The Durban University of Technology (DUT) Faculty of Accounting and Informatics, Green Lights, VarsityGenie together with Microsoft Cloud advocate, Someleze Diko launched the esteemed Power Platform Bootcamp at the DUT MICT SETA 4IR Centre of Excellence Lab on Saturday, 10 September 2022.
This is a partnership-led Power Platform Bootcamp that will be running for two months (8 weeks), also 20 DUT Information Technology (IT) and Information Systems (IS) Department students were selected to attend the bootcamp.
The purpose of the event was to help students to be employable, promote sustainable and productive private and academic collaboration and exchange between faculty, students Green Light staff members in work integrated learning programmes. It was also held to provide for cooperation on provision of practical training and work experience activities of the two institutions that will strengthen mutual understanding and foster friendly co-operation.
The Power Platform Bootcamp was launched in alignment with the DUT ENVISION2030 Strategy which is to develop graduates with the acumen to initiate and/or respond to change and be adaptive because new technology is predominant currently and the aim is to provide participants with knowledge and practical skills in Microsoft Power Platforms.
The Programme Director of the event was Tineke Speirs from Greenlights Solutions. The esteemed speakers included Microsoft Cloud advocate, Someleze Diko, two Junior SharePoint and Power
Platform Development Officers, Nicholas Gounden and Christopher Kessler as well as Delivery Manager, Mark Gaines, all from Greenlight Solutions.
One of the speakers, Microsoft advocate, Someleze Diko stated that with the successful launch of the Power Platform Bootcamp, they aim to upskill students with Power Platform skills and certifications. He further added that there is a growing need of Power Platform developers in the job market in South Africa and internationally but there is a low number of professionals and students who are skilled with this technology, hence the need to bridge that gap through this bootcamp.
He also expressed that he is extremely grateful to Greenlight Solutions and DUT for partnering with him to making the event a success. Diko said the Greenlight Solutions team provided clear goals for students to accomplish through the bootcamp which exposed them to how the industry experience looks like.
Diko said: “It has been such a great honour to see and work with Fanie Ndlovu and Ugeshni Moodley in fostering an ongoing partnership with the DUT to upskill students alongside Greenlight and that in a future bootcamp.”
He (Diko), aims to continue working with the Durban University of Technology in upskilling more students with Microsoft technologies and getting them certified with Microsoft Fundamentals certificates that are recognised internationally to give students a competitive advantage over other students; and enable students to apply for the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors programme which has contributed a lot in his journey to get him where he is today.
VaristyGenie President, Sanele Doyisa who was part of the planning and execution of the bootcamp revealed that students were amazed with the different types of platforms that they were introduced to since here at DUT students are used to hard coding. He also mentioned that in Power Platform it takes less than a day to build a fully functioning system, whereas when you are coding in Python and C-Sharp it can take more than a month to build a solid project.
“Most of the students were excited that they will now be able to build their projects using the Power Platform,” he said excitedly.
Pictured: Microsoft advocate, Someleze Diko.
Siphokazi Dlamini
