Why I’m loving the start of my data science career so far, thanks to Vodacom

I am currently a data scientist intern on the M-Pesa Africa Big Data and AI team at Vodacom, having joined the Early Careers Internship Program at Vodacom straight from university.

M-Pesa, a fintech company helping millions of unbanked people across Africa, provides innovative, affordable financial technology services that allows them to start creating a transaction history, which can then enable them to build a credit history.

I love the people who work at Vodacom. Not having much of a technical background, I have found that everyone at Vodacom is always so open to helping you. Regardless of the person or position, they are always willing to help. You are encouraged to interact with and learn from people in more senior positions than you. When I first started, I had a long conversation with someone who turned out to be the EHOD of a region, but I had no idea until he stood-up to address a meeting.

With the team I'm in specifically, I love to see the direct impact that the team's work has on the ground and how adaptable everyone is.

Landing an internship

I started university at the University of Pretoria, where I discovered my passion for mathematics and economics. Then when Covid hit, I transferred to the University of KwaZulu-Natal. I completed my BSc in Mathematics and Economics there, getting onto the Vodacom Bursary Program in my final year. In 2023 I was given the opportunity by Vodacom to study an Honours of my choosing, so I stayed at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and completed my BCom Honours in Economics. After that I joined Vodacom as an intern.

Now I support the data scientists on my team, helping out where I can. That can be anything from documentation of projects to validation of model outputs. Other than playing a supportive role, I have also been given my own interesting projects to complete. The most interesting one was the creation of an automated cohort analysis dashboarding system that required a lot of new skills to be learnt.

Currently I am working on an automated system to track the performance of a machine learning model to ensure accurate results and to calculate business value added.

Helping to develop M-Pesa

Many people in Africa are unbanked, meaning that they live on cash-to-cash transactions without the financial opportunity and security of bank accounts, credit cards or lending facilities. M-Pesa was founded to help solve this problem.

It decided to launch a micro-loans product in partnership with various banks in our various markets, which enables access to credit facilities for people who the traditional banking system excludes. It is too early to give a report back on the community but the hope and intention behind the project is that it will allow for job creation and economic development in these communities.

I have played a supportive role in a few key projects for M-Pesa so far. One that stands out was work on a decision engine that enabled the granting of micro-loans to customers who, because of being unbanked, would never have been able to gain access to credit. The project was a success but there were a couple of challenges that the team faced along the way.

The first was that we had to ensure that the product complied with the various financial regulations of each respective market as well as the rules of the various banks onboard. The other one (which I think was the biggest challenge) was the fact that the credit scorer used for financial applications had pulled out of the region, meaning that the team had limited time to create their own scoring model and decision engine. Thankfully they have a wealth of diverse experience to draw upon, from CFA to Engineering backgrounds etc. This, coupled with the team's great ability to communicate and collaborate both internally and externally meant they were able to overcome these challenges and exceed expectations while doing so.

Reflecting on my journey so far

The Vodacom program I’m on presents a fantastic opportunity to launch my data science career. I am amazed at how much I have progressed already, though I recognise there is still much to learn.

I am particularly excited to further develop my technical skills and gain valuable experience in the African Fintech industry. I’m looking forward to tackling the diverse and challenging projects that lie ahead, as they promise to deepen my knowledge and expertise, and I am eagerly anticipating the growth I will experience over the next year.