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MolenGeek closes internship deal with Proximus

15:51 13/11/2019

The Molenbeek coding school MolenGeek has entered a partnership with telecoms firm Proximus. MolenGeek will benefit from Proximus tech workers’ expertise as well as send up to 20 interns a year to the company.

MolenGeek was launched in 2015 by Molenbeek resident Ibrahim Ouassari, a self-taught programmer and coder who himself dropped out of secondary school. It started out as a coding school for young people who had few job skills. Courses take six months and transform unemployed youth into web and mobile developers.

Over the years, it has developed into a full blown tech incubator, co-working space and creative tech lab. The deal with Proximus will allow it to place graduates from its coding school into workplace internships. Proximus will also provide MolenGeek with supplies and materials.

For its part, Proximus hopes to benefit from creative ideas generated by new, young talent with backgrounds that are not well represented in the tech and telecoms sector. “When a big, national player like Proximus shows an interest in what MolenGeek is doing, that is a stamp of approval that makes all our work worthwhile,” said Ouassari. “This offers a new set of prospects for our youth.”

It’s not the first tech leader to see MolenGeek’s potential. Last year Google invested €200,000 in the organisation.

The agreement between MolenGeek and Proximus was signed in the presence of Proximus board chair Stefaan De Clerck and Brussels digital and jobs minister Bernard Clerfayt.

Photo courtesy MolenGeek

Written by Lisa Bradshaw