Standard Bank, Digital Skills Academy sign agreement on skills development

From L-R: Jovanka Damjanovic, Head of Engineering Improvement at Standard Bank, Fanie Van Heerden, Head of IT Solutions, Architecture and Design at Standard Bank and Paul Dunne, CEO and founder of Digital Skills Academy

The academy's European-university accredited one-year International BSc Degree programmes, in Digital Skills, incorporate industry engagement with leading organisations such as Standard Bank in order to offer participants the opportunity to work on projects and to produce industry-optimised graduates.

Fanie Van Heerden, head of IT Solutions, Architecture and Design at Standard Bank, says the agreement will support the bank's transition to a more digital approach. "The whole financial industry is changing and we have non-traditional players entering the market, so we are focusing on digital projects to use the wealth of data we have available and to create greater customer intimacy that makes the customer feel like a 'segment of one'.

"Because the bank is moving into this digital realm quite fast, the academy participants will be exposed to a lot of innovative thinking, tools and techniques. They will benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach to learning that gives them the opportunity to address the real, practical challenges we have in industry. At the same time, we expect our own staff to have an opportunity to upskill, as they collaborate with the team from the academy."

Van Heerden notes that South Africa is confronted with skills shortages in the areas of DevOps, cloud based solutions, next generation infrastructure, and in areas of the mobile space.

"We are constantly seeking new skills, as we roll out new functionality across our corporate banking, retail banking, insurance and finance services in the 19 African countries where we operate. We simply do not have enough developers working on either the front end or the back end. The partnership could potentially help to provide us with resources to fill those gaps."

Jovanka Damjanovic, head of engineering improvement at Standard Bank adds, "We believe the partnership will offer mutual benefits. The academy participants will benefit by connecting the theory to the practical implementation. With our transformational journey towards Lean, Agile and DevOps, the participants will be exposed to a new way of thinking. At the same time, we are very aware that we cannot scale or move forward without creating more IT capabilities in South Africa. By supporting this initiative, we hope to help close the skills gap and support digital transformation."

Paul Dunne, CEO and founder of Digital Skills Academy, says the industry partner agreement with Standard Bank follows the agreement signed recently with KPMG South Africa and MTN Group. "These partnerships illustrate our desire to work alongside globally recognised corporate brands to offer relevant, cutting edge industry skills development and experience as part of our training programmes, including ordinary BSc degrees and Honours BSc Degrees."

For more information, visit the Digital Skills Academy.