driving force in many of our events are often the companies that can support our endeavours, hence the

next section looks at some of our partners and the culture around their companies. Finally, throughout the magazine are stories submitted by various members within the community. These stories range from throwing televisions off cliffs to discerning your identity between your physical and digital being.

This magazine has been most kindly sponsored and supported

by The Delta. Not only have they funded the entire project, but kindly designed the wonderful front cover. We were privileged to work with none other than Jono Hart, who led the GDSC in 2020.

To gain a deeper understanding of what it is like working there, check out the careers section in which he highlights his first year of working for The Delta. We are highly supportive of The Delta’s efforts and involvement within the developer community and look forward to their continued engagement.

The Developer Community at UCT is truly wonderful! We hope that as you enjoy the magazine you will discover that yourself. Happy reading!

Table of Contents Our Societies 2 DevSoc 4 WICS 6 GDSC Startup Q&As 8 Table Trade Solutions 10 Fleeker Finance Careers 16 Jonathan Hart 20 Prathiksha Singh 23 Grad Profiles 25 Grad Interviews State of the Developer Nation 32 State of the UCT Developer Nation Hackathons 42 Team Sweaty 43 Hackaholics Other Universities 50 Team Sweaty 51 Hackaholics Our Sponsors 53 Yoco 54 SOLIDitech 56 Allan Gray Member Stories 12 Your Digital Self 14 Working, Studying and an AWS internship 40 Automating Boringness 46 Persistent 47 Disrupting Uni Admissions 48 Throw your TV off a Cliff 52 Tech on the Mic The Closing Bracket

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Society Spotlight

2021 Spotlight We had a very successful year and have adapted to the online environment, as all events were held virtually this year. This meant we were able to host more talks from people all over the world. We were even recognised by the Department of Student Affairs and received a team leadership award. We achieved many of our goals this year, which is reflected in our achievements, which consist of:

By Chelsea Van Coller,

•

Outgoing Devsoc Executive Chairperson

The UCT Developer Society aimed to provide an inclusive environment for all students to participate in the world of tech. We particularly look at bridging the gap between academia and the working world.

This year, we also wanted to start a new initiative to give back to disadvantaged communities, which we successfully achieved this year through partnering with an organization called iNethi.

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During the period we hosted 11 talks with students and tech companies. These are a way for students to interact with professionals and find out more about the industry. These talks consisted of career-driven talks (How to prepare for an interview, what to do with a CS degree) and tech-related talks (AI and Computer Vision with Matlab, Cybersecurity talk and Fintech talk).

Hosted a 5-week long series in conjunction with WICS offering talks from Allan Gray, GirlCode and Zaio on how to participate in

a hackathon, build a website and an app. 2-hour workshops were held on Fridays where the learning took place. At the beginning of the workshops, we divided all participants into teams to build either a website or an app and at the end, the teams presented their projects to three judges.

•

We hosted 2 hackathons this year in partnership with WICS and GDSC. The Hackathon101 hackathon and the UNHack.

Each event students had 24 hours to come up with a solution to the topic. The first was about creating a University Experience 2.0 and the most recent one was about solving the UN goals.

•

#BreakTheRules invited the largest tech companies in South Africa to speak to the students and offer internship and graduate opportunities and is held bi-annually. The Winter BTR had 13 companies in attendance.

We decided to introduce BreakOutRooms for the event where

students could talk one-on-one with companies. This proved to be very successful. We also distributed UberEats at the event. We held the Summer BTR along with the incoming Exec, with 10 companies attending the event.

•

This year the exec developed our own website together which can be found here: https:// devsoc.uct.ac.za/

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This year we started an outreach initiative with iNethi. This organisation created a wireless community network in Ocean View, giving users access to free WiFi. We plan to allow students to build apps and additions to the network to which the users can connect without WiFi.

degree does not offer. I would definitely recommend joining a society executive to all students. I am so proud of all we have achieved and how we worked so well as a team. I am excited for the new committee.

They are all dedicated students and I am very excited to see what they do with the society next year.

Personally, I have thoroughly enjoyed leading the society. It has helped me grow many skills that a

2022 Plans

By Dillon Lewis, Incoming Devsoc Chairperson for 2022

DevSoc has grown tremendously over the past couple of years, under the leadership of some great committees. In 2022, we hope to emulate this growth while implementing our own unique ideas and visions for the future of the society. DevSoc strives to create a more cohesive and cooperative developer community, not only within UCT but within the whole of South Africa.

Connecting fledgling developers to local companies will help realise this goal.

One thing we realise is that the developer community is vast and incredibly diverse. Not all developers want to create awesome

websites or incredible apps. Some developers want to create intricate machine learning models to predict the COVID pandemic or riveting video games or get nittygritty with embedded systems or a bunch of other things. We all love being developers because of the freedom it allows us to try whatever we want and explore so many different fields. We hope to embrace this diversity and provide the platforms to delve into wherever your imagination takes you.

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We will continue to host our popular bi-annual #BreakTheRules event where students are introduced to various local companies and can learn about their opportunities. We hope to grow this event, bringing in more and more companies from diverse sectors within the developer community.

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We also plan on continuing our tech talks next year.

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We will also continue supporting and organising various hackathons throughout the year.

We hope we can expand this in 2022 by including events such as game jams or leader board hackathons.

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The COVID pandemic has brought many headaches over the past two years and as the University is seemingly hoping to transition back into on-campus teaching in 2022; one of our biggest challenges will be trying to transition back into in-person events, a new experience for many of our members.

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For 2022, we will likely adopt a hybrid approach to our events throughout the year. Hosting some in-person and others online allows us to get our members the best possible opportunities.

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We will continue our outreach initiative with iNethi in 2022, hoping to advance the wireless community network in Ocean View.

We are very grateful to the outgoing committee for all their continued support and guidance. We hope to live up to the very high bar they have set and continue to grow DevSoc in 2022. We are excited for the year to come and hope to bring many awesome events to our members!

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2021 Spotlight

By Joelle Behoor, Outgoing WICS Chairperson

Women In Computer Science (WICS) is the youngest developer society at UCT and is a bit different as we aim to inform and provide a network for young women in the developer community. Our society provides women who are interested in technology with a strong network of women to interact with and from whom they can seek support and learn. Through sharing our knowledge and providing informative talks we consistently strive to help female students combat imposter syndrome. We want to encourage passionate STEMINISTS to stay in the technological field by exposing our members to learning opportunities and providing mentorship to students and lastly by creating a supportive feminist community.

This year we were elated to see more men joining the WICS community.

Our aim is to elevate women to any level they imagine they can be on, and this can only happen by educating men on the real-world challenges women face in technology.

By being members through attend-

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ing our talks our male counterparts are given the opportunity to hear and see first-hand the up-hills women face in the tech community.

As 2021 was once again a virtual year for the UCT community, we held more virtual events. This was a hurdle for the WICS community as working remotely means your learning space also became your relaxation space for most students.

This meant students were giving up the latter to focus more on learning.

Even though engagement with societies was not as great as pre-Covid 19 we were able to host many successful events this year, including : •

A beginners guide to a hacka-

thon which was 5 weeks long.

Here every Friday society members learnt the ins and outs of participating in a hackathon as well as the beginnings of how to build an app and a website.

•

We hosted one hackathon this year and it was called Hackathon101. This hackathon was a collaboration with the Developers Society and challenged members to come up with a solution to create an improved university experience in 24 hours. We enjoyed vouchers from UberEats while we listened to midnight pitches. The event was a great success, and the judges were impressed by the teams’ solutions in the given

Society Spotlight

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time.

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Lastly, we hosted a new event called the SIP n Chat. This was a virtual fortnightly meeting where there was facilitated discussions about different STEM topics, while attendees were drinking their favourite warm beverage.

We also had the opportunity to host many talks with companies such as Allan Gray and Matlab. The talk from Opti-Num Solutions about the Imposter Syndrome faced by women and how to overcome it provided numerous helpful insights for many members of the community.

This year was a great success for us as a team. We were all able to grow together and learn more

about things we already thought we knew. As a team, we were fortunate to work well enough together to achieve a team leadership award.

WICS is a space for every individual to grow and be heard and I look forward to seeing how the new committee will continue with this mission in 2022.

2022 Plans Our Vision for 2022

By Sane Mhloma, Incoming WICS Chairperson 2022

We are incredibly proud of the incredible work done by the WiCS since being officiated, more especially the strides made by the 2021 WiCS Executive amidst a global pandemic. We will do our best to continue the amazing work done by our predecessors and stay aligned with the mandate to empower and support womxn in technology to be confident in their budding careers in technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further emphasized the growing unemployment rates in South Africa and how often graduates find themselves ‘unemployable’ despite qualifications. Thus, our vision for 2022 is building your graduate profile from entry-level in university all the way to exit and even post-grad level. Additionally, we would like to continue forging a greater sense of community within the society where STEMinsists can feel at home, connect with others and have fun.

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We will be resuming the Sip n Chat sessions, which were established this year as a safe space for our members to interact, network & communicate issues that affect them as STEMinists…whilst taking a sip!

Resident events like hackathons will also be hosted and are always a great opportunity for members to band together, challenge themselves whilst strengthening their soft and

technical skills.

•

We are also partnering with some of our sponsors to have a mentorship program for our members. Mentorship is an incredible opportunity for members to have someone as a soundboard to their ideas and questions about the world of technology and navigate the uncertainty that comes with working through university and life that comes thereafter.

With the changing restrictions, we hope to ease our way back into having in-person events (whilst having some remotely) so our members can safely and actively connect with one another.

The society has grown and learnt through challenges posed by the uncertainty of the past two years.

We are excited for the year that lies ahead and even more eager to welcome new and current members to this family!

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Society Spotlight

2021 Spotlight learn, interact, and collaborate. By organizing seminars conducted by Google Developer specialists, sharing Google Developer materials, and providing chances to participate in events highlighting Google Developer technologies, we were able to introduce additional Google Developer technologies, which has always been a major goal of the GDSC.

By Nkosinathi ‘Martin’ Ntuli, Outgoing DSC Lead

2020 was a major turning point for us. Despite being impacted by the global pandemic, the club was able to retain a lively community, organizing fantastic workshops and hackathons digitally, and successfully producing The Closing Bracket magazine in collaboration with the UCT DevSoc and WiCS. This year, our goal was to provide additional opportunities for our community to grow and to establish a space where people could

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Even though we had numerous ideas for 2021, some of them were unable to materialize, we are quite happy with the ones we were able to carry out successfully. Thanks to our members for their continued commitment to engaging and participating in our events and activities; without you, it wouldn’t be the same.

The following are some of the highlights for the year 2021: •

We partnered with a few tech communities and organizations, including UCT Research Contracts and Innovation to place student developers with

no experience in high-impact projects where they can gain experience as developers, as well as Encode Club, which hosts bootcamps and hackathons to stimulate global blockchain development and learning.

•

We held a few events and hackathons, including a Yoco-sponsored hackathon and a hackathon in collaboration with UCT DevSoc. In preparation for Google’s HashCode, we also organized a coding competition and created our own community portal which will be a home for future Google coding competitions.

•

Our members can now subscribe to our event announcements and register to attend our events via a new community platform. In addition, we have a Google Developers’ event streaming platform that was designed particularly for the Google Developers’ community.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have served as a club leader, the GDSC has always been my home. I joined the club as a member participating in the Solution Challenge in 2019, then joined the core team as a tech lead and mentor, and then advanced to the position of club leader. As a leader, my objective was to assist students to acquire experience while also being able to use that experience to produce significant solutions in the community, so I knew I wanted to help bring those possibilities to the community, as well as inspire

students and make them realize the benefits of doing so. I’m pleased to say that, with the assistance of my team, we were able to make a positive contribution toward accomplishing this goal.

The journey has been nothing short of incredible, but it has not been without its difficulties. I had a lot more planned for the club this year, but sometimes we forget about the constraints that come with resources, or how some ideas just don’t work out.

It was hard for me to come to terms with those limitations and failures, but I always tried to remain humble and remind myself that we can’t always have it all sometimes. We should always strive our hardest to be our best selves and the rest will take care of itself.

I’m excited to see where the new leadership will lead the club, and I wish them the best of luck during their term.

2022 Plans the experience a great one for the Core Team and the whole community.

that will actually end up in the hands of users. On this front, our members can look forward to hackathons and events with lots of partners.

Vision for 2022 In a broad sense, the objective of our club is to help members of our community to Learn, Build, Share and Grow as developers - I will break down our vision for 2022 as per these pillars.

By Mbongeni Sibanda,

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Incoming DSC lead for 2022

Since joining the UCT Google Developer Student Club (GDSC) Core Team in 2020, it has been a community that I consider myself very privileged to be part of. With support from Google, it has been a pleasure to watch the community evolve bit by bit as we put together interesting projects, host events with partners and learn more about the tech world in general. Although 2021 has admittedly been a significant challenge on a personal level, I look forward to carrying on with the baton from my predecessor and working with my new team to make

•

•

Share: the goal for this pillar is

•

Grow: for this pillar, I believe

Learn: the goal of this pillar is to offer practical learning paths and resources for all experience levels and interests. This means that our members can look forward to about 10 workshops in mobile development, web development, design and machine learning.

Build: the goal for this pillar is

to have a repository of at least 10 usable and problem-backed projects. Through our hackathons, we often have a plethora of interesting ideas that are developed. The vision here is to turn some of those ideas into sustainable solutions to the problems they solve - solutions

to share about 15 publications based on member stories and learnings. Although we might sometimes forget because of our few physical meetings, we are a very big community. This year, members can look forward to having opportunities to share their stories and hear stories from others. that every member can achieve some kind of growth by engaging with any of the other pillars.

2022 has the potential to be a very enjoyable year for our entire community. I really look forward to working with my team, the other societies and our partners to realize this 2022 vision as best as possible.

Who knows how it will all unfold but stay tuned for more!

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Startup Q&A’s

Table Trade Solutions What has been your favourite accomplishment so far?

Our biggest accomplishment in 2021 has been winning 3rd prize in the ideation phase of the annual Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Jamboree.

