Emmanuel Redeemer Dotse, a final-year student in Telecommunication Engineering, made the most of his vacation by serving as a temporary shop attendant at a pub, interning at two institutions, and participating in a street feeding program.

At Virtual Infosec Africa Training Centre, where Redeemer took his first shift daily, he gained practical experience in ethical hacking and network security. The internship provided him with hands-on application of theoretical concepts he had learned in class.

“This is a course we study in school, but the detailed explanations are often missing. The internship at the lab gave us an insight into how it works,” he shared.

Redeemer’s paid training at the RF Microwave Training Lab focused on antenna design. He learned how to design patch antennas, spiral antennas, and horn antennas, among other skills. Lessons also covered how black hat hackers exploit vulnerabilities to eavesdrop on communications. These lessons proved invaluable, as they aligned closely with his final-year project and helped him complete it quickly.

“Most of my colleagues took so long to finish their final year project work, but my group and I completed ours in just a week,” he said.

While many celebrate Christmas holidays with family and friends, Redeemer took a different approach. He joined the Precious Adzani Foundation’s street feeding program, helping distribute items such as drinks, pastries, food, and water to those in need, including individuals in prisons and on the streets.

“We contributed money, prepared food and pastries, bought drinks and water, and distributed them to people on the streets and in prisons,” he recounted.

Using leftover items from the previous distribution, they added more drinks, pastries, and water to their contributions and distributed them again.

“We contributed again, purchased drinks and water, made some pastries, and distributed them on New Year’s Day because we had some items left from the previous distribution,” he said