Sixteen interns on Friday, May 24, 2019 graduated from the first cohort of the Interswitch Developer Academy in Lagos. The interns were drawn from various tertiary institutions across Nigeria.
As part of its commitment to promote the study of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in Nigeria, Interswitch recruited a number of Software Engineers to participate in the six-month internship programme which held at the company’s headquarters.
According to Interswitch, the vision draws inspiration from the renaissance that Nigeria has witnessed in its entertainment sector (i.e. music and movies), which have witnessed a great boom in recent years owing to the enterprising spirit of Nigerians, and with very little dependence on government intervention. The Academy, which took the form of an internship programme, began in December 2018.
These fresh graduates from the Interswitch Internship Programme were selected through a careful process, after a widespread call was made for newly graduated software engineers to apply.
The six-month intensive training was focused on teaching the graduates basic engineering theories as well as real-life applications.
The first three months in the academy took place in a classroom where the interns learned the theoretical application of software engineering.
The last three months were spent gaining hands-on work experience in engineering and software development. Some of the interns will be retained as Interswitch staff, while the others will be prepped to join the wider Nigeria workforce.
Speaking at the brief ceremony to herald the conclusion of their training, Babafemi Ogungbamila, Interswitch’s Chief Information Officer (Technology), said it was really an amazing experience with the interns, noting that their commitment, readiness to learn and determination eventually paid off.
“It is amazing seeing young people show passion about STEM. We had about 16 graduates interested in software engineering and coding. Today, STEM is the way forward. During their short time with us, I saw people ready to change the narrative. These are the next generation of problem solvers in our society. I hope these six months will positively affect their future and career pursuits”, he said.
The ceremony had in attendance all the Engineering Leads at Interswitch. It also served as an open platform to get direct feedback from all the participants about their experiences at the Academy, which will be applied to improve the learning environment for the next batch of interns.
Certificates were also presented to all the participants.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Business Post Contributor