How did you come up with the initial idea for your startup and what led you to work on it while you are still a student?

The idea arose from a group of friends collectively thinking of how to make life easier for informal vendors and what impact we could make in the informal trading and cash economy industry. Being part of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation was the main inspiration for working on it as a student. This gave us the perfect platform to innovate and create and potentially help the millions of South Africans who work in the informal sector gain more control of their business’s finances.

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Who are we?

Table Trade Solutions has developed a WhatApp bot that allows vendors to use natural language to record transactions.

Vendors input the transaction into Whatsapp, and then are able to receive financial statements and a detailed

transaction history. The startup aims to target informal vendors and South Africa’s significant cash economy, bringing easy access to recording systems and detailed financial statements.

What have been some of the biggest and most challenging obstacles you have had to overcome while growing your startup?

have been forced to do a lot of rethinking and reshaping of how we operate and that has been one of the biggest obstacles.

The biggest so far has been the coronavirus pandemic.

This has made it quite difficult to hit the ground running. The lockdowns that occur delay certain things from happening and also disrupt plans that have been set in place months before. Under this new normal we find ourselves, we

How have you managed to tend to all of the requirements of your business while still being a student and what advice do you have for students that wish to do the same?

You have to be able to communicate and effectively

manage your time. Communication is the most important because being a student can be incredibly hard at times and communication is the only way everyone can be on the same page and keep going.

Time management is also critical! Balancing everything is no easy task but if you have a set-out plan of what to do each day it makes the process somewhat doable.

My advice would be to ensure you communicate if you are in a team. Generally, manage your time! But especially if you are working on your own: give yourself time to work on academics, on the business and also time for yourself.

Do you think that all students should aim to work on some kind of startup while studying?

Yes and no. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone and it takes

a certain type of perseverance to be able to go through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and be a student at the same time. Then again the skills and lessons learnt while being a part of, or starting, a startup are lessons one cannot learn anywhere else.

Ideally, where do you see your startup in one year, five years and ten years?

Over the next year, we see ourselves operating across the Western Cape, with informal businesses using our system as their main recording system. Our 5-year plan is to have it distributed nationally and the 10-year plan is to have partnered with other startups or organizations to effectively capture a large share of the cash economy of South Africa. The goal is not to change how the cash economy operates. We want

to help improve how they can record and track their financials, making their operations more efficient.

What do you think the university and its students could do to improve the startup experience and help you reach your vision?

One of the ways the university and students can help us reach our vision is to contact us if they are operating a cash business and want to record their transactions cheaply and easily. Improving the marketing of the platforms that bring creatives together not only helps our startup but other startups as well. This helps them find ways to grow and improve their startup experience.

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Who are we?

Fleeker Finance specialises in helping students build a credit history. Many young professionals of all races in South Africa struggle with accessing credit. When they start working, credit terms are often unfavorable (if they can even access it) and they face large amounts of interest.

This startup gives students a small value credit credit facility ranging from R100-R150 monthly, allowing them to build a credit history without falling into a debt trap.

This is all done via a virtual card that a student gets after being approved for credit. The virtual card works online, soon it will work in physical stores.

What has been your favourite accomplishment so far?

We launched Fleeker Finance in September 2021. Three months ago we had zero brand equity, we have seen that change over these 3 months and we have attracted hundreds of students from across South Africa Higher education institutions. This is a big achievement for us as building a brand is very difficult.

How did you come up with the initial idea for your startup and what led you to work on it while you are still a student?

The initial idea came from observing friends who had struggled with accessing

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Fleeker Finance

credit when they started working. After doing the Advanced Microeconomics and Macroeconomics courses at UCT, we all had a much greater interest in solving the problem.

What have been some of the biggest and most challenging obstacles you have had to overcome while growing your startup?

The biggest challenge for us has been operations. How do you ensure that customers are attended to quicker, given useful help and accurate information? Also, another challenge we have had is ensuring that our data is stored well and is clean. We have also faced other setbacks like being unable to secure deals

we wanted in the timeframe we envisioned.

How have you managed to tend to all of the requirements of your business while still being a student and what advice do you have for students that wish to do the same?

This is a game of balance: sometimes you need to pay more attention to your studies than the startup, and sometimes you need to pay more attention to your startup.

This is very difficult and this is why you need hard-working co-founders. For example, when coursework gets overwhelming I can ask for a short leave so I can focus on my academics.

Member Stories

Do you think that all students should aim to work on some kind of startup while studying?

I think it is important, for two primary reasons: first of all

A Fun Fact: We never thought about a name for Fleeker Finance.

We had a startup called Fleeker before, we just added Finance when we started Fleeker Finance.

there is high unemployment in the country, and secondly (and most importantly) a startup will help you fast track your career. A startup has the ability to make the best out of you as you are pushed to the limit most of the time.

You also become brave to approach people you would not on a normal day if you were not doing any startup.

This brings you a lot of opportunities, which can help you even if your startup fails.

Ideally, where do you see your startup in one year, five years and ten years?

I cannot disclose the actual figures we use as our metrics, but what I can say is that in a year’s time, we want to see Fleeker Finance as a brand in all public universities that students use to build their credit history and as a tool to

learn about personal financial health management.

In 5 years time, we want public universities, TVET colleges, and private institutions students to be all using Fleeker Finance.

What do you think the university and its students could do to improve the startup experience and help you reach your vision?

I think UCT is doing well at this: this institution will support you! However, I think they can be the first commercial partner with startups that offer services to students or the university community. I think that would be a lot of value. This would help reduce some of the risks for student entrepreneurs.

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Your Digital Self Source:

European Commision

by Jans Rautenbach

The fourth industrial revolution, as they call it in industry, brought with it many benefits for peoplekind: we now have an unimaginably long list of advanced tools such as AI, AR, cloud computing, smart robots, wearable tech, and much more – granting us the potential to optimise every facet of our being: from world economic development to biological augmentations to space travel and colonising other planets. The sceptics among us may say this sounds too good to be true, and I must concede they are somewhat right. The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) also gave rise to some serious moral issues, including social media addiction, powerful hacker groups, and widespread misinformation and radicalism. These topics are worth discussing in their own right, but I am particularly interested in the philosophical issue of the digital self and what it means to be a person after the 4IR. Humanity’s looming existential crisis Professor John Lamola is a researcher at the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Johannesburg and specialises in the philosophical consequences of technology. He holds the view

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that we as a species are moving beyond homo sapiens and are evolving into what is known as homo sapien technologicus. This next step in our evolution has many interesting characteristics, but the one I want to consider is the extension of our personalities into cyberspace. Living post-4IR, the average person no longer exists purely as a human body but also consists of a remarkably fleshed-out digital part. Your posts on Instagram, shares on Facebook, tweets on Twitter, stories on WhatsApp, and comments on YouTube all form part of your digital identity. This online content represents you, even when you are offline. Your internet activity tells a detailed story about who you are, or rather, who you purport to be since we all know how easy it is to craft a false online personality with cherry-picked photos and self-censored messages.

And so what Lamola points out is that we are left with two senses of the concept of the self. In one sense your self is created by what you physically do with your body, and the face-to-face interactions you have with others. In another sense, your self is a culmination of all your web activity: all your carefully selected pictures, videos, and messages that you choose to represent you online. The problem

Member Stories

arises when these two selves clash: when your digital self so far exceeds the capabilities of your physical self that you become unable to live up to the expectations your digital self has created. If exacerbated, your digital self may become so distant that you start feeling responsible for managing two distinct lives. When your digital self gets this far alienated from your physical self it may become impossible to identify with one or even both of the se ‘selves’. For Lamola, this is a grave threat to our humanity and constitutes a serious philosophical problem.

An Old Problem Magnified by New Tech To help save humanity from the perils of the digital self, I will now draw from someone you may not expect to have much to say on the topic: 20th-century existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sartre had a remarkably fervent view on the self and believed in a highly-demanding conception of being. For him, a person is born with the freedom to express themselves and create their personality in each and every situation. This freedom, Sartre held, is utterly important and must not be squandered. For it is perfectly possible, and in fact easy, for you to give up your expressive freedom and simply to succumb to the world as it is. In any given situation the easiest thing to do is to comply – be it with a social norm (e.g., drinking when socialising), a law (e.g., not jaywalking), a person (e.g., your boss demanding you work late), or even the domi-

About the Writer Jans George Rautenbach completed his BSc (Hons) Computer Science & Philosophy in 2021. His interests include computer ethics, philosophy of AI and activism in technology. In 2021 he did a remote presentation of a paper he wrote on Artificial Moral Agents at the International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems which was held in Bolzano, Italy. Find more about the paper here https://fois2021.inf.unibz.it/

nant social narrative of the time (e.g., consumerism – buying a new phone every two years).

However, if you comply, your self becomes flush with the circumstance – i.e., you become part of the social norm and your distinct identity is lost in the sea of normality. For Sartre, this is the greatest possible human failing and each and every one of us has the responsibility to use our freedom to revolt against circumstance and to make a distinct being of ourselves. By constantly acting by your own principles and living a life true to yourself (as opposed to others), you create an authentic self and a meaningful life.

Now, as good as this sounds, it is as yet unclear how Sartre is supposed to help with the digital self problem. As Lamola argues, after the 4IR it is very easy for our humanity to degenerate into digital selfhood – i.e., after you have made a compelling self on the web, it is easy to give up trying to live through your physical self and instead focus your efforts on cultivating the “perfect” and most-likeable online personality. In fact, many of us already do this without being aware of it: every time you post something online you subconsciously pick the best-looking filters, funniest caption, and cutest emojis, all to construct your digital self in the way you think will get the most interaction and be most popular. This is highly inauthentic! Creating your ‘self’ to maximise popularity is complying with your social circumstance. Sartre would be rolling in his grave.

The right thing to do in our post-4IR world is to stop constructing our inauthentic digital ‘selves’, and reclaim our truest identities. Every time you engage online – be it a photo, video, comment, or even like – consider for a moment whether what you are doing is truly you, or whether it is what you want others to think of you. If it is the latter, reconsider the post. To live an authentic life means acting consistently in all spheres (physical and cyberspace), and never blending in for others’ sake. Always be yourself. Your true self.

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Member Stories

Working, Studying & an AWS Fellowship

by Willie Macharia In January 2021, I was approached by the CEO of 3DIMO which is a startup based in Cape Town and San Francisco. This startup is creating an alternative agricultural asset class where individuals can invest in agricultural assets such as wine or coffee berries and earn returns upon sale of the produce. The CEO wanted me to work on a project of creating a digital cattle identification system on a part-time basis since I was still busy with my Master’s degree in Computer Science.

I worked on the project for two months and the CEO of the company was impressed by my deliverables. So, she proposed that I stick with the company and help the company create a stable software engineering infrastructure. I accepted the offer and I was tasked with designing and developing the code base of the company key products. Needing two more software developers, I easily found them through the professional network I had developed over the years. The CEO had once commented that she got to know about my tech skills through a member of the University of Cape Town Developers’ society (DEVSOC), which I chaired in 2020.

In March 2021, the startup applied to a Tech accelerator called Techstars Farm to Fork which is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the USA. The startup was accepted into the program but there was a requirement where at least one person was supposed to travel to Minnesota for three and half months to represent the company in the accelerator program. I was fortunate enough to have had a valid US visa as I was supposed to travel to New York in 2020 for an IBM Quantum Computing hackathon but I didn’t end up travelling then due to COVID-19 restrictions. No one else from the company had a US visa and due to the long process of securing a US visa, the CEO proposed that I travel to the US to represent the company. I was busy pursuing my master’s degree at the University of Cape Town and I could still continue with my studies remotely. The accelerator program was running from mid-July 2021 to October 2021. By mid-July, I was ready and set to travel to the US.

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While in the USA, I got an opportunity to enrol in AWS CTO Fellowship. The CTO Fellowship is a four-week track designed to provide early-stage CTOs with technical resources, guidance and community. The program consists of short weekly sessions with CTOs from top late-stage startups (Mailchimp, LeafLink, Twitch, Gorgias, and more) covering a different theme each week. Topics covered in the program include Goal Setting & Managing Your Engineering Team, Influencing Your Product Roadmap, and Recruiting Technical Talent. The program will also offer technical office hours and roundtables that will allow CTOs to dive deep on specific topics like APIs, Serverless, Cost Optimization, and more. The program is invite only and designed to benefit all seed-stage startups, regardless of cloud preference. I managed to finish the fellowship and after completion, I was appointed as the CTO of the startup where I am working to create a stable tech team and develop the company’s software infrastructure.

If you are a CTO of an early stage startup, and you are interested in joining the AWS CTO fellowship, kindly fill in your details here and you will be connected when the next cohort is enrolled: https://torch.io/q3-cto-fellowship/

About the Writer Willie Ng’ang’a Macharia is currently studying towards his Masters in Computer Science. His interests include intelligent driven security that is the application of AI in intrusion detection. Willie’s notable achievements include leading the UCT Developers Society in 2020, being awarded the Entelect Social Responsiveness award in 2019 by the UCT Department of Computer Science and being a Rhodes Scholarship Finalist in 2020.

A startup that builds startups Otherwise known as a ‘venture builder’, we are South Africa’s leading partner for entrepreneurs, startups, and corporates, to bring their ideas to life.

We help to validate business ideas.

We take validated ideas and design a product with cutting-edge UX/UI. We build the product, whether it be a site, web platform, or mobile app.

We launch the product to the right market and turn it into a scaleable business.

In just over 3 years we have grown to work with some of the world’s best companies, including several tech unicorns, and we have started many of our own ‘ventures’, some which are on track to become unicorns too.

Here is what we accomplished in 2021

The Delta | Venture Builder

75 ACTIVE PROJECTS & VENTURES

150 TEAM MEMBERS

520m RAISED IN THE LAST YE AR FOR OUR VENTURES

1.4bn HIGHEST VENTURE VA L U E

www.thedelta.io

Q&A Career Path Interviews

Jonathan Hart Jonathan ( Jono) Hart is a Growth Manager at The Delta.

He completed his Bachelor of Business Sciences Degree in Analytics at UCT in 2020.

