Thando Thela
Nominee's Province:
Gauteng
Age:
28
Project Name/Description:
“Get the foundations right before you chase the magic.” In her role as a data analyst at data and analystics specialist company Bi-Lab, Thando Thela may look at dashboards and collect, analyse and interpret big data sets, but she knows that beneath the graphs are real-world decisions that impact lives and job security. And opening the door to others in her industry is something she takes personally. “The skills shortage in data engineering and AI is one of the biggest challenges our industry faces, and you solve it by building talent. Our graduate programme takes young people, many of whom wouldn’t easily get a foot in the door, and puts them on real client work alongside experienced engineers,” she says. “For the young people, it’s a genuine start to their career, and for the company I work for, it’s how we build the kind of skilled team that’s almost impossible to hire off the open market. So it’s part of how the business grows,” she says.
