• A third group of students has graduated from the App Factory course at the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct.
• App Factory is a nine-month internship programme that teaches South African youth essential software development skills using real-world practices.
• One graduate says that the programme has given them opportunities most people can only dream of.

Samsung and Wits University’s Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct have today announced that the third-ever cohort of students from the App Factory programme has successfully graduated.

The Samsung-sponsored App Factory programme is a nine-month-long internship course established to address the software development skills shortage currently being faced in South Africa. This shortage has led to many tech firms teaming up and launching skills training initiatives aimed at the country’s youth.

“South African software development solutions are competing globally for talent so we need to make sure that we are growing a quality talent pipeline locally that can be productive in the workplace fairly quickly. There is still too big a gap in the work readiness of graduates. The App Factory addresses this gap,” says Lesley Donna Williams, CEO of Tshimologong Precinct.

The programme only recruits “high potential graduates” from various tertiary institutions. Those lucky enough to be selected to join the programme to work on realistic projects under the supervision of a senior developer over the nine-month period.

2020’s cohort had only eight out of 85 applicants, while 2021’s group consisted of nine out of 306 applicants. This year represented the App Factory’s largest wave of applicants but only 18 interns were chosen out of 772 who applied.

In a press release Samsung says that “While there is a high demand of applicants for the programme, the teaching approach is intensive and high-impact, focusing on small groups and individual attention per intern.”

Since errors in software development projects usually come with a high cost to company, the programme is devoted to simulating practical experiences for interns to “fail fast, learn faster” while delivering real-world projects under real-world pressure. Interns learn full-stack development by tackling these realistic projects.

Many of the App Factory’s graduates have ended up working at a “world-renowned automotive manufacturer.” 2020 graduate Nomfundo Phororo said she was recently given the opportunity to fly to the company’s high-tech manufacturing plant in Germany.

“Being on the App Factory programme opened up opportunities that most people can only dream of,” she said.

“The shortage of adequately skilled software engineers would hamper the country’s ability to ride the wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and risk being left behind. This is what makes such initiatives so much more critical,” said Hlubi Shivanda, Samsung’s director of Business Operations, Innovation and Corporate Affairs.

 “As Samsung, we want to do our bit to contribute to this developmental agenda and process towards growing the South African economy,” Shivanda concludes.