You are currently a Growth Manager at Delta, what does a Growth Manager do?

The Delta is a ‘venture builder’, which means it houses all the experts required to build, launch, and scale startups. This means that we build our own startups, but can also provide Validation, Design, Development, and Growth services to entrepreneurs, startups, and corporates. By ‘Growth’, I mean commercialization strategy, sales, marketing, public relations, fundraising; that kind of stuff.

As a Growth Manager, I am responsible for the success of these activities for some of our internal ventures, as well as on our Growth projects for clients. This means sometimes doing those tasks myself, and sometimes managing a team on bigger projects. For example, if we are rebuilding a website for a client, I will act as a project manager and interface with experts such as a UX Designer, a UI Designer, a Frontend Developer, and also manage all client interactions.

I’m actually in the fortunate position that my biggest project is managing Growth for The Delta itself. So when you see the site, or a cool social post we’ve made, or hear about a new partnership we’ve devel-

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oped, chances are I had a hand in it.

How did you get to this position and what drew you to it?

I’ve always wanted to go into the startup scene, but was wary of going directly into a very specific industry (e.g. EdTech), or taking on a very specific role (e.g.

Data Scientist) because I wanted to see more of the startup space and pick up a lot of skills over the next few years before deciding where to go deeper. Alternatively, I could have gone into something like consulting which has a lot of variety but is further from the startup scene.

I saw The Delta as the best of both worlds, because it is a startup, and it works with lots of startups, so I knew I would get variety and exposure to the startup world.

In many ways, I’ve ended up as a ‘Growth Consultant’ for some ventures/clients, but I’ve also taken on some very operational roles in projects, which is something consultants rarely get to do.

I was lucky enough to get noticed by the CEO at the start of 2021, and after a brief but electrifying first call, he asked if I could come on as an assistant for some of

Careers

his special projects that he hadn’t had time to focus on. My role continued to evolve from there and I was able to take on a lot of responsibility quite quickly.

What skills have you found vital to your job?

I’ll list a few, but just a disclaimer, very few of these have been ‘hard skills’ like programming, statistics, design, etc.

Curiosity: I’m a firm believer that almost every skill can be picked up through a ‘growth mindset’ and willingness to learn new things. But while success/ skill might come from learning, learning is an output of curiosity. Curiosity is about asking a lot of questions, interrogating assumed ‘truths’, answering those questions through reading and trying things, and also designing habits or processes that make it more efficient to learn. I think curiosity can be trained too. For example, asking yourself each morning ‘what is one topic I know nothing about, and then trying to have a basic understanding of the concept by the end of the day. Over time it becomes easier to think of unknowns, and you’ve probably also curated a news feed or found some sites/authors that allows you to explore unknowns faster, and then you’ve found ways of storing that info efficiently, and then all of a sudden all these disjointed areas start intersecting and you’ve reached conclusions that no one else has reached before. It’s like starting a puzzle in the corners and then all your sections end up colliding in the centre.

Ownership: Unlike a traditional job with a very clear

job description, startups both require and reward people who avoid saying ‘that’s not my job’. Rather than fixating on my role and what it looked like the week before, I’ve been constantly advised to focus on the success of my area/project, and what that looks like this week; I’ve been told to then take whatever steps I need to drive that success, which might mean doing it myself, it might mean finding smart ways of delegating work, it might mean setting up an entirely new system of process. If you’ve worked on becoming more curious, it makes it far easier to adopt an ‘infinite job description’, because doing unfamiliar things is no longer a challenge.

Programming: Despite this being a ‘hard skill’, I would

lie if I said it wasn’t useful. Some project managers might reach an engineering hurdle, for example, and try to delegate it to someone which a background in programming; but like I said, specialists aren’t always

available in a startup, so then you’ve become a bottleneck. There are some areas where having a hard skill makes you more of a generalist and capable in more situations, and it has saved my skin a few times when there’s a more technical client and I can actually speak their language (no pun intended), but I also feel like this is a skill that can be learned if you are curious, and that you will pick up as the role requires if you have a strong sense of ownership.

Here are some other ‘skills’ I’ve come to care about: knowing about current affairs (it helps you empathise with international clients); basic design/whiteboarding software (it helps you illustrate your ideas faster and get team members on the same page, especially in a virtual setting); and writing good notes online (writing will help you remember things better, and when you do forget, well, it’s written down, and because it’s online it’s easier to access and can be shared with your team easily).

How well did your university experience prepare you for this job?

I think the biggest thing I can credit university with, is giving me a gentle introduction to adulthood. It was also during my uni years that I learnt about startups, got exposed to internships, and got exposed to the GDSC, so I don’t think I would be where I am today without having gone to UCT. Having said that, I think there’s a weak correlation between what I studied and what I’m required to do now. My degree was in business, statistics, and computer science.

I think three years of computer science courses gave me a fair understanding of programming, and even though I haven’t had to write a single line of code officially since I started working, the knowledge has helped me relate to more projects and collaborate better with developers. However, the projects at university were quite small-scale and even in group projects, you never have to learn proper source code control which is an essential skill in the real world, because you could have dozens of people contributing to the same code base.

I haven’t used a shred of stats since I started working, even though that was the real focus of my degree.

Nothing more to say there ;)

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While the business subjects at uni were interesting, they were far too isolated and theoretical to be useful.

Here are some examples: •

•

•

My marketing courses taught me the importance of things like segmentation, advertising, and an integrated marketing strategy; but we never actually performed things like SEO research, or ran Google or Facebook ads, or had to run a marketing strategy and analyze the results.

My people management course was all about understanding different psychologies and bringing the best out of a team, but all the team projects could easily be accomplished with one person. At work, you simply cannot do everything yourself so you have to become a delegator and a good team player.

My professional communication course was about writing business reports, which no one reads or writes anyways these days. It could have taught me email etiquette, or how to communicate efficiently on tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

All of these courses were done in isolation, rather than as part of one big connected project on the same topic, whereas in the working world one has to draw on all these disciplines in the same project.

Tell us about your experience leading the Developer Student Club and what impact has this experience had on your career?

Leading the DSC was likely the most rewarding part of my university experience. It gave me a real taste of project management, allowed me to forge some great connections in the tech space, and it helped me become passionate about building tech communities and exposing students to the wider world, because I think the sooner one learns the pros and cons of uni and what is out there, they can complement their uni learnings with outside learnings, such as club activities, internships, or doing courses by oneself.

Most employers looking to create ‘talent dense’ teams look for the following in candidates: problem-solving ability; entrepreneurial drive; inclusive leadership; and evidence of personal impact.

There were several problems I encountered during my tenure as a DSC lead, for example, the introduc-

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tion of the pandemic which forced the club to become virtual.

Running events successfully without any manager, or any contractual obligations, or incentives like a salary, meant I had to have personal and entrepreneurial drive.

I was leading a core team of diverse people, and running a club of hundreds of even more diverse members, so I had to become an inclusive leader.

Finally, the club was purpose-driven, so everything we did was aimed at creating an impact for students or the broader society.

So overall, I think my time with the DSC made me more job-ready than anything else.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to have a similar experience as you?

Just join a startup haha. But really, I think, no matter how early in your degree you are, you should be spending part of your holidays planning for your future. That could be doing internships, which will make your portfolio more attractive while also telling you earlier what kind of roles you do and don’t like. That could also be doing short online courses, or starting holiday businesses. I think all of this will turn you into more of a generalist and really multiply your opportunities after studying.

I think it’s also important to invest some of your time into any new trending technologies. This could be VR/ AR, NFTs, or even the low-/no-code movement, which I would highly recommend reading up on. It’s insane how many MVPs can be built while hardly writing any lines of code, which means you can start entire businesses without having a degree or needing to find a ‘technical co-founder’.

Investigate tools like Bubble, Retool, and Webflow, I think they’ll be the future of software development for early-stage startups, just like Shopify/Wix/WooCommerce really changed the game for small online businesses.

What are your long-term career goals?

I am highly, highly motivated to become a global tech entrepreneur. I think my time at The Delta is really

Careers

helping me develop a wide set of skills while also being close to the startup scene and forming some awesome connections. I think after a few years close to the action I would like to start my own business (well, I already have some side-projects but by this, I mean going full-time into my own thing), and I don’t expect this first business to change the world, but I hope it will be successful enough for me to leap to the next one, and the next one, until I start something truly game-changing. I hope that whatever I go into can have a significant social impact too.

Ultimately, beyond helping to create a world where everyone’s basic needs are met, I want children to grow up with all the access to beauty, and art, and beautiful things, that I was able to. I want every child to be able to read great books, to be able to travel to other countries, to be able to get immersed in music, and films, and video games. I think that’s possible within my lifetime.

How do you maintain a work-life balance?

I would be lying if I said I worked 8 hours a day and then clocked off and relaxed. I very much see work as a hobby, so I haven’t achieved balance in a traditional sense, but I think that I have been cautious not to let my work consume me. Some tactics include: •

Getting up quite frequently while working (like walking around my room while on a meeting)

•

Taking a midday break where I completely switch off (like play video games for an hour), otherwise, it’s easy to work for 8+ hours straight and experience diminishing returns as one gets less productive

•

If I am planning to spend the evening away from my laptop, I make sure to go to the gym: exercise is a great divider and really allows me to switch headspaces

•

I try to spend Saturday doing activities that recharge me, and then on Sundays I do admin and prep for the workweek

•

I’m extremely strict about getting 8 hours of quality sleep almost every night, so I have a fairly consistent sleep routine and make sure not to drink coffee after 2 pm so that most of it is out of my system when I go to bed

•

I’ve gotten into the habit of ordering lots of healthy frozen meals, which means I don’t skip meals, save time from not cooking, and also am not reliant on junk food, as frozen meals are just as convenient; and when I do cook, it’s meal-prep for quite a few days

As a result, I actually get a lot of time to work, but also to cover the fundamentals: sleep, exercise, chilling, learning, socializing. I won’t just laze about and watch Netflix every evening and weekend (though I have had a few binges), but because I’ve become hyper-critical about which shows/movies to watch (life is too short to watch things that have less than 7 on IMDB, let’s be real here), I feel like my relaxing time is always wellspent.

Although I don’t maintain a strict work-life balance, I have found that exercise, some core hobbies, and being hypercritical has kept me energized. Balance is not about 50:50, but rather staying above the water in the core aspects of life.

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Tell us about your experience as an engineer? How did you start and how has the journey been so far?

I started my career as a Cybersecurity consultant, progressed to data engineering then full-stack software engineering. I’ve had exposure to tech in a variety of industries, namely eCommerce, banking, telecommunications, and insurance - from the perspective of either security analysis, data processing/analysis or software development.

Career Path Interviews

Q&A

• Infrastructure management incorporating various tools that aid in continuous development, deployment, and integration. Specifically in the context of deploying into a cloud environment.

What challenges did you face along the way and how did you overcome them?

Through my degree, I found selfdoubt to be the hardest and most consistent challenge I faced. This carried over as I started my career in the form of imposter syndrome.

You’re currently a Full Stack Software Engineer, can you describe what you do and what are your responsibilities?

In my current role, I focus on the following:

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• Front-end development in JavaScript - the development of mobile features in React Native.

• Data analysis with SQL and Python - applying a business mindset to evaluate the success of software developed, such as using various analytics tools to unpack the efficacy of new features.

Whilst I was initially set on pursuing a career as a Mechatronic engineer (in a more conventional sense), I’m glad I stumbled upon my current career trajectory. Thus far, it’s been quite fulfilling and I’m really appreciative of the breadth of exposure that I’ve experienced.

Overcoming these feelings took time and effort but I actually found a simplistic answer to be the most effective - relearning how to focus on the problem at hand. I found that paying the most amount of attention to the joy of problem-solving helped me rediscover my own strengths.

• Back-end development in Python - which entails server-side design and implementation of complex algorithms, APIs as well as data model management (the latter two being centred around the Django REST framework).

• Maintenance and bug fixing ensuring the constant availability of the product I work on.

How well did your university experience prepare you for this job?

Prathiksha Singh Prathiksha Singh completed her BSc(Eng) Mechatronics at UCT. She is now a Full Stack Software Engineer at SweepSouth.

My university experience allowed me to develop a foundational problem-solving toolkit - which I make use of every day.

From a software engineering context, my degree in Mechatronic engineering did not specifically include coding in the context of application development/data management. However, learning the fundamentals of algorithm design and lower-level languages (and more abstract knowledge in general) enabled me to pick up

Careers

relevant skills fairly quickly.

•

Additionally, with the way in which UCT’s electrical engineering department was structured, I was able to do a final year research project focused on application development that helped me pivot - this was incredibly useful.

I appreciate spending time outdoors. I really enjoy hiking and outdoor tours (like game drives) or visiting wine farms.

•

Health is important to me so I practice yoga and go for spin classes a few times a week. I’ve also recently taken up tennis.

•

Dancing (Indian classical)

•

Reading - Harry Potter will always be a favourite :)

What strategies do you maintain to ensure that you are relevant in your field?

In my experience thus far, the following lessons have been the most valuable: •

Constantly learning in a mindful manner is important. Try to align this with shorter-term career goals.

•

Articles in the community are incredibly helpful. I’ve personally found Medium articles to be a great source of inspiration for new projects or just understanding how to weigh up different popular certifications.

•

Learning from others is critical. This has helped accelerate my learning and I would encourage young engineers to seek out mentorship from trusted leaders early on in their careers.

Which has been more valuable in your career, your education or your experience? Why?

How do you maintain a work-life balance?

I struggled with this for some time, and it is not easy to get right. For me, enforcing more deliberate boundaries on a daily basis and prioritising my well-being has been critical. For example, I carve out time for recreational activities, like sport or yoga, in my calendar and stick to that no matter what.

It’s easy to feel like you don’t have the time to do these things, but it can really help with clearing your headspace.

What advice would you give someone who wants to explore a career in tech?

If you’re interested in and passionate about tech, you don’t need a lot to start - just get a GitLab repository going with a Hello World project :)

In my case, my experience has been more valuable, but this is not limited to work experience. What I’ve found is that the experience of having worked towards a degree helps grow skills like perseverance in the face of a difficult problem - which is greatly appreciated in any work environment.

