#NewCampaign: Coding a better, prosperous future

27 Jul 2017

With its 'prosper' philosophy at its core, in ‘helping people achieve their ambitions in the right way', Absa recently released its latest film, ‘Coding a better future', which features three Digital Academy graduates, namely Edward Motloung, Gopolang Lekoto and Sanusha Naidoo, who secured themselves an internship, which led to a full-time job at Absa.

“It’s astounding what you stand to achieve when you are only given the opportunity to do so,” says Absa brand manager Lauren Daniel. “For these three coders, life took a turn for the better when they were selected to build a 'prosperous' future for themselves with the help of Absa and the Digital Academy. Now they take their newly acquired skills into the real world, through their permanent positions at Absa – an incredible achievement that is set to better their lives, as well as the lives of every Absa consumer.”

Speaking of Absa's partnership with the Digital Academy, Daniel says “Absa is always looking for scarce and critical skills in the IT space. By partnering with the academy, we actually create a pipeline of these skills into our organisation while contributing to the employability of our youth at the same time. Graduating students are often offered positions in the bank where they assist us in developing innovations and solutions to better service our customers."

It's a beautiful collaboration to witness, she says, which is beautifully demonstrated in these three stories, "portraying exactly how all players win and ultimately, through this initiative, how all players prosper."

Here, Daniel tells us more about Absa's 'shared growth' strategy and the bank's belief in the power of partnership.

Why did Absa partner with Digital Academy?

Absa believes in the power of partnership, and specifically in the potential to leverage amazing talent and skills from the private sector. The Digital Academy, as an Absa supported initiative, is one of the ways that the bank lives our shared growth values – the belief that when we grow and prosper, so do our customers and the organisations we partner with. We focus on tangible ways to educate and upskill individuals, to empower enterprise development and to promote and drive financial inclusion. The Digital Academy is one of the ways that we drive the education and upskilling pillar of that agenda – by creating high calibre skilled interns that can be absorbed into the Absa group, we are strengthening both the individuals and our organisation to better serve our customers.

Why is education/skills development and creating jobs important to Absa?

By creating platforms to address knowledge gaps and supporting education institutions and infrastructure with capacity building to improve their delivery of education, BAGL can drive systemic structural change in the education ecosystem, and ultimately bridge the gap between labour supply (qualified workforce) and market demand (employment opportunities).

Why the focus on web and software development and IT coding in particular and/or the technology, innovation and product development side of the bank?

A stark reality is obvious to our organisation: we do not have enough skilled developers in South Africa. Given the pervasive trend to digitisation and product innovation within financial services, it became a simple matter of ‘if we can’t find [it], create [it].’

What is Absa’s prosper philosophy?

Prosper is Absa’s philosophy of facilitating the hopes and dreams of all South Africans, born out of its brand purpose of ‘helping people achieve their ambitions in the right way’.

How do all players prosper?

The Digital Academy is a startup and their growth depends on the partnership with our corporate partners. The more partners we have, the more our business prospers.

Sanusha, Edward and Gopolang received hands-on training and education in IT coding and technology through the Digital Academy – through this training, they secured themselves an internship and then full-time job at Absa, where they are now being fulfilled in their dream jobs and receiving an income.

Through our relationship with the Digital Academy, Absa is securing a pipeline of high calibre, skilled talent that can be absorbed into the group, thereby strengthening the individuals and our organisation to better serve our customers.

Our customers will be receiving superior products and services as a result of this innovative and forward-thinking approach.

How is Absa coding a better future?

By graduating young, talented, skilled coders or developers for recruitment into the Absa technology teams, we are able to better serve our customers with new products and services in the way they enjoy being served.