Kristine Naikaku

At work

Being the first intern from B360 to work for a company was a bit uneasy on me until I have realised that I was only putting pressure on my shoulder unnecessary. As part of my 3 months internship, I had the privilege to work with the amazing and diverse team at Bob Finance AG. This was a productive and learning journey and a lot to learn in a short period of time. I worked with wonderful mentors, Mr. Hilmar Scheel, Mr. Wolfgang Gröschel and my IT supervisor Mr. Olaf Haase and Mr Mehidin Mehmedovic.

I was working on a Bob Finance cloud-base system solution with Mambu and Mambu is the core service for all the banking at Bob Finance that includes keeping the accounts, interest calculation. Since Mambu is offered as a fully managed service, the company needed to build their own business services. My minimal scope was to build the testbed environment and make conclusions out of the proof-of-concept setup which can be used in the design of the final environment. Depending on progress the scope can be extended in conceptual and implementation work for the final design. My role with Networking came into play because for the company to structure and secure their services they should be able to connect them to Mambu and their office network (Site-to-Site VPN), this was done on Microsoft Azure-based cloud. Phase two of my task included creating virtual machine and docker containers where all the company services will run. Not only that I had to work on the platform that was practically new to me, even thought I had theoretical knowledge to it, but interestingly there was a lot to learn. That included doing most of the configurations on Azure, running and deploying applications both on Azure machines and docker images. I also had a chance to do play around with scripting using Python which I consider of interest and learn more.

The whole project really changed my perception and it was on what a networking student can do, because your work is not only confined to working on a physical machine but alternatively most of the IT technologies can be done on cloud. And with technology evolving, in Namibia opportunities like this are rare. I also get to attend some team event “Bob We Take Care” which was amazing and during my time I got a chance to celebrate with the team on the success of some projects and that included the launch of new bob.ch website. I have learnt the importance of teamwork and communication.

I had a lunch invitation and jointed lunch with colleagues at work and this made me feel accepted and part of the team. Knowledge is power therefore I can confidently say I have gained the most valuable thing that no one can take away, not just high IT industrial knowledge but knowledge related to self-esteem, self-development, planning, communication, presentation skills and most of all how to work with people from different cultural background. ALWAYS BE EAGERED TO LEARN!

My Swiss host family

Arriving on August 01 which is Swiss national day was interesting because I get to try some traditional Swiss dishes that was so delicious. As far as my biological family were, I got a family that helped me throughout and made me understand Swiss culture better. Beginnings are always not easy, trying to find your role in a family but Markus and Ruth took me into their home and it always felt like home since then. As much as I enjoyed seeing myself develop, their hard work made me see the bigger picture on life. Looking back its heart warming seeing how they could fight for me during my unfortunate situations. They helped me understand the Swiss transport system better and we have discussions on many other life topics. The family shielded me, fed me, educated me and we enjoyed traveling to places together to see the beautiful Swiss landscape and spend some time in the mountains. I also had a chance to live with the Di Lazzaro family and I remember getting used to a route around the city and it encouraged me that sometimes it’s important to be out of your obvious and be exposed to something new. I wish I could freeze the clock and spend more time with the families because there was always something new to learn every day.  Specials thanks for all the amazing gifts, memorable time we spend, beautiful places we visited and the delicious food. The effort and caring that Markus put through in making my Swiss experience memorable did not go unnoticed.

My highlights and challenges

I have looked forward to the trip for long until the day I left Namibia. The first few weeks in Switzerland were not as easy as planned but I have fought all odds and I reminded myself of the reason I got here. I don’t really consider these as challenges but opportunities, and below are some of those that I have faced during my internship:

It was not easy to get used to the food but with time I fell in love with the Swiss dishes. `Culture shock’ and this include language barrier but lucky enough people at home and at work could understand English even though I could speak or understand little to no Swiss Germany. I was amazed by how easy and complicated the transport system in Switzerland can be.  I also had to adjust to Swiss time because with my “AFRICAN TIME” things will not work and why time management was important.

My biggest highlight was the presentation I had, a work about Namibia, really made me believe in myself, that I can always do it and I received positive feedback from my colleagues.

 I was amazed by the beautiful landscape of Switzerland and I get to visit amazing different places with  my host families and seeing the love in how people make time for you and take you around place like  Ballenburg museum, mount Pilatus, Rheinfall, Engelberg, and a  group trip to Milano Italy, with other students. The dream of an African child is stepping on snow which is mind blowing.

Nonetheless, I have reminded myself how I left my comfort zone, town, country and family and immerse myself into a new world. As much as I could hold myself and try to fit in the culture, I have learned to appreciate that sometimes it’s important to be unique from everybody. I believe that “Omwene eshi eku nunina , iheshi lipo” translated: what God has for me, is for me.

My future plans

First thing that I can do is meeting other students and have discussions on how we both did our internship and what we learned, I believe this will help develop each other. Professional wise, this was just the beginning to the long journey ahead. Self development is the key in life. I planned on perusing my honours degree and Master of Computer Science specialising in Information Security, this is because with everybody migrating to the cloud infrastructure, their biggest fear is how secure are their data and the issue of trusting a third party with your data.

 Personal message

If it does not challenge you, it will not change you. Remember nobody can do it better than you and that makes you unique. Thank you B360 for the experience and for changing my life and the life of those before and after me.