Not knowing a lot about popular technology is not as much of a deterrent as you may think - you’ll learn the most on the job

What are your hobbies?

What are your next career steps?

•

At this stage of my career, I’m looking to double down on technical depth, so I’ll be continuing to work as a software engineer. I’m also about to start my Master’s in Software Engineering (with a sub-focus on Machine Learning) at UCT.

Volunteering - it’s quite clear that diversity and inclusion is a work in progress in the context of the tech industry. As such, I think it’s important to provide support to new joiners - in any way that’s possible. GirlCode, an NPO, makes this possible by allowing for professionals to volunteer their time to mentor fellows in the current GirlCode cohort. It’s been great to at least contribute in this manner so far.

It’s okay to pivot in your career - you won’t have all the answers at first and you’ll learn along the way

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Work with, not for, The Delta

Be on the founding team of multiple startups

We promote extreme ownership. Work on challenging new ventures while being treated the same way a co-founder would. Your role will be highly dynamic, and you’ll solve problems that have never been solved before, in areas such as:

Work from anywhere as we become Europe & Africa's largest venture builder We are designing a work culture that is fully remote and asynchronous.

Travel the world, choose your hours, and know that you’ll always have a home in the countries we most operate in: South Africa, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain.

01 FINTECH

05 AGRICULTURE

10 TRAVEL

02 BUSINESS SERVICES

06 RETAIL

11

HEALTHTECH

03 ECOMMERCE

07 EDUCATION

11

SUSTAINABILITY

04 FINANCIAL SERVICES

08 TOURISM

05 BUSINESS SERVICES

09 TRANSPORT

O U R P R OJ E C T S

VIEW OUR OPENINGS

Choose from several exciting roles across our departments, each led by successful entrepreneurs and industry veterans. Frequent roles we hire for include: Software Engineers, Product Managers, UX/UI Designers, and Growth Marketers.

/ PERKS

Access to 100s of Online Courses

Chilled Atmosphere

Optional Cape Town Office

Flexible Hours

Meditation & Support Pods

Remote Working

Frequent Virtual and In-Person Events such as Bowling, Festivals, Pub Quizzes, Games-Nights, and Team Dinners.

Relaxed Dress Code Cutting Edge Tech Company-Wide Standups & Upskilling Sessions

Grad Profiles Class of 2021

Degree

BSc Computer Science and Computer Engineering (Computer Science Honours)

2022 Plans

Software Engineering Internship

The Interview Process

Samoei Oloo How they prepped for the interview The application process was fairly straightforward and took about 8 weeks (from the point of application to the time that Samoei received the email that she got the position). The first stage was a phone screening interview. This interview is more relaxed than the formal technical interview, where recruiters get to ask more personal questions, asking about your hobbies & life outside work. The technical interview consisted of 5 medium-level challenge coding questions which are similar to the standard LeetCode/HackerRank type questions, where Samoei had to complete them in a certain time and present some form of documentation of her problem-solving/thinking process while completing the questions.

Top tip for final-year students Create and maintain solid connections with your classmates.

Put all your projects (and some of those pesky 3rd year assignments) on Github. Don’t be afraid to ask questions during a technical interview. Be relatively active on LinkedIn and choose carefully when applying to companies. Don’t just apply for the sake of applying. Research the company, decide if they would be a good fit for you and then apply. It makes the whole application process easier.

Completed and submitted application for position Phone interview

screening

Technical Interview

Received a firm offer for the position

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Careers

Degree

BSc Physics, Computer Science and Mathematics

2022 Plans

Associate Software Developer at Thinkst

The Interview Process

Donal Davies Completed and submitted application for position Introductory interview with CTO & Technical evaulation Second interview (running through and explaining technical evaluation solution and getting a better sense of team fit) with 3 senior developers Final ‘interview’. Meeting with the founder, talking about interests and giving him a better idea of who Donal is.

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How they prepped for the interview There were two broad camps of first interviews that Donal went through: either a talk about interests and history and what the company does, or, closer to a technical assessment. For Thinkst it was option one, just chatting with the CTO about what Donal had been doing before and their interests, and a lot about the company and what it does. The tech evaluation came more or less immediately after and it was tough. Donal spent the full 5 days on it and only managed to crack it at the last minute. The next interview was running through their solution with some senior developers explaining their code and talking about why they made some of the choices they made. It involved being asked questions about what they did and how small changes to the scenario would affect the code. That was effectively the deciding interview and after that it was mainly formalities.

Top tip for final-year students Being able to say you don’t know the answer to something is important, but you must have the tenacity to try and find a solution. Know your foundations, but don’t stress too much about the details. And have questions prepared - either about the company you’re interviewing at itself, or about the interviewer and things they find interesting at the company. Show that you are interested and don’t be blindsided by this.

Grad Interviews Class of 2021 Who will you be working with in 2022?

I’m going to be working with 123Tutors in 2022. I’m foreign labour, so the same South African rules don’t apply to me about not being able to work full-time on a student visa.

Hopefully, I will have gotten a critical skills visa by the end of 2021 and then in 2022, I’ll be able to move to South Africa and take up a full-time position with them.

Could you give us some advice on the interview process?

Tumo Masire Tell us a bit about yourself and what your plans are for next year.

I am originally from Botswana and moved to Cape Town to do Computer Science and Economics as an undergraduate degree. I have recently just completed my honours in Computer Science.

I have held a few jobs here and there and currently; I am working for a company 123Tutors. They plan to assist me in getting a visa or critical skills visa to move to South Africa next year.

I know you’re an international student, which entails many additional challenges that come with that. Could you tell us a little bit about the challenges you face?

There are three types of interviews I have experienced.

Firstly, the whiteboard interview. This was more popular before COVID where you actually write code on a whiteboard. The other one is a coding challenge, where you log on to an online IDE with the employer and they can watch you code in real-time. The third is project-based, where they will give you starter code and you would need to solve it the remainder.

Firstly, be comfortable with the language you want to use for interviews, even if it isn’t the company’s main language. Secondly, employers want to see how you think and how you break down the problem. They are not always too concerned that you arrived at the correct solution. So, it’s good to just talk out loud and walk the interviewer through what you’re thinking.

Even if the code does not run, they are looking for a good thought process. Then, if you have enough time, comment up your code and make it clean.

Do you have any advice for the incoming grads?

There’s a fine line between overworking and under schooling. I would recommend getting a part-time It’s quite tricky acquiring full-time employment. Often job. HOWEVER, some of my peers really struggled and job fairs are looking for South African applicants only, it became a difficult balancing act. You can try it out, which can be disappointing when I feel I am qualified but if things aren’t working out, then I do recommend for the position. I’ve managed to work for startups, that you quit the job and focus on your grades. Make which tend to be a little bit more flexible with their sure to communicate your schooling situation with hiring policy. your employers, you need to have sufficient flexibility to focus on exams and big projects.

When working as an international student, one needs to just remain aware and have a discussion with your University is a very helpful tool as it teaches you how employer. If they are open to working with you, you to think and how to learn. It doesn’t give you all the can try to work part-time and then if you prove useful, answers. So, getting out there in the workplace envithen you can discuss sliding it into a full-time position. ronment can also help push you and improve your coding and development abilities.

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Careers

Lynn Weyn Why did you choose to become a developer?

Back in high school I didn’t really know what I wanted to become one day, but then I went to various open days and saw that computer science/development programs is the right combination of all my interests – problem-solving, creativity, determinism, and being able to see the result you put together.

Where will you be working next year and why did you choose to work there?

Electrum Payments. I did an internship there in my second year, it was my first opportunity to use the theory learnt at university in the real world. I truly enjoyed the work and company culture, and when they offered me a bursary and a job for after honours, I was stoked!

What was the interview process like?

I was interviewed for my internship, and it was a one-hour technical interview where I answered coding

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questions on a whiteboard to demonstrate my knowledge on the fundamentals of Java.

Where would you like your career to be a few years from now?

I plan to spend quite a few years at Electrum and see where that takes me. In the far future, I hope to steer my career towards game development.

What advice are you able to give to future graduates?

Apply to as many companies within your field of interest as possible, even if their website says you need a few years of experience – you miss all the shots that you don’t take!

really catalysed my educational journey, providing a foundation from which I still work today.

How has your attitude facilitated your learning and your future career?

I am someone who does not typically like chilling. I do lead a balanced life, but I always want to be doing something. I like to be able to facilitate my own schedule and choose what I want to do. Even at UCT, I’ve been very open and accepting of the flexibility. You have to embrace not knowing what is going to happen next. Although I have a plan for next year, I can still easily move around within that which is very exciting for me.

Kialan Pillay When did you realize you wanted to become a developer?

You also do not really know what your fit is, you need some work experience before you can find what you really want to do. But the industry is so incredibly vast that it is great to just be able to jump in and experience it and not have the next 30-40 years mapped out. I find that very exciting especially within the realm of computer science. You can probably switch into a field like robotics and go and work in Agri-tech. We are very lucky to have that mobility.

I realized very early on when I was about 10 or 11. I was exposed to Scratch as my first programming language. After Scratch, I was introduced to Java the following year. It was very basic and then I also learnt How do you deal with Imposter Syndrome?

Web development on my own and then it grew from there. Soon, I realized this is what I wanted to do.

It’s a high-pressure environment and a lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome. There are a lot of What has been your attitude towards succeeding developers coming into the industry and a lot of them in university? are incredibly talented. It becomes a question of not only finding your fit but are you even good enough to I have always had a positive mindset about learning, fit in? challenging myself with interesting courses. Often courses do not live up to expectations, but I’ve always I think it generally just comes down to being fearless been of the impression that university is meant to and brave and just, you need to understand it’s okay facilitate your learning. It’s really a place of facilitation to fail and you can only learn from that. You may be rather than prescription, which is part of what makes surrounded by people that are smarter and much it challenging. more experienced than you, but that’s fine because you can learn from them.

How did you find being so much younger than the rest of your class?

What are you planning on doing next year?

I skipped from grade 2 to grade 5, which was a bit of an adjustment at the time. The reason it worked is I went to a very small Christian school. There was one teacher for grades four and five. Being so small, it was not viable to split these classes. So, I spent a full two days in grade four and then realized that if I moved my desk to the opposite side of the classroom I would be in grade 5. Having learnt to read at the age of two

So, my professional career began with Electrum. I did an internship with them in June of my second year. It was such a wonderful, enriching experience. I learned a lot. I went in having very little experience in front end development and I was able to deliver a proper project in the final week. You just need to remind yourself that it’s going to be tough at first. But everyone starts out somewhere.

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Careers

After Electrum I interned at AWS twice and, between these internships, I went to Nomanini, a pioneering fintech platform. After ending my Amazon internship this year, I got an offer to join, and I took it immediately. I really wanted to have that flexibility in terms of my career. So, I have a rough plan about my qualifications and career, but enough flexibility to figure out my plan from there.

However, for me, I really valued the learning I got to do and had fun doing so.

Do you feel like you made the right decision doing honours?

At university, I definitely had a shift away from the high school mentality of just wanting to get 90s.

I became aware of the fact it was not a true reflection of my abilities or anyone else’s. Despite grades being requirements for many things, I have learnt to be happy with my results knowing that university is difficult and that I have tried my utmost, especially considering the one-dimensional image your grades actually provide.

I really enjoyed honours. But it’s really about what you take from it. I would recommend doing honours if you want to deepen your knowledge in certain specialization areas that you don’t get at a third-year level, such as network security and artificial intelligence.

However, do not just do it for the piece of paper, no one will look down on you just because you only have an undergrad degree. It will not affect your employability.

It is a very personal choice. You should ignore what all your friends are doing. You can have all the advice in the world, but ultimately you need to rely on your own decision. You know what’s best for you and whether you have the energy to do another year. Working at a company is also an enriching and fast-paced experience and that in itself is a learning experience. This is why I am open to either doing my Master’s overseas or working at AWS. Each is a different experience and has opportunities to learn.

How to face the challenge of university with a positive mindset?

University is a challenging institution and it’s meant to be tough. I just feel that like so many students in the university community often cannot see the joy in learning. It is valid to struggle, there are many challenges. Sometimes the workload can get overwhelming and it’s important to prioritise your mental health.

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I wanted to get a lot out of university that went beyond achieving X aggregate. I wanted to be involved: I was head student, and head tutor. At the end of the day, academics have their place, but there is so much more you can get than just good marks.

What do you have any advice for an aspiring developer?

Be brave, be fearless and be flexible. I know that it’s such a stupid cliche but realise that you have infinite paths in front of you. It’s up to you to take the one which fits you best.

Also, when it comes to developer companies, they respond to effort and energy. Even if you don’t know anything, your willingness to learn and adapt to the processes in their culture is highly regarded. So always be willing to learn and ask for help. More often than not, their employees are more than happy to offer help.

Kudzai Chris Kateera Why did you choose to become a developer?

ogy, but I also feel I have a lot more to offer. So, in this phase of my career, I decided to immerse myself in Since I was young, I was always fascinated by comput- the world of software engineering to be as technical ers, and these things came naturally to me. I had an as I can be. I realized through my internship that I am insatiable thirst for knowing how computers worked. programming language agnostic, meaning whether it I remember teaching my older sister how to connect is backend or frontend, I just see code as code. In addito the internet using a 56 kbit/s dial-up internet line. tion, I have a breadth of knowledge in C, C++, python, I used to get in trouble for raising the bill at home java, JavaScript, Julia, MATLAB, Octave, bash as used because I would be curious, browsing the internet and in scientific, web development and machine learning downloading games overnight. The bill would be high applications (https://github.com/chris-kck). As such, I because there would be a calling charge and a data will be working towards full stack development. Ulticharge whenever dial-up internet was used. mately for me, whichever way my career goes, I know I will need to work in a team, I will need to lead at some This passion continued to grow and led me to study point, and I will need problem solving skills that I will computer studies and information communica- gain through software engineering. tion technology via the Cambridge IGCSE examining board on my own as these were not offered at my Where will you be working next year and why did high school. I fortunately managed to pass with two you choose to work there? distinctions in these subjects. My tenacity to pursue computers despite all odds then informed me to study I will be working at an amazing company called Electrical and Computer Engineering as I wasn’t too MOHARA (mohara.co). MOHARA is a digital product sure whether I liked the hardware side or the soft- agency enabling entrepreneurs and corporates to ware side more. Fast forward, I realized that software fulfil their potential by applying our ten years of softwasn’t too difficult for me and decided to launch my ware product expertise to craft innovative and disrupcareer in the software engineering space. I have a tive digital products. I interned for them in December passion for programming and building products that 2020 during the COVID pandemic. They took a bet will make the world move forward through technol- on me by interviewing me online, offering me a paid

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29

Careers

internship as I worked remotely from Zimbabwe (had travelled for holiday). Although times were tough, I managed to contribute significantly to the organization through 2 different projects I worked on, and they offered me a role upon completion of my studies.

