The Department of Information Technology and ICT and Computer Services celebrated International Programmers Day on 13 September 2022 with senior IT students to honour programmers and innovators who make business, government and industry’s lives easier by innovating, designing, and coming up with solutions through developing programmes.

Globally, programmers are playing a critical role in the development of technological solutions required by various sectors such as government services, education sector, healthcare services and other critical fields that have seen extraordinary growth of programming as the backbone of innovations and design within the IT-related industry.

This professional day is celebrated annually on 13 September which is the 256th day of each year. The number 256 was chosen because it is the number of distinct values that can be represented with a byte, a value well known to programmers.

The university is keen to support more enrolment of young women in Programming and their advancement and contribution in this sector. This day is a continuation of Women's Month in terms of its broader objectives of promoting the participation of women in leadership positions and decision-making processes. We need to see more of our young women forming an integral part of the digital transformation agenda of the university.

In celebration of this day, a group of senior IT students was commissioned to conceive and come up with an IT-related solution- a mobile app the university will use to communicate and keep the university connected with prospective students, current students and staff and alumni. This assignment forms part of their WIL programme which allows them to gain much-needed work experience to solve real issues facing organisations.

A hackathon will be set up to allow groups of these senior students to compete and work around the clock to conceive a student app solution for the university and present their app to a panel of experts. The teams will be recognised by the university for their student-driven solution at before the end of the semester.

Prof. Alfred Ngowi
Acting Vice-Chancellor and Principal

Download the aVC Communique 15 September 2022 (PDF)