immedia newsletter: August 2012

Engaging tomorrow’s talent

It’s the talent issue! We’ve been heavily involved with young talent of late, from recruiting some aspiring professionals, to participating in university events and speaking to the students.

This month, we went out to evangelise the app dev revolution at DUT’s annual World of Work event, hoping to find the next dev rockstar. As always, we’re on the lookout for talent that we can grow with and learn from, and make our growing family even stronger.

August also marks a milestone for us as we mix things up a bit with our first social media #OpenNight, and we proudly announce our latest apps.

Engaging tomorrow’s talent

Our “appy tappy tribe” recently exhibited at the Durban University of Technology’s World of Work careers fair, giving us the opportunity to chat to some of Durban’s talented and enthusiastic students. Our team of developers, designers and strategists connected with several students, sharing our own personal stories and projects and helping them better understand the post-PC space.

Interacting with the students not only gave us the opportunity to describe the joys and rewards of becoming an app creator, but also allowed us to demonstrate how Silicon Beach is a great place to live and work. The feedback was amazing, and we’re hoping to provide as many internships as we can to the city’s future designers, developers and entrepreneurs.

We were one of around 90 institutions from around the country who addressed learners with presentations and one-to-one discussions at their stands. The objective of this annual fair is to provide learners with career and industry information, helping to make an informed decision on how to approach their future careers.

We’re hiring!

We are looking for energetic, big-thinking, passionate minds to work with us in building the best local and international mobile apps, create powerful and scalable cloud-based server backends and APIs, design the most beautiful and intuitive user interfaces for our sites and apps, and keep our awesome clients happy.

Instead of telling new recruits about us, we asked some of our talent to chat about their experiences with immedia, give some real world advice about how to get into app dev, and show you that all this is possible right here in Silicon Beach.

Web developer and Head of Online, Nicholas Kirkirdis:
“I enjoy our working environment because we, as developers, are not considered to be simply programmers who translate flow charts into code, but rather craftsmen going through the journey from apprentice to master craftsman. We’re also always on the bleeding edge of new technologies so there is never a dull moment. App development is the easiest development environment to get into and the tools are free as well as easily available.”

Project Manager, Hayley Fenton:
“Durban is the unexplored territory of talent. I returned here after twelve years in the UK, and was lucky to find a ‘not just a job’ kind of role. As we at immedia have found out, there is amazing talent in Durban waiting to be discovered. This makes the space very unique as we undoubtedly have some of the best talent in SA working in our company. Forget Joburg or Cape Town – it’s all happening in Durban.”

Intern, Rubashen Yegambaram:
“Two months ago, I was given the chance to join as an intern in web dev but with the greater goal of becoming an app developer. I like the fact that there’s so much of talent here and everyone’s willing to share their wealth of knowledge with you. I’ve learnt that the best way to become a professional within the app dev space is to immerse yourself in everything concerning this field. Learn as much as you can. You have to be passionate, ambitious and persistent!”

#OpenNight: Social media in a post-PC era

Today marks a milestone for our community-building sessions as we host our first ever social media #OpenNight. We’ve invited some of Durban’s most influential social media thought leaders for a stimulating debate. In the spirit of doing things differently, this will be our first panel discussion and will explore the future of social media in a post-PC era.

It’s going to be an awesome night of drinks, discussion and networking with Silicon Beach’s growing community of IT enthusiasts and social media gurus. Follow the chat later either through @immediaza or the hashtag #OpenNight.