I had several options post-graduating – which is rare for an international student but still chose MOHARA for several reasons.

1. The company culture was conducive for developers to grow and have support systems when stuck. There are diverse projects to work on in different languages which meant interesting projects.

2. They offered career counselling which was a big factor as they not only considered their organizational goals but tried to align an employee’s personal goals and career development with the projects they worked on. This showed me that the company cared a lot about their employees.

3. I had worked with two of the management engineers and they really helped me boost my confidence in this field and that is the growth I was looking for, striking the right balance between challenge and support.

What was the interview process like?

The interview was fun. An interview is an opportunity to talk about and market that 1 subject you’ve known all your life that is: YOU! For me it was more of a conversation more than anything where it was a mutual assessment of whether each side is fit for the other. Don’t get me wrong, I was not always this confident about interviews but when I realized that you just got to be 100% yourself and if it makes the cut, it does, if not, you try again. In addition, there are some common interview questions you should prepare for and not think of everything on the spot. One can be a good candidate but without preparation, that potential can go to waste.

The process involved the Managing Director and one of the software engineers. It started off with some personality questions which just wanted to know my background and what I am looking for in terms of employment. I also explored some soft skills and leadership qualities.

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In the technical section, questions were asked around my personal repositories and projects I had worked on. I happily answered these with a lot of enthusiasm as I had worked on these projects myself. A few more questions were asked, and I was honest where I was uncertain about certain things and did not lie.

At the end of the interview, I felt soo good and was convinced internally that I had landed the job. Indeed, I got an email a day later confirming my suspicions.

The rest is now history.

Where would you like your career to be a few years from now?

This is an interesting one. I am still in the process of finalizing my 5-year plan. It’s always an ongoing process whose sails are ever changing, but as it stands, I am working on becoming a senior full stack software engineer in the coming years. An important ingredient to the recipe that I am currently gaining is experience. That cannot be replaced by anything else as software engineering is a very practical and technical profession. I am also looking forward to working towards a Master’s degree which will be informed by my experience in the industry and where my specialized passions lie. I still have a fire burning within me to offer beyond just software engineering expertise as I also have extensive knowledge in electronics and embedded systems.

What advice are you able to give to future graduates?

Be proactive about your future and job hunting.

Setting yourself up starts before you graduate.

Before you hunt, go to the shooting range and practice. Opportunities favour those who are prepared. By this I mean get some personal projects done in your personal repositories, practice coding with different frameworks, spruce up your CV, work on your cover letter, update your LinkedIn profile, build an ePortfolio website. Shows your skills and not only say what they are. Equally important to technical skills are also soft skills. Be a team player, be a good communicator who articulates themselves well. Be proactive. Be prepared. Be open-minded. Be curious. Most importantly, be YOU!

Helping UCT alumni become worldrenowned tech entrepreneurs

UCT is known for its entrepreneurial talent, and we’ve had the priviledge of designing, developing, and growing the ventures of some famous alumni.

DigsConnect is helping students and young professionals worldwide find shared housing through a safe & intuitive co-housing marketplace.

In 2019 it raised over R12m in seed funding, and is now live in 30 countries across 5 continents.

Alexandria Procter CO-FOUNDER & CEO OF DIGSCONNECT G R A D U AT E D 2 0 1 6

Strive is an EdTech startup that, through its math through code approach, is revolutionising the way we teach high school maths.

In 2021 it was admitted into the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator in the United States.

Tamir Shklaz C O - F O U N D E R & C TO O F S T R I V E M AT H G R A D U AT E D 2 0 1 9

Strove is an activity-based mobile rewards application that empowers organisations to inspire their employees to live a healthy and active life.

Strove has received over R4m funding to date, backed by VC-firm Launch Africa, and has recently expanded into the UK.

Want to work with them too?

The Delta | Venture Builder

Chris Bruchhausen FOUNDER & CEO OF STROVE G R A D U AT E D 2 0 1 8

VIEW OUR OPENINGS

www.thedelta.io

State of the UCT Develeper Nation

by Chelsea Van Coller

This is the second year in which we embark on dissecting and gaining a better understanding of the developer community at UCT. This allows us to draw more comparisons and gain more understanding of how the community has changed over the past two years.

In order to carry out our analysis, we sent out a survey to the predominant developer communities (GDSC, WICS and DevSoc) and received 140 responses from students.

Demographics The majority of students are in second and third year, which is a positive shift, as last year’s demographic showed a decline in third years. There was also an increase in the number of fourth year and honours students from 17.8% to 31.9% combined. This means more students are privy to the excellent opportunities the developer communities offer especially in offering career development However, it is unfortunate to note the large decline in first years (from 26.9% to 11.6%).

This could be attributed to lack of reach to first years or disengagement as they adjust to online learning. This should be focused on in the upcoming years to foster programs that target the engagement of younger developers.

The community remains largely male-dominated with two-thirds of the community consisting of males. The gender gap within the STEM fields is a consistent problem, where the dominant gender stereotypes discourage students from pursuing these paths. At UCT we are fortunate enough to have the Womxn in Computer Science society that strives to encourage women to pursue a career in tech and support those who have chosen it as their career path. Hopefully, in the years to come, the imagery behind these fields will change to encourage more diversity.

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Looking at the popularity of social media sites, most students of the three societies surveyed engage the most with Instagram and LinkedIn, followed by Github, Facebook, Twitter, Discord and Slack. Discord and Slack have seen the most growth over the last year,

Year of Study Post-Grad

7.2% 11.6%

Honours Fourth Year

15.2% 22.5% 16.7%

Third Year Second Year

26.8%

First Year

Gender 1.4% Female

33.6% Male

65%

Prefer not to say

Hardest Language

Popularity of Social Media Sites Instagram

Python

Facebook

Java

Twitter

C++

Slack

C

Discord

JavaScript

Github

Other

LinkedIn Other None

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Proportion of Respondents (%)

0

20

40

60

80

100

especially due to a push from the developer communities to use these platforms. Slack was especially encouraged through various hackathons due to its proliferation within the development world. However, Discord remains the more widely known and popular choice.

Programming experience

Favourite Language Python Java C++ C# HTML

The most popular programming languages are Python and Java, with 90% of students having been taught the languages in their first year. Languages such as SQL, R, C#, C++ and C are taught within UCT courses, thus there are a large number of students that are familiar with the languages. There has also been a large rise in the number of students that use web-based languages (HTML, CSS and JavaScript). Last year’s survey indi-

Popularity of Programming Langauges

CSS JavaScript Other

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Proportion of Respondents (%)

cated that less than 3% of students were familiar with these languages. This is very encouraging as it indicates a growing interest in front-end development and shows that students are pursuing knowledge outside of their studies.

Java and C++ are by far the most challenging languages learnt. It could be argued that C++ is the most difficult since 98% of the students that have learnt C++ claimed it was. 53% of students found Java challenging, this could be attributed to the fact that it is the second language taught in university introducing object-orientated programming, which can be difficult to grasp in the beginning. It is encouraging to note that the university is introducing students to computer science using Python as it appears to be a more palatable language by comparison.

Python Java C++ C# HTML CSS JavaScript SQL 0

20

40

60

Proportion of Respondents (%)

80

100

Although most UCT development is done in Java,

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33

Survey

Python appears to be the preferred language and Java follows closely behind. A similar reflection was seen in the 2021 South African State of the Developer Nation

by OfferZen, where Python was the most desirable language to learn. However, JavaScript is the most widely used language and Java and Python are about equal. JavaScript and HTML also have been largely selected by students, thus displaying keen interest in web development. This is a positive as JavaScript is the most widely used language.

Have you done any internship or vac-work?

Yes

40.6% 59.4%

No

Job Confidence 92% of students indicate that additional learning beyond what is taught within a degree is required in order to get a job. This is a somewhat concerning

Do you think additional learning is necessary to getting a job?

Yes No Maybe

92%

lent way to gain perspective of the working world and improve your skills. This is a two per cent increase from last year, which is encouraging to note. However, 60% of students were not able to or did not attempt to gain work experience, which may be a result of the pandemic. Many companies are unable to offer internship opportunities or offer more limited positions, as they cannot cater for many students.

It is important to note how aware students are of the opportunities afforded to them and whether the prob-

How aware are you of vac work/graduate opportunities in tech?

35

statistic from a university standpoint. Understandably, universities wish to foster an environment that promotes further academic studies. However, due to the limited space for postgraduate studies, most students will enter the job market. As such, UCT could integrate more job-related skills into their CS degrees, allowing the students to be sufficiently educated to perform as a software engineer. As the developer market. As the developer market shifts and grows rapidly, the procurement of a degree in computing is often seen as less important than the actual software development skills.

Around 40% of students have done internships or vac work, which is encouraging to see as it is an excel-

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30 25 20 15 10 5 0

1 (Not Aware)

2

3

4

5 (Very Aware)

lem lies with the lack of information. 41.6% of students are fairly aware of the opportunities in tech, which is a large increase from the 25% seen last year. The bulk of the community remains in the middle, although the distribution is now skewed in favour of greater awareness. This indicates there has been improved engagement from employers and societies on the different opportunities in tech. They should continue working on improving this trend as every student should have access to all the opportunities available to them.

Many students have had wonderful internship experiences and we would like to note some companies that students commend as their favourite internship experiences. These include Electrum payments, F-Secure, Amazon Web Services, SOLIDitech and OptiSolutions.

We commend these companies for their continued involvement in fostering student growth and development.

This could be owed to the society still needing to register as an official UCT society, which hinders their access to the UCT students. WICS saw a slight increase to 31%, which is an impressive number considering that they are targeting a smaller audience and 33% of respondents identify as female.

A cultural aspect of being part of a developer society is hosting hackathons. Hackathons are hosted all over the world and provide developers with an excellent opportunity to join together to solve problems and learn.

The UCT Developer Community places importance on hosting hackathons and at least one is held each year by each society. WICS and DevSoc joined forces this year to offer a Hackathon 101 series, in an attempt to

Do you know what a hackathon is?

Society Engagement

11.6%

This year DevSoc was the most popular society since 76% of survey respondents had attended a DevSoc

What UCT Societies are you part of?

Yes No Maybe

86.9%

DevSoc DSC WICS

Have you ever participated in a hackathon?

InvestSoc CyrptoSoc EntrepreneurSoc Other

Yes 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Proportion of Respondents (%)

event. This could be attributed to the large number of events hosted this year, as well as events such as #BreakTheRules that connect a large number of students with companies. GDSC engagement was around 44%, which is a slight decrease from last year.

47.4%

50.4%

No Other

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35

Survey

introduce students to hackathons. It included how a hackathon works, ideation around the idea, web development and app development. It is gratifying to note that 47% of developers have participated in a hackathon which is a large increase from the 37% from last year. There is still a number of students (13%) that are unsure about the concept, which may be due to the lack of engagement with the societies.

While it is known that participating in a hackathon is a challenging task that spans a long period (24-48 hours), it is strongly recommended that students attempt to partake in at least one hackathon within their university career. At most hackathons food is provided, with prizes up for grabs. But most importantly, a lot of learning is achieved and excellent connections are made with fellow developers.

Popularity of different technology types

What non-technical skills would you most like to pick up?

Teamwork Remote Collaboration Project Management CV/Resume Building Interview Skills Public Speaking Communication Design Thinking Business Development

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Proportion of Respondents (%)

What projects would you like to see from UCT’s Developer Societies in 2021?

Entry Level Technical Workshops Advanced Technical Workshops

Web

Non-technical workshops

Augmented Reality Cypersecurity

Hackathons

Android Embedded Systems

Tech Talks

Machine Learning

Long-term Projects

FinTech

Outreach

BlockChain

Career Guidance

Cloud Computing Quantum Computing Game Development Other

0

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Proportion of Respondents (%)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Proportion of Respondents (%)

Interests and Desires We want to have a good understanding of the developer community in order to provide more effective content for our developers. A large aspect of the societies are about teaching new technologies, and this year the top interests lie on the topics of web, cybersecurity and machine learning. This mirrors the results seen last year; thus, societies need to look at how they can better accommodate these interests.

36

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Having technical skills is important in the working world; however, soft skills also play a significant role in making one a talented developer. Some of the soft skills students are interested in attaining are those of project management, interview skills and design thinking. UCT Developer Society hosted an interview skills workshop this year and it showed how much anxiety there is around interviews. Developer societies need to look at helping students cross this barrier as it is important for acquiring the job they may desire.

This year more than half the community would like to see more hackathons and coding competitions, entry-level technical workshops and career guidance

workshops. As there has been a revived interest in hackathons within the community, the societies should focus on this and delve deeper into motivated students to participate. The technical workshops should elaborate on the previous technical skills paragraph. Career guidance can be worked on with different companies that the students would like to work at and with assistance from the Careers Service.

We also asked the community which companies they would like to work for in the future. Many people mentioned the Big Five which are Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Mircrosoft.

Other South African companies were also mentioned such as Allan Gray, Takealot, Discovery and many more. The communities should use these references to potentially get speakers from these companies, so students can learn more about them.

Conclusions and recommendations After evaluating results from 2020 and 2021, we can deduce that there has been significant growth within the developer community at UCT, which is delightful to note. Many of the interests and desires of the students have remained the same, indicating a clear path of focus for the future committees. The recommended considerations are: •

space such as GitHub and Discord.

