Erëzë Ahmetgjekaj: Techstitution Trainee to Trainer

Open Data Kosovo
Nov 8 · 3 min read

A success story: Erëzë is a Junior Software Developer and Mentor at Open Data Kosovo. Her journey to how she got to where she is today has been fast-paced, courageous, and inspirational.

Being a Computer Science student at the University of Business and Technology in Kosovo, Erëzë sought to delve further into the programming world. She stepped foot into the ODK office, hopeful to feed this urge, at the occasion of a Techstitution workshop.

Techstitution is a UNICEF Kosovo-funded Project with the main goal of teaching practical software engineering skills to the Kosovar youth. Participants are engaged in the development of technologies to digitize institutional platforms, transforming them to ‘smart institutions’ that deliver high-quality services to Kosovo citizens.

Throughout the workshop, Erëzë demonstrated an eagerness to learn and challenge herself to reach new heights — all she needed was an opportunity to make use of. Erëzë was identified by the then-Techstitution trainer to be remarkably ambitious, and from there, she was offered an internship at Open Data Kosovo, despite the organization not having a relevant open position for her at the time — the idea was to first ensure she becomes part of the team.

Erëzë explains, “I took the offer of an internship at the organization as a Project Assistant even though it wasn’t in my field of studies,” and elaborates that she identified it as an opportunity to “get a foot in the door.”

Shortly after, a position in the technical team opened up, and Erëzë was the perfect candidate to fill it: she progressed from a Techstitution trainee to Junior Software Developer, and began to apply the knowledge acquired via Techstitution in practice.

Exemplifying her extraordinary abilities to learn and adapt quickly, she was yet again offered to advance her job profile by adding the responsibility of training Techstitution-participants, thus becoming a Mentor.

Erëzë managed to move up the ladder starting as a Techstitution-trainee, to intern, to filling a Junior Software Developer position, to becoming a Techstitution trainer within 4 months. ODK applauds her efforts:

“All these months at Open Data Kosovo became even more beautiful when I was awarded the title “Employee of The Month,” which caught me by surprise and made me feel appreciated and acknowledged. I am very happy and honored to be working with my team that believes in me, and pushes me to grow everyday.”

ODK hopes to train more Techstitution participants like Erëzë in the future — now offered by a former techstitution trainee.

Open Data Kosovo

Written by

A team of #CivicTech enthusiasts coding for a better tomorrow! www.opendatakosovo.org

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