1 November 2024, Johannesburg:
2024 Hackathon a Success
Today saw a new milestone reached in the life of the South African ALX accelerator hub, with the first ever Hackathon on African soil hosted and sponsored by Google.
The setting for the event was in the modern hub situated in the heart of Braamfontein, Johannesburg, with 20 ALX students in five teams, each tackling a series of server hardware and network configuration challenges.
The energy and excitement was tangible as the teams of student technicians, took to their task of building and configuring their servers with a lot of interaction and discussion about how to go about the task optimally.
Google Building for the Future
Several senior google engineers, including Elliot Mokoena, Data Center IT Infrastructure Manager at Google, were on hand to oversee the real-life simulation test and to assess the student’s ability and skills.
A key goal of the project was to create a real-life scenario that future computer technicians would be facing and to identify and develop the next wave of data centre technicians through hands-on exposure to real-world tech environments.
Part of the Hackathon purpose is to allow Google identify potential future talent that may be able to find employment at Google data centers in the future. There is a growing need for more technicians as the data center world expand rapidly to accommodate the ever increasing requirement of more computing power for Artificial inlelligence models.
The Winners of the Hackathon were Eleazar Nhamuave Ntabejane, Mpho Lemao Bongani, Jeremy Nkosi and Evans Mabasa.
ALX goal – Building Talent at Scale
Divesh Sooka, General Manager of ALX South Africa, believes in developing Africa’s Tech talent at scale, and comments that “The ALX, Johannesburg training hub, will be the first of many”. “We intend to open several more across the country, including Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth as well as other areas in South Africa where we plan to partner with other companies. “Training facilities such as ALX, that is funded by private enterprise creates a space where future young leaders are enabled to enter the global workforce and make an impact on tech innovation across Africa and beyond.”
ALX aims to curb unemployment in Africa by enabling 2 million young professionals to secure dignified and meaningful work opportunities by 2030.