•

Place more emphasis on advertising the societies to first years and targeting events towards them.

As the pandemic passes, this may become easier to promote at in-person events such as orientation week.

•

Communities should focus on workshops around Python, as developers have expressed keen interest in this topic. They should also look at introducing Javascript, as it is the most popular language in the working world.

•

Technical workshops should be hosted around web development, machine learning and cybersecurity.

More non-technical workshops should focus on project management, interview skills and design thinking.

•

In general, the developer community would like more coding competitions, entry-level workshops and career guidance.

•

Communities could also look at training people in technologies and skills that are required for students’ dream jobs. For example, better understanding specific interview processes, educating the students or bringing in speakers from those companies.

Using the most popular platforms to engage with students such as Instagram and LinkedIn, and promoting common tools used in the developer

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37

Why our engineering department is in a league of its own 70+ lit software engineers No meeting Wednesdays Twice a month team-led lectures Fully async, remote culture Twice a week gaming sessions & tournaments

Industry-leading tech & processe We work with dozens of technologies to build platforms used by millions of users worldwide.

Marina Kriek A S S O C I AT E B A C K E N D ENGINEER

CONNECT

We hire for roles in Frontend, Backend, Mobile, Fullstack, DevOps, Quality Assurance, Low-Code, and Data Engineering; each with handbooks and support structures that allow us to continuously and consistently deliver.

“I would recommend The Delta to any developer wishing to learn and gain as much experience as they can. Due to the vast variety of projects, you will be able to gain experience in so many different industries with some amazing clients & entrepreneurs.”

g es

Kristin Trout A S S O C I AT E F R O N T E N D ENGINEER

CONNECT

“My experience as an intern at The Delta has been phenomenal. After graduating from WeThinkCode with little to no work experience, the idea of joining the workforce was a bit daunting. However, since the moment I became a part of The Delta’s family, I felt right at home.”

Join us for our next Summer/Winter internship In 2022 we’ve launched our first ever official Summer Software Engineering Internship.

An intensive 8-week, paid intern programme designed to give you a well-rounded understanding of how we do software development at The Delta, and a burning passion to continue exploring all the possibilities within.

/ DISCIPLINES COVERED

Source Control Backend Development

Frontend Development

Quality Assurance (QA)

Marketing & Low-Code

With the outcome being the development of a brand-new venture by the end of the programme.

While applications have already closed for this Summer internship, we plan on doing a Winter internship in 2022 and, of course, a 2023 Summer programme.

Automating Boringness

by Ammar Canani

Source: BusinessWorldIt.com

In the 21st century, we have had a huge acceleration in the evolution of technology. The speed of innovation has increased drastically, so much so, that regardless of the device you purchase, a newer and better version will be released in a few months. We went from using paper and pen to using calculators, Excel and now even programming languages to do complex calculations - unless you are doing MAM1000W (of course). Now we have software and systems doing some of our other tasks. Walking around a mall, you will see many shops having a POS (point of sales) system being used. This shows how we are using technology to automate out the mundane, improving our lives and making them less boring.

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As nice as it sounds, the rate of adoption of these technologies is very dependent on numerous variables which are not the focus of this article. In Cape Town, for example, you will find that a POS system is very common in various shops but if you visit shops in Nampula in Mozambique, it is still very much manual invoicing. Keeping that in mind, we can broadly categorize organizations or businesses into 3 categories: 1. Using technology as the backbone to the business 2. Using technology to support the business’s daily operations 3. Catching up with technology The first category is your big

About the Writer Ammar Canani is currently busy with his Masters in Commerce specializing in Information Systems and is the founder of One Click Solutions. His interests vary from automation, automating boringness, scripting and cybersecurity.

His notable achievements include receiving student leadership awards individually and within a team as well as 90% time saved on average when automating boringness

Member Stories

companies, with large amounts of capital to invest in technology. These companies will have the best systems available in the market, premium versions and possibly even their own IT support team. The second category is your small and medium companies, they use any software or systems that make the business run, they may have one system for accounting, one for POS etc. The point is they still have a mix of technology and manual work. Lastly, you have those that are still working manually, beginning to use software like Excel or are looking to adopt a system.

So, what is Automating Boringness? In simple terms, I want you to picture the last time you used your computer to do the same work you did before which made you lose your mind, question your sanity and wonder “there should be a better way to do this!” Whether you handle many excel sheets, email several people, collate or create many documents, at some point you may have wondered about it. Does anything come to mind?

In other words, it is about automating boring, soul-sucking tasks by creating tools to perform them in as few clicks as possible. Between using Excel or fancy

systems there is a gap that is not covered and automating those aspects might seem meaningless in the short term, but very useful in the long term.

Let’s look at an example: at UCT you have PeopleSoft and Vula working together. So how are presentations marked? Chances are the panel of markers will either print out a word document and then fill it in or use an Excel file preloaded with the mark sheet to calculate the marks. However, the gap here is the aspect of collating the comments from all the markers. Here is where automating boringness happens, you want to collate everyone’s comments and create a document per student/team. For example, when it’s around 10 teams, you may save around 2 hours of the time it usually takes to collate comments. But when using it for 100+ students, it saves around 10 hours and decreases the turnaround period for the collation of comments by a week or so.

What does this tell you? It doesn’t matter how fancy the business is, there is always scope to improve.

Every system has inputs and outputs, you still need to improve procedures and that is where you automate boringness. Ever since I started automating boringness,

I have created tools for all sorts of organizations and businesses, from those with fancy systems to one’s using the anachronistic pen and paper. Overall, every tool I have made has improved the time it takes to do a task by 90% on average.

Is automating boringness worth it? At a time when every second matters, you want to optimize your processes and tasks as much as possible. The math behind it is simple, saving 5 clicks might be 5 clicks, but 5 clicks every day for 5 days of work is 25 clicks and in 52 weeks it is 1,350 clicks. How long does it take for you to do the click?

Up to 5 seconds maybe? That saves you around 100+ hours. If we use R100 as the hourly rate, it makes it R10,000 that you save yearly for one person’s daily menial task.

The prospects of automating boringness in the workplace are exciting. The opportunities are vast; you can automate boringness in any field - they all have boring, repetitive tasks. Remember, there is always scope for improvement, it is simply a matter of knowing where to automate boringness. I hope this article was insightful and you are excited to enter the world of automating boringness.

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Hackathon Success Stories

Team Sweaty - we worked together well, accomplished our learning objectives and had a ton of fun in the process.

What is the tech stack and how did you go about choosing it?

We chose to go with a ReactJS frontend and a NodeJS backend.

We used FireBase for our database and called on a few APIs to make functionality such as the QR scanning, generation and payments work.

Tell us a little about the team. How did all of you come together to form a team? What piqued your interest to take part in the hackathon?

We started out as two groups of friends from the same CS class and one day we reached out to each other when we heard about the hackathon. We were super interested in taking part in the hackathon because we saw it as a fun way to grow our skills and gain exposure to the industry.

Can you tell us about your project and how you came up with the idea?

We started brainstorming with 2 core concepts in mind, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Yoco payments system. Luc came up with the idea of a cashless tipping system as during the pandemic the people who struggled the

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most were those members of our community who rely on cash tips, the most prominent example being people who provide a basic service like petrol station attendants. We then built on the idea as a team to determine the best way to solve the problem.

What was your process like of delegating work to each person on the team? Did you already know who would do what going into the hackathon? How well did you work together?

We went into the event with a focus on the learning outcome and so we simply endeavoured to work together to achieve that as best as possible. During the event, we each aligned to our strengths and came together to help each other where we each fell short. We had no idea how our team dynamic would look beforehand, but it ultimately worked out in the end

How much coding experience did you have going into the hackathon and how much difference did this make when building your product?

We were all final year computer science students and so we had a fair bit of programming and solution development experience, albeit in a limited number of technologies. This made no difference to us as our objective was to learn the new technologies that we ended up implementing.

How was the experience? What challenges, if any, did your team overcome and was your team able to grow from the experience?

Time pressure was the biggest constraint - add to this the necessary communication overhead of team-based development and it was certainly a very stressful and challenging experience. We all grew so much from this, though, and found that we significantly

improved our ability to work as part of a team, communicate effectively and work under pressure.

Do you have plans to continue and develop your project, Tippy?

While the idea of developing Tippy further is enticing, we faced the major issue of time and priorities. Being in third year we all had a large amount of coursework on our hands which has prevented us from continuing with Tippy thus far. In terms of the future, some of us are entering the working

world, while others are pursuing an Honours degree in Computer Science, all of which will further prevent us from working on Tippy.

While we are extremely proud of what we have made and are very confident in the concept of Tippy, the amount of work required to develop it further is so immense that none of us feels, at this current point in time, that we can feasibly take it further. We will always have Tippy in mind and perhaps one day it will become fully functional.

What advice would you give another student who wanted

to compete in a hackathon?

Go for it! It can often be intimidating and seem like something impossible to perform well in especially going up against such talented peers - but it’s an amazing way to gain experience and exposure to the industry, it’s super fun to partake in. The worst possible outcome is that you learn a ton of cool new tech and work alongside some incredibly bright minds. There may be one winner at the end, but there’s simply no way to lose.

Winning two hackathons and other tips & tricks An interview with Edan Toledo.

Tell us a little bit about the team. How did you all come together to form a team and what piqued your interest to take part in the hackathon?

Roy and I are childhood friends and we’ve known each other since we were three. We’ve always kind of been academically competitive, so through primary school, middle school and high school we had this joke where he would score one per cent higher, and it was so annoying because it wasn’t a large margin it was only one percent. So, at that point, it was basically luck. Nonetheless, he’d consistently score one percent more. In university, it was similar.

But still, we were great friends and worked really well together. I was also at primary school with Jaron.

We were kind of friends then, but it was mainly in university that we solidified our friendship.

Roy, Jaron and I all started studying mechatronics engineering together, which helped us build camaraderie through surviving it.

So we became really good friends because we would work together hours and hours a day on campus from 8 am to 4 pm everyday. We just realized that we’re just we’re all relatively academically strong, we’re friends and we work really well together. So it was that kind of triple combination that just allowed us to accomplish a lot very quickly. Above all, it was our ability and motivation to work extremely hard for prolonged periods, which really aided us in a 24-hour hackathon. We were in fourth year, and we had not done a hackathon, so

we just decided to go for it. We also thought it would be a fun experience.

Hack101 Tell us about your project and how you came up with the idea for that.

We started by brainstorming about what the university experience meant for us. We then realized that it is simply wandering around a beautiful campus and seeing people doing things all over. Simply having the ability to just go and join a group of people and feel some sort of physical wandering exploration mixed with socialization. We then racked our brains on how we could transfer that to a digital landscape. We

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Hackathons

finally decided on a 3D mapped web app of the university campus where you can move around, proximity talk to people and do activities. You could even extend that further to having actual lectures on this platform and this big grandiose idea. We then thought we like this idea. How can we do it in 24 hours? What do we need to scrap? What’s not important?

We thought lectures being there not so important for this hackathon. Moving around is going to be a little bit difficult to do on a network basis. So, let’s just make buttons. You can move around with buttons. Proximity voice chat is going to be really tough - let’s just do voice chat rooms. And that and then that was pretty much the idea. And then we just got to building it.

What was the tech stack used for this project?

For the voice chats over the network, we used Web RTC and then we just built a simple front end UI where you can click on where you can move around some like blueprint UCT. We also used

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Socket IO, a peer-to-peer library for the web and React. It was quite simple and there was no real back end.

How was the experience? Did you face any big challenges with it?

A big problem was deploying it.

We struggled with deploying it to Heroku, it needed to go on Heroku because I think they were Python scripts that were executed but it wasn’t a back end, but it was just there was an issue with it, but the point is it was such a mission to deploy to Heroku and we will always try to get it deployed like in the last minutes of this of the hackathon and eventually like probably 10 minutes before we got it up and it was working with like Oh my God and that was such a great feeling so that’s probably the biggest problem was deploying it and getting it to look nice.

Did you enjoy the experience?

Yeah, I loved it. The only thing that I didn’t quite enjoy is that it was mainly front-end work. This meant

that it ended up with me and Roy just being more assistance to Jaron than working on it. We found it very hard to divvy up the front-end work so we each had like different pages that we were working on. But once the web RTC stuff worked and the blueprints were there it was pretty much just putting it together with the frontend.

Do you have any plans to continue the project?

I wish we did. I thoroughly wish we did. Not that I enjoyed the idea that much, but I just think it would be cooler to just polish it a little bit more. Anything done in 24 hours is going to have its issues. Since graphics are such a hard thing to get right and work on in a short time frame, this was a challenge on this project. Jaron and I did speak about just polishing it up for our portfolios so we might do that, but I don’t think it’s going to get the attention it deserves.

UNHack Solution: Good gifts see webapp

https://goodgift.vercel.app/ So, can you tell us about that project and how you came up with the idea there?

A while ago, Jarryd was talking to me about this idea. The idea was based around having these flowers and instead of wasting them, you can just send a little email to someone with a virtual flower.

That was the idea.

And then I remember thinking of that idea in our deliberation time. What if instead of receiving flowers, we model small nature items, like little 3D models and the money generated by each gift would go to charity, so you’re just facilitating donations in a cute manner.

We also thought about NFT’s because then you can get onto the hype train of crypto and people will receive one-of-a-kind models.

However, we know NFT’s are rarely bad for the environment, so it would be the most hypocritical thing ever.

So, the idea basically just spawned off of Jaron’s small idea of creating these gifts - flower condolences that you can send to people. And then all the proceeds go to charity. Then we’re just facilitating that process. It’s quite a simple idea when you want to summarize it.

And then in terms of that hackathon, how was the delegation process and things?

The delegation was simple, Jaron did the front-end. Roy and I did the back-end and API. I would say Jarryd is the team lead because he has the most experi-

ence with web apps and hackathons are generally based around creating those. So, it’s easier for him to delegate because he knows what needs to be done.

What is the tech stack?

So, the tech stack for GoodGift was next JS, react JS, Chakra UI, Firebase and react3 Fiber.

