Employers seeking out talent in Anglesey, Gwynedd and Flintshire are being given a financial boost thanks to a new skills-matching graduate internship initiative funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, part of the UK Government’s ‘Levelling Up’ agenda and facilitated by ȫƱ.
Masi Jahan, originally from Afghanistan, is one of the first Bangor graduates to take up one of the 12-week ‘Talent Voucher’ placements offered through the University’s Skills and Innovation Voucher Scheme (SIV). Since March, he has been able to share his expertise in data analytics and visualisation with BIC Innovation based in M-SParc, Gaerwen, Anglesey. Whilst on paid internship, he is undertaking valuable R&D for the business consultancy, whilst also gaining essential workplace experience following his Computing MSc at ȫƱ.
It really is a win-win situation. Masi is bringing a lot of innovative thinking to our business development, and using his background in both languages and computer science to help us prioritise our focus when it comes to how we develop our business.”
Before arriving in the UK in 2021, Masi studied an English undergraduate degree in Afghanistan and worked in linguistics, with an interest in language technology and how computers support and manipulate human languages. After settling in North Wales with his wife and young son, he joined local language technology company Pai Language Learning through M-SParc’s Skills Academy, and subsequently decided to pursue an MSc Computing Generalist course at ȫƱ’s School of Computer Science and Engineering, which allows graduates from any discipline a route into Computer Science.
Masi said, “At first it was a challenge. My background was languages, so I hadn’t done much computing since high school! But I had a lot of support from my excellent personal tutor Mohammed Mabrook, and in the end and with a lot of perseverance I managed to complete my Masters with distinction. At the same time, I was working with a company called ‘Say Something in Welsh’ which furthered my interest in language and tech, s