Alpha Omega's Interns Got Tenacity!

Alpha Omega’s internship program is betting on early talent. Meet Shanil Kothari ?and Deolu Adelekan ("Dee"?). This is their journey and the daunting challenges they faced during their search for work. Both Alpha Omega technology interns graduated from college in May and have transitioned to full-time AO employees.?

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These are great success stories. However, statistics on internships have been daunting. Nearly 50% of all internship were cancelled in 2020, according to?a segment on PBS. ?

Internships- which had long served as the bridge between academia and business- were yet another facet of life impacted by the global pandemic.?

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Lack of internship opportunities, resulted in a hyper-competitive hiring environment, as reported by?CNBC , and, even this year,?Forbes ?reported that many of the largest firms continue to find cost saving by reducing their internship programs.?

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Alpha Omega is committed to supporting interns and other training and professional development opportunities.

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?Internships are vital to preparing the workforce of tomorrow, offering students:?

·???????An opportunity to practically apply their new,?theoretical?understanding in a real-world setting.???

·???????Strong mentorship and supportive feedback?

·???????Exposure to their first, post-collegiate network?

·???????A runway to fumble through the?uncertainties and awkwardness inevitably present in a new career?

·???????First consideration for post-internship positions?

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Alpha Omega recognized this trend and decided to be different. We need to be different because the future workforce needs advocates and mentors.???

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In May, two of our technology interns, Shanil & Dee, completed their undergraduate education and accepted full-time employment offers from Alpha Omega.?

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Each deserves to be recognized for their dedication and growth over the last year.

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Shanil Kothari?

Shanil Kothari joined Alpha Omega as an Automation & Machine Learning Intern in Summer 2022.?A rising senior studying Computer Science at the 美国马里兰大学帕克分校 , Shanil was already well-versed in Java, Python, R, SQL, and?PowerBI?prior to his arrival and he was eager to continue learning.???

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Shanil very quickly caught the attention of the Internship Committee.?As the?founder and Vice President of the University of Maryland's?BigTh!nk?AI, a student organization which seeks to?bring awareness and appreciation for the growing interdisciplinary field of artificial intelligence,?we felt he shared in Alpha Omega's passion for AI and automations.?Perhaps as a result of his time spent recruiting members and leading meetings, we felt his communication skills and planning abilities, in addition to his technical abilities, made him the right choice for the opportunity.?

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Navin Maganti , Alpha Omega's VP of Automation, and Shanil’s supervisor and mentor, says?"his ability to research, understand problems, then translate them into solutions and communicate the benefits of solutions to stakeholders has allowed him to build automations across all the domains of talent acquisition, contracts, human resources while building capabilities for civil agency clients."?

?In the Fall 2022,?Shanil was offered an opportunity to extend his internship into the school year. His approach to juggling work and school was to be the best vision of himself at both locations.?At school, he considered academics through the lens of his real-world experience and, at Alpha Omega, he introduced new concepts and approaches just learned in the classroom.?Additionally, he used his holiday breaks from the university to study up and obtain certifications in automation and AI platforms prized by the industry.?

?In early 2023, Navin offered Shanil the opportunity to join us full-time as a software engineer, focusing on?Artificial Intelligence.?Navin shared that in his new role "Shanil will home in on generative AI and LLM's solution to address the use cases supporting acquisitions, cyber and engineering.?To this end he has been piloting scenarios on Azure AI, H20,?and others which look forward to use internally and promote the use within our clients."?

In May, Shanil took the stage and graduated alongside his?University?of Maryland classmates.??

We can't wait to see all that you accomplish in what we are sure will be a very rewarding and successful technology?career.?From?the Automation team and the entire Alpha Omega family, we congratulate Shanil for his academic successes. ??

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Adeoluwa "Dee"?Adelekan?

Adeoluwa "Dee" Adelekan joined Alpha Omega as a Cloud & Software Development Intern in Summer 2022. At the time, he was a rising Senior studying Computer Science at Towson University and he had already earned an Associate’s Degree in Computer Science from Santa Fe College .?During our 2022 Virtual Internship Event, Dee stood out immediately as a strong contributor and communicator. The Alpha Omega recruiting team was eager to continue the conversation and we unanimously agreed that Dee was an exceptional and budding technologist.?

?Dee's supervisor, Nitin Vartak , VP of Cloud Solutions shared that "as?a Computer Science major, Dee communicated interest in learning the actual practice of being a professional software developer in a typical workplace setting. He started off with basic academic knowledge of software programming but no knowledge or training in the actual process of working as part of a software engineering team. Over the course of his Internship, Adeoluwa became quite proficient in many of the standard tools and processes used by software development teams in the industry."?

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Thanks to strong mentorship and support from his Alpha Omega colleague, Olayinka Adetoye, ZCE PSD PSM , Dee expanded his breadth and depth of skills. Today Dee's deep knowledge touches many of the industry standard platforms and software packages including?#aws #cloud development,?source control with Git and?Github,?Task Management and Agile Development practices in Jira, frontend development with Angular, unit testing and test-driven development with Karma and Jasmine,?backend development with Node.js,?Microservice and REST API development with AWS Lambda, AWS Serverless and AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) and document Databases with Amazon DynamoDB.?His full list of skills far exceeds the word count of this article but suffice to say, he is a talented individual.?

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Dee's most impactful accomplishment was "taking on the challenge of developing a new Guestbook Application for?Alpha?Omega.?He built it from the ground up and included innovative features like a QR Code generator and WebSocket notifications," his supervisor reflected.?He went on to say, "watching him present the Guestbook application he had developed, speaking so comfortably and clearly about the benefits and features, [it was] my proudest moment [and his mentor]. "?

?Originally in the Total Solutions Group (TSG) department, Nitin Vartak reflected on potential collaboration projects he and?Adeoluwa might engage on, had he remained on his team.?"[He would] continue to work with me, be further mentored by Olayinka Adetoye, ZCE PSD PSM and continue building innovative new software projects, especially projects currently underway in the Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence space. His curiosity and very quick learning abilities would come in useful in breaking new ground and developing new products and solutions in TSG."?

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Dee accepted an offer to transition his technology skills onto one of Alpha Omega's Agile development teams outside of TSG. He just wrapped up his college career, graduating from Towson University in May, and is scheduled to return and begin his full-time role at Alpha Omega in August 2023.?

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Congratulations Dee & Shanil, and WELCOME BACK to Alpha Omega!???

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The Alpha Omega Internship Program

In 2021, Alpha Omega began its internship program with a single marketing intern and found it to be a valuable endeavor and great way to support the next generation of workers. By mid-2022, we onboarded 3 technology interns with a variety of backgrounds:?

·???????Automation & Machine Learning?

·???????Data Analytics & Computer Science?

·???????Cloud & Computer Science?

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We are elated to report 100% of our 2022 technology interns are still in the organization today.?

Our support of interns is part of the Alpha Omega mission. We are committed to ongoing professional development and full-time employees are given the opportunity to achieve unlimited certifications and upskilling. Working at Alpha Omega isn’t just a job, it’s a career track. From intern to the CEO, we believe in constant improvement and dedication to our customers and the nation.?