How was the experience? What challenges, if any, did your team overcome and was your team able to grow from the experience?

Getting the authentication working was a lot harder than it should have been. There are quite a few firebase tutorials and none of them were working because there are so many different versions of Firebase now and they all change what they’re doing.

It became very rough, so we actually had to revert to a private version of Firebase and we spent hours trying to get the authentication working. It was such a silly thing, that was kind of unnecessary, but we really wanted to get it working.

Do you stay up the full 24 hours?

No, we probably went to bed at like 12. There comes a point where working further only gains diminishing returns. You’re not really going to do much staying up and freaking out about the one thing not working.

And then do you have any plans to continue?

We really want to and GoodGift is much closer to being finished.

I was quite surprised by what we created in such a short space of time. The truth of the matter is we would love someone else to finish it. We added the road map and made the GitHub. I just don’t see it being done for the sole reason of time.

So how much experience did you have going into both hackathons? And how did this make a difference?

So, for both hackathons, we wanted to do something that would force ourselves to learn something new. In the first one, we had absolutely no experience with Web RTC in peer-to-peer networks online. We had never done voice chat and all that stuff, which was all brand new. The only real experience that we had was just a generic front-end with React. Everything else was new.

For GoodGift, we had no experience in authentication and database usage. Firebase made it a lot easier. So we basically learnt a lot from both hackathons.

What advice would you give another student who wanted to compete in a hackathon?

My advice is to be with people that you work well with. People underestimate the productivity increase with proper teamwork and chemistry between team members.

And beyond just being with your friends, you need to be with people who you are friendly with but have the motivation and drive that you have. It’s about motivation and drive, because even if your idea is simple, execution is key.

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Member Stories

Persistent

by Kunta-Kinte Ngcobo

According to the receipts, it’s the 17th of December 2019. I’m sitting at a desk, getting some work done, minding my own business as usual.

To my surprise, I get an email from an Amazon recruiter I met during the 2nd #BreakTheRules event 2019. Sometimes one applies to these internships and totally forgets about them. An email later, I find myself sending my CV (C! V! Certificate *whistles*… You get it?

If you don’t get it, forget about it), or as they say, my resume, whichever floats your boat.

About a few weeks later, a telephonic meeting is set up to discuss my resume. Boom! After my lunch, I’m on the phone speaking to them, actually I didn’t do much speaking, because my mind was processing the major L that was being handed to me. My memory isn’t the greatest, but to paraphrase what was said, “Your resume was substandard, just awful. It’s just not good enough”. A story of ‘The worst they could say is no’, or if you’re familiar with the job application process ‘‘The worst they could say is we regret to inform you…’’. That went left real quick.

At this point, my day instantly became sombre. I rounded it off by processing the feedback given to me and staring at the ceiling (pun intended). The following

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Source: Neil Patel

day, I woke up with a bit of boldness (nesibindi, a liver, ka sebete) and set my pride aside. I decided to email the recruiter and query about what I could do to improve my resume. While appreciating their busy schedule, I attached a slightly improved resume (taking notes from the discussion over the phone), just in the name of growth and better self-representation.

This was a major turning point.

They gave me a bit of their time to improve my resume, which subsequently led me through the application process, the interview process and eventually, getting the internship.

The moral of the story is that the recruiters (and individuals that make the final decision) in your job application endeavours know what is needed in their organisation (well, not always, but let’s assume that to be true). They hold information that could be very much key to the development of your career and yourself, so the best way to get a hold of that information is to ask (you must aksss!). Some recruiters may be more welcoming than others in helping you, but one has to take the chance.

Typically, in the face of rejection after we see the “We regret to inform you…” message, one closes the email and says “Wild… but we move!”. This is done without the appreciation of why we were handed the particular L. Once you’re able to digest the L, perhaps through the guidance of a mentor or someone familiar with these processes, you’ll be better equipped in understanding how to rearrange those L’s and turn them into W’s (really I just wanted to say that, I’m sure some of you have heard it all already). Anyway, it can be daunting having to face the very individuals (or company) that rejected your application, and at times it may feel as if they are rejecting YOU, but this isn’t the case (usually), however, this is necessary for your development and holding yourself accountable.

Of course, you can avoid some of these shortcomings by using the resources and guidance we are provided with, in and around the university settings. From UCT DevSoc and UCT myCareer services, these platforms are there to assist you to better prepare your resumes, applications, cover letters as well as give you access

to potential jobs. UCT myCareer, several clubs (in and outside UCT), and online education sites offer you access to mock interviews, resume consultations, workshops and courses. All these resources are there to assist in better representing and upskilling yourself, that is to say, your application (resume, cover letter or whatever it may be) is an extension of yourself. It is a

chance to showcase your value to the relevant organisation or person/s. Take this opportunity and be persistent, finding more ways to show them your value.

Disrupting Uni Admissions

by Comfort Lwazi “Trof ‘ Twala

We are creating a platform called Varsify that makes it easy for matric students to apply to any and multiple universities all with a click of a button.

Our team is made up of 3 UCT students, Given Kibanza - 3rd-year Mechatronics student, Comfort Twala & Cebo Sithole - 2nd-year Computer Science students. Cebo and Given met in a virtual hackathon hosted by MTN last year and they planned to compete together in the same hackathon but Cebo also invited Comfort to join the team.

The idea we decided to work on was simplifying varsity applications. When applying to universities, a student would have to go to all the different uni websites that they’re interested in, fill in the same lengthy forms and this becomes tedious and repetitive. Before a student applies for a qualification, they have to go through the different uni’s prospectus. This is a drag.

Varsify allows students to easily explore the different qualifications at each uni in SA, the entry requirements and even the description of the courses. A student would apply to more than one university with the hopes of increasing their chances of entering a university.

You then have to keep up with feedback from each university you’ve applied to by checking the different student portals and so forth.

tutoring and applying to universities, and so we offered to have their students test out our platform. If all goes well, we will hopefully launch next year around the time that tertiary applications season begins.

While we are currently focusing on universities, we plan to make applying to colleges just as easy too!

We are creating a platform where students fill in one form, select the different universities they want to apply to and the different qualifications and apply with a click of a button. Students can get updates on their applications through our platform. They upload all relevant documents and we make sure to get it to all the different universities the student wants to apply to.

Since earlier this year, we have been working with Pantsula with a Purpose, a non-profit based in Cape Town. They assist matric students with study material,

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Source: FreePik.com

Throw

by Anri Lombard

your TV off a cliff!

Since the dawn of university, “the freshman” has roamed its natural habitat, seeking its path on unexplored campuses, and dodging senior eyes. But some freshmen stumble onto an alien tool to intimidate any savage lecturer: coding. Sadly, many are bewildered, discourages, frightened and swayed to think they’re not worthy to use it; I’ll explain why you should stop being “a freshman,” describe a fruitful philosophy on getting good at programming, teach you a lesson every PhD knows: university won’t teach you much if you trust it to, and show you how I (a freshman) take this to heart.

The freshman is on the bottom of the food chain, and you’ll get to know it, no matter how smart-and-hardworking you are. Early in 2021 a group of new friends and I entered UCT’s hackathon; we spent the hours

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after lectures, tutorials, and assignments to work on a task-rewarder app named “Ticker”. After a month’s work we presented our app: fully functional, deployed

on a server, included sounds and digital animations, and we were not only the youngest group but also the only with a full-fledged application. The judges were impressed with the app and pointed out what they liked… then they asked what year we are in; I remember their eyes darting back to their phones to make sure they didn’t miss something after our answer.

Even professors shun cold emails about doing graduate-level research with them, but it is worth pushing the point that you will end up a second year like every other student on this planet with little to show if you conform to this bias.

Say you graduate, but the university decides to ban degrees the day before the ceremony, what skills do you have to show for it? Now take that desired outcome and get there in 3 months of your freshman year. My philosophy might be drastic, but it is fun - and the digital world supports it.

React.js, so I can adapt what I know to Vue.js without hours of lectures).

In this essay I laid out how being “a freshman” harms your learning speed and gave a Stanford PhD’s opinion as evidence; I also suggest the philosophy of aiming at who you want to be in a few years, then getting it done in a few months, therefore I argued that this is not possible with distraction. My freshman perspective is that online materials have less of an entry barrier and a higher return on investment than plain university education. Most importantly, find a friend who knows of a real high cliff, then take your TV for a visit.

With Bloom’s Taxonomy in mind, why wait to build a website, application, do research, and learn complex technology after you understand it all? It is better to dive into the deep end and start building, over time you’ll spot massive gaps in your skillset and go out to fill them; then you’ll look back at the leaps you made without grasping how you got to this point.

There are a plethora of online resources, but for any of this to benefit you (if you have similar goals to me), you’ll have to throw your TV down a cliff. I don’t own a television and, if technology does not require it, I never will; although, this stands for online media, too. My tricks include blocking social media from my laptop for ± a year and a 10-day block on the phone, after which I scroll through and repeat. This makes time to benefit from all the online material; the best, I’ve found, is Coursera for Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Data Science from top professors. For websites, apps, games, and more programming-based lessons Udemy fits the mark. With a few good lessons you’ll have a framework to think and will no longer need to go through these long courses (E.g., I can program in

About the Writer Anri Lombard is currently a BSc Computer Science major. His interests include being an open-source project fanatic, competing Kaggle and Competitive Programming websites, writing and reading research, and learning from online courses. This year Anri completed a difficult machine learning specialization as a first year as well as placing in the top three in two UCT hackathons with a great team!

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Other Universities

Reforming GDSC at UWC

by Jessica Hannah Randall

In early 2021, the Google Developer community at the University of the Western Cape was inactive with very few events taking place.

This is the story of the Google Developer Student Clubs, University of the Western Cape (GDSCUWC) reformation.

I remember I was on holiday and then a friend of mine, Stephen, informed me of the opening of GDSC Lead applications for the 2021/2022 year. He encouraged me to apply because he believed that I would greatly impact the campus community. I decided to apply for the position because I was passionate about technology, and leadership. Little did I know that the interview process would be quite challenging. Eventually, the date for my interview drew near. I was so nervous about this interview but in my mind, I believed that I had tried my best. The questions were quite difficult and required great thought to answer. I was afraid to notify Stephen of my application because I did not think that I had made the cut.

Time had passed since my interview, and I had given no thought to how well it might have gone. Then in late August, I was sitting in front of my computer, and I received an email from the selection panel. The email read: “Congratulations, you

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are the next lead for 2021/2022!”.

I was ecstatic. The first thing I did was phone a close friend to inform them that I had been selected. I was awestruck from receiving the news and at that moment, it felt as though time itself had stopped.

Later that week, I received my onboarding meeting invitation as a GDSC Lead.

In the meeting, they discussed everything that still needed to be completed by us as well as the responsibilities we had. I began selecting the core team that I would like to work with for the year through a rigorous recruitment process. I recruited individuals who are intrigued by technology and who are insightful, unique, and team players.

After the formation of our team, our teamwork was tested when we were planning our Google Showcase conference, one of our very first club events. It took place on the 29th of November and was held through Google Meet at lunchtime.

My faculty advisor had requested an event that informed the community about Google technologies.

We faced many challenges in the planning of this event. The planning took place before the examination period and many things still needed to be completed during this period. This was challenging

as all my core members were writing almost every day. Thus, finding time to discuss the logistics of the event was difficult.

However, we managed to overcome these challenges by planning as far ahead as possible so that the majority of the tasks were completed before the time, and we tried to be supportive of everyone during this tough period.

Despite all the challenges faced and the difficulties that we went through, this event turned out to be very successful and had about fifty people in attendance. The guest speakers were well-experienced and gave incredible and extremely insightful presentations.

With the current academic year coming to an end, I am really looking forward to what the remainder of my tenure as a GDSC Lead has in store for me in the next academic year and I hope my experience so far can inspire someone to become a leader on their campus.

Koketso Motseothata: Starting GDSC UNISA The challenges we faced were network issues and trying to get guest speakers as some would drop us 5 mins before the event and we had to improvise.

What unique problems are you solving in your community?

Digital literacy is a huge problem, not only in my community but in Africa, given the economic and demographic problems. The problems we face with education, medical assistance, hunger and sanitation disadvantages us. We aim to educate people not to be lost in this new, rapidly moving world of technology by teaching them how to code, build CVs, engage in public speaking and put together presentations.

Tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Koketso Motseothata also known as KapFresh. I studied a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Software Engineering and am now pursuing a BSc in Applied Maths. I am a founder of a company called Billionaire Developers, which aims to help people how to code by teaching them how to build real-world projects that help you land your first developer job. I am a full stack developer, international tech speaker, tech blogger and content producer. I have also been a student rep and ambassador for the likes of Google, Microsoft, Codecademy and IBM. What inspired you to want to lead a student developer club?

What’s the student developer community ecosystem like at your campus?

Our chapter currently is still online due to restrictions so during my term I never got a chance to host a live event, but it was amazing because I got to collaborate with other tech communities such as Microsoft and Codecademy. We also have a very close relationship with the iSet robotics club at our university where we host coding bootcamps with them.

What advice would you give to anyone who wants to lead the GDSC at their campus?

Be patient with yourself and your team and keep your attendees interested by researching what they’re interested in. Always prepare for the worst and perform like it’ s the best.

There really was no other program like this on campus, so I was the first to lead at UNISA. Since digital skills How has being lead contributed to your personal and transformation have always been dear to me, I growth or your career? founded the UNISA Chapter of GDSC. A lot - I have been tested greatly: from patience to Can you tell us about your goals you set for the understanding to communication. I lead by example society, and any accomplishments or challenges and by giving others a chance to shine and express that arose? themselves. I have also learned to be more innovative and emphasise the importance of collaboration.

At first, it was very overwhelming because I did not really know what I was doing. Luckily, we had a commu- What are your plans for the future, are you still nity group with members from a variety of other coun- going to be part of the developer community at tries. This network has introduced me to people from your campus? across Africa. These connections have helped us run many successful events (tech/ non-tech), reaching Yes definitely, I am now the GDSC alumni mentor for almost 500 chapter members. the new lead. I will continue help and advise where I can.

