Ameen Ramjon awarded Young IT Professional Award

Ameen Ramjon, HSC student at Royal College of Curepipe, has been awarded the Young IT Professional Award by the British Computer Society for outstanding achievements in IT for the year 2016. Aged only 19, Ameen earned his degree in IT before he finished college. With this achievement, he has decided to pursue a career in the IT field and aspires to become a Senior IT Manager in the BPO field.

The award ceremony took place on 22 October 2016. For Ameen, who is also into social work, winning this award means that his skills will be visible to the world. Moreover, he hopes this will encourage more youngsters to use their professional talent in social work. “As a young IT professional, I believe that winning this award will inspire more youngsters. It will also open brighter paths to a better personal and professional development. In addition, I can assume that winning the Young IT Professional Award will allow me to be a guide to peers and friends to embrace a career in IT”, he said. 

Ameen was just 14 when he decided to embark on a career in IT while going to college at the same time. Research coupled with the unflinching guidance of his parents, who are both IT professionals, led him to undertake a course with the British Computer Society. This was the first step towards success. “I passed the BCS Certificate level one year later. At the age of 16, I passed the BCS Diploma exams and at the age of 17, I earned a BCS Graduate Diploma. I have also successfully completed the BCS Professional Project at the age of 18,” he explained. 

Passionate about computing, Ameen also followed practical courses in computer repair and maintenance and networking. According to this young student, he is also very well versed in a number of programming languages and web technologies. “After my studies at the Royal College of Port-Louis, I joined the EON Entrepreneur School and followed a post-graduate Diploma in Virtual and Augmented Reality,” he added.

Furthermore, Ameen participated in a number of social activities to promote the use of IT. “In collaboration with the Lois Lagesse Trust Fund, I created a web portal for the visually impaired to help them in their studies. Up to now, this is the only known fully accessible web portal in Mauritius,” he says.

The award winner added that this project also led him to participate in the Total Entrepreneur competition in 2015 and he was listed among the finalists. This project helped students pass the CPE exams and has enabled members of the Global Rainbow Foundation to pass exams for City & Guilds International Certification. “I am currently using my knowledge of virtual reality to improve the application and pan it for other types of disabilities in order to help people integrate better the mainstream,” he said.

Entrepreneurship

Jessyca Joyekurun: “It is a life that I have chosen”

The young and dynamic Mandela Washington fellow and founder/managing director of Expand Human Resources Ltd, Jessyca Joyekurun, delivered a talk on her personal experience of being an entrepreneur on 12th October 2016 at Profive Ltd, Ebène.  During the event organised by the Jeune Chambre Internationale (JCI) of Quatre Bornes, the entrepreneur elaborated on the following topic: “Youth Unemployment – Challenges and Struggles but still why opt for entrepreneurship?”

Having worked for CIM Global Business in 2010 and for Damco Logistics in 2012, Jessyca Joyekurun explained that she decided to open her own business after “feeling very stressed as a follower.” She wanted to lead and thus, Expand Human Resources Ltd came into existence in 2012. The company is specialised in Human Resource Outsourcing and Human Resource Payroll and boasts around around 70 clients so far. At the very onset, she mentioned that a person who reproduced a business model was a businessman whereas an entrepreneur was someone who dared to transform existing systems and practices.

Jessyca Joyekurun began her talk with a motivational video called “Fearless Motivation.” This video was mostly focused on boosting the morale of an entrepreneur and the following words were very prominent: “goals,” “leader,” “boss,” “competition” and “sacrifice.” According to her, being an entrepreneur is not fun as one has to work, even when sick: “You have to earn their salary first.”

The young entrepreneur continued her exposé by referring to her trials and tribulations with government bodies and the banking sector in Mauritius as a fresh entrepreneur. She remembered on a bitter note how she was refused an overdraft of Rs 50,000. Her first contract as an entrepreneur was from the nearby Reunion Island, simply because she was not offered a recruitment licence in her country at that time.

Nonetheless, driven by an amazing urge to succeed and lead, Jessyca also pointed at her acceptance of reality as an entrepreneur, that is: “Success does not come in the first year.  Surround yourself with people who believe in you.” According to her, an entrepreneur must never divert from her/his initial business idea and most importantly, not to go into Venture Capital. She gave the example of Steve Jobs who was sacked from his own company at the age of 30. An entrepreneur must be a problem-solver and must adopt a proper routine of work whereby tough projects must be tackled in the morning, workout and meditation must be regularly practised and a schedule for revenue-generating activities must be sketched, she added..

When asked if she regretted being an entrepreneur, the following quick reply came: “Sometimes yes, but I remember my vision.” Jessica’s company profile can be viewed on expandhumanresources.com and her professional profile is available on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Geereeshwaree (Vimi) Kureeman