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TECH on the Mic

by Comfort Lwazi “TROF” Twala

Everyone has an opinion - whether that be educated, experienced or even heard through the grapevines.

When that opinion involves Tech, it involves me.

As you should already be able to tell from the heading I like to talk about tech and thanks to mentioned tech I am able to talk about it on my podcast. Yes, a podcast.

You might be wondering why not do video content on YouTube and so on… Well, might be because I have the face for radio as some would say.

Jokes aside… a podcast allows one to have an intimate I’m in your ear - engagement with the content. Which is very important. I’m very passionate about learning new technologies and hearing other people’s opinions about them. It really opens your mind and broadens your view of a certain topic. Luckily technology is an umbrella that covers a lot of subtopics. Knowing about all those subtopics is pretty much impossible, but I’m here for it.

This podcast is pretty much an “excuse” for me to learn more with others. Plus the subtle - “I have a podcast” flex that comes with it. I try to cover as many tech topics as I can. Meaning a lot of episodes are still to come. I do not want to stress myself with a schedule and all that, even though consistency is key. It is fun because it’s not a “MUST”, it’s just a hobby.

Guests I have featured on the podcast involve some known individuals in the UCT community. Individuals like Shai Unterslak, director of Dado Agency who I interviewed along with his hackathon partner Gabriel Stein, Next Step Digital director. The episode revolved around hackathons, specifically the one that led to the creation of - the menu that boosts sales - SnapMenu. Obviously I also had to collect some advice for the university journey while being a tech entrepreneur. You’ll hear advice on how to balance projects and school, etc.

I’ve also had a conversation with Shruti Dowlath, the 2020 UCT Shark Tank winner. His platform, UnifySA,

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helps match skilled students to student entrepreneurs - what some would dub Freelance Tinder. Throughout the episode we discuss the Shark Tank experience, from the Highs to the Lows.

The list continues with a Computer Sciences Tutor Luc Van Den Handel, discussing tutoring stuff. It does not end locally, as I have also had an interview with a member of instagram channel Tech Hunters all the way from India.

Whoever I ask to be part of the podcast is usually always up to it and I am very grateful for that. Video meeting platforms make things easier and break down a lot of possible obstacles. This podcast has really opened up opportunities and is continuously building healthy relationships with tech-minded individuals.

Technology is ever evolving and to keep up with it we have to join the conversations and constantly try to stay informed and relevant. Once more, I am very passionate about tech and if you are too, let us talk about it.

Feel free to DM me on @trof_talks_tech on instagram and we’ll organise an episode.

Be sure to check out TROFtalksTECH on all major streaming platforms.

About the Writer Comfort Lwazi “TROF” Twala is currently doing his third year in BSc majoring in Computer Science and Business Computing.

He is interested in various technologies with a specific interest in automation scripting.

Additionally, anything that can minimize repetitive tasks thus increasing efficiency.

YOCO What does YOCO do ? What are the fundamentals to YOCO? Yoco is a growing African Fintech, enabling people to thrive through open commerce.

We create opportunities for entrepreneurs and the self-employed to get paid and be more successful.

Every day, we break down barriers and create access so that more businesses can participate in the economy and thrive.

Fundamentally we exist to enable people to thrive.

It’s what we still ultimately want to achieve through Yoco. We want to enable our customers to thrive.

We want, in some small way, to help them have better businesses, grow their revenue, do what they love doing and live better lives.

Partner Interviews your attitude and how that aligns to the role you have applied for and our fundamental values at Yoco.

You would experience an online application, a capability and culture interview as well as a team fit interview. Throughout this experience you will get the opportunity to showcase who you are as an individual as well as get to know the team you could be working with. You will also get the chance to experience the work we do in a live/case study environment. We will also expose you to exciting initiatives such as Hackathons that will help you to live the Yoco culture prior to joining. These initiatives allow us to get a sense of who you are and how you would show up in our world.

How would you describe the working environment at YOCO?

But, it doesn’t stop with our customers. We also want the people around them to thrive - their families, their communities. We want our country to thrive.

And, make no mistake, we want Africa to thrive. We want each other to thrive.

We are Distributed-connected, and this means: •

We have an office space, but we choose to work from wherever we thrive. We create flexibility, but certain roles are location-dependent.

Enabling people to thrive is why we’re in business. It guides how we make decisions, how we behave, and how we measure ourselves.

•

We’re biased towards a single timezone (Europe, Middle East & Africa - EMEA).We default to virtual engagement and documentation to be inclusive.

How does your company recruit new talent, and would you say it’s any different to other companies?

•

We’re intentional about how we connect – with merchants and teammates.

•

We embrace digital tools, working asynchronously and pragmatically.

•

We take an outcome-based orientation. It’s not just what you put in.

•

We gather in person at least once a year; more frequently in teams.

We follow a recruitment process that mirrors our culture, and this is our differentiator - our recruitment process aims to expose you to the Yoco fundamentals of keeping it simple, staying connected, mastering your craft and making space to explore.

We want all new recruits to get the Yoco experience prior to taking a job with us.

This is about getting to know your aptitude and

What do you think is the importance for compa-

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nies to partner with/support student societies?

challenge & short time frame.

We value the partnership with student societies as we feel this is where the heartbeat of the students lies. These forums are imperative for us to reach our desired audience and to support the amazing initiatives that the student bodies run. We are always looking to form meaningful two-way partnerships with societies. It is a way for us to fully embed and understand the wants and needs of today’s students and South Africa’s future talent.

Working together to support this talent has enabled new connections, new depth of understanding and has even led to new joiners at Yoco who we’re thrilled to be working with.

What have been the benefit for working with UCT Developer societies ?

Working with UCT has been and continues to be a mind opening experience. Time and time again we’re blown away by the level of talent and ambition. Previous hackathons have shown us just how creative developer societies are, particularly when given a

Any closing remarks?

We’re always on the lookout for bright, ambitious talent to join Yoco and help shape the future for business owners and entrepreneurs across Africa. Now that you have more of a sense of our values, if you’re thinking “this feels like my kind of place”, we’d love to talk with you. You can read more at our careers site here: https://www.yoco.com/za/careers/ or speak with your UCT dev society lead & we can link up! Thank you to all those who’ve joined in the fun of working together in 2021, here’s to an incredible 2022!

SOLIDitech What are key features or important core values to SOLIDitech as a company?

Our mission as a company is to provide business automation software for our customers that has been developed to the highest possible standard.

In order to achieve that we have a borderline obsession with our company culture that encompases 10 things: 1. Helping customers: Above all, we develop functional and effective automation solutions that help our customers to scale their businesses beyond their manual processing capabilities.

Partner Interviews

4. Trust: Trust is essential, whether we’re responsible for the end-to-end operations of a customer, or the income and future career growth of our staff.

5. Don’t be evil: Ethics and professionalism in serving our Customers and supporting our Team above all else.

6. Job Satisfaction: We all just want to work somewhere that we love.

7. Strength of Relationships: From our customers to our staff - everyone is valued

2. Value over profit: ‘Value’ isn’t always measured in Rands.

8. Transparency: We are open, honest and transparent about decisions that are made, and the motivations behind those decisions.

3. Quality code: Quality code is reliable and simple to work with - it doesn’t always have to be fancy to be effective.

9. Growth: Growth of skill set, growth in confidence, growth in career, growth of our company. It’s all a journey.

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The Closing Bracket

10. Innovation: We love to solve “never-solved-before” problems with practical, re-usable and innovative solutions.

These are our core values and guide us through everything from business decisions, to recruitment and more.

What does SOLIDitech look for in potential new talent ?

It depends on the role that we’re hiring for - so besides the obvious skills requirements for each role we pay very careful attention to your problem-solving skills, creativity, communication skills, attention to detail, confidence, your sense of logical reasoning, your ability to be part of a team and the role you would naturally play in that team, and how readily you learn or take on new skills.

Everyone has a role to play and it’s important to understand that software engineering is a team sport that requires many players with many different skills.

Other than that - just be yourself when you interview with us - we like honest people :) How would you describe the working environment at SOLIDitech?

We are Nando’s lovers, sports fans, anime geeks, book lovers, musicians, artists, parents, chefs, bakers and Netflix surfers.

We’re from all over the planet, we believe all sorts of things and most of all we really enjoy working together. And it’s THAT that really makes the difference.

Any exciting changes or goals for SOLIDitech for 2022?

Our customers are some of the leading Internet Service Providers in South Africa so there’s always something innovative and exciting on the horizon.

We’re expanding into a new industry in 2022 and our

engineering teams are super excited about the challenges that await. We can’t say too much about that right now, but keep an eye on our website for exciting announcements.

We’re also working on the following new features: •

Using GIS (geographic information system) integrations to track service feasibility based on location

•

BI (Business Intelligence) tools within our datadriven platform

•

Payment platform integrations

Our SOLIDitech clients have connected a record number of South Africans to broadband Internet services in 2021 - enabling online schooling, work from home and family entertainment. We are proud of the work our team and innovative technology has done to support this revolution.

What have been the benefits of working with Developer societies ?

1. Being involved. Helping to teach, mentor and support the next generation of Software Engineers.

2. The exposure to such a wide range of amazing up-and-coming Software Engineers, what they’re working on, how they think about things, and the ideas that they are coming up with.

Any closing remarks?

To all the Developer Societies: Thank you for being so good at including the private sector. You are great at coming up with new and interesting ways to engage with us to grow and develop your societies. Keep it up!

To all the readers of this: Keep going. Keep trying, keep thinking, keep asking. Test yourself, stretch yourself - it all pays off.

The Closing Bracket

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Allan Gray What does Allan Gray do ? And where does the developer community fit into Allan Gray?

Allan Gray is an investment management company, and the focus is on creating financial security for investors globally. Here our approach is a long-term investment approach, so we’re looking for giving good returns over the long term. So not like you know, in the next month or something like that. That’s our focus and we provide this investment expertise through our unit trusts. Which we make accessible to clients and that’s done through mostly through digital channels. So, websites for example, and that’s where our technology capability comes in. We at Allan Gray need quite a large community of developers that the focus on that digital platform. Having developers to build out those technology solutions so that you can interact with your investment portfolio and be able to do your various other administrative tasks is important. I mean, just for example, currently we have about a couple hundreds of microservices involved in making those platforms work and that’s why we always need a large amount of tech talent to enable that. Currently we have, about 20 teams. So about 70 developers that are part of those teams working on those services.

How does your company recruit new talent, and would you say it’s any different to other companies?

I think generally our approach is the same as most companies that are serious about getting the best tech talent out there. You will see us doing brand building through the sponsoring of tech events and university events. We usually also use recruitment agencies to help us find talent and then we use the various recruitment platforms like LinkedIn as well.

I think that’s pretty much the standard approach.

I think where we are a little bit different is that as a large corporate, we focus on universities which in turn means we do a lot of work with students, letting them know we exist as a tech team. You know we’re not a bunch of investment analyst. I think we do a lot of work to make sure that you know we also viable option with that. That gives you the same technology and growth experience that you find at the start

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The Closing Bracket

Partner Interviews

up. However, you obviously have much more stability with the one of the largest privately owned asset managers in Africa. I think it’s a bit different because I don’t see a lot of large financial corporates at these tech events and university talks, possibly only about 10 companies that we see there and there’s definitely hundred’s out there.

How would you describe the developer working community/ environment at Allan Gray?

We have a strong learning culture around tech, because we’ve got a large contingent of senior developers, I think we’ve over 20 now and it creates a strong mentorship environment for junior developers. You won’t find yourself in the deep end there will always somebody to learn from as you progress, so there’s a lot of tips. Had you joined the team two years ago, you’d probably be exposed to about three different programming languages, like Scala, Golang and JavaScript, and I expect this trend to continue into cloud native development. This is because we striving to keep our tech stack relevant. While you’re on this journey, will always have a senior developer, very experienced developer to guide you along this journey. So, a very strong learning culture and there’s still a lot of flexibility in environment given that we are a corporate company we’ve confirmed the hybrid work environment, so we spend a couple of days at home and where you can come into the office for that connection to colleagues. We also note that people experienced the type of culture that you’d find at a start-up with fast-paced adoption of technology. We frequently shipping you tech and you, also get access to equity for our staff scheme quite early in your career similar to what start-ups do. But on the other side of the spectrum, you still get the job security of a large corporate company , and there’s a nice longterm purpose that exists in this culture, which could connect you through our powerful philanthropy initiatives.

What do you think is the importance for companies to partner with/support student societies?

I think for us, it’s very important to keep engaged so we get insights into student life. Giving us an aspect of what they are experiencing and how they’re thinking, especially the last two years with all the changes. So, we can understand that so we can prepare ourselves better to give them a good onboarding experience. We gain a lot of value in those insights

and listening to the questions they ask us. Practically for us, we obviously get a good exposure for our recruitment activities. We find a lot of the people attending these events are the people most interested in a tech career making it a great place to connect to that and get direct access to student Any closing remarks?

I think generally just in terms of advice for students, I think everyone’s going to have a lot of different preferences, but I think it’s

Feedback Dear Reader, We hope that you have enjoyed the magazine so far. In order to improve this magazine’s content and design for next year, please take a few minutes to complete a short survey by scanning the QR code. We would love to know what types of stories interested you and what you felt was missing and could be added to future editions.

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very important to make sure that there’s a strong onboarding experience for them in their first job. So, you typically want to look out for some kind of software development bootcamp, and I see a lot of companies are now offering this, so that’s good. It is very important to interview the place that you are interested in looking at so you must ask questions as well to them. Allowing you to know what they offer as well so you know it’s a two-way street when you’re looking for a for a for your next job.

The Editorial Team The Closing Bracket – The Second Edition of UCT’s Annual Student Developer Magazine

Editor-in-Chief: Chelsea Van Coller Design & Copy Editor: Jeremy Simpson Managing Editor: Joelle Behoor Business Director: Nkosinathi ‘Martin’ Ntuli Content Support: Dillon Lewis Sane Mhloma Mbongeni Sibanda Front Cover Design: The Delta

https://bit.ly/CBFeedback2 The Closing Bracket

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