The Tech Talent of the Year award is part of employer branding firm Universum's Student of the Year competition, which they arrange in collaboration with some of Sweden's largest companies.
Those who apply to participate in the competition must have studied at least two years at a higher education institution in either Sweden or one of the three Baltic countries, and have basic programming knowledge.
Shekhar Devm Upadhyay was one of eight people selected for a final round in the competition where they had to work on a case.
The finalists were given data about the creation, success, and funding of various startups all over the world, in addition to the energy consumption from various sources of different countries, along with some socio-economic indicators. The task was to identify useful indicators to help SEB Greentech Venture Capital find good companies to invest in, using Google Cloud Platform as a tool.
“The task made perfect sense, as did the approach of driving sustainability through investment in innovative and sustainable solutions,” says Shekhar.
He immediately got down to work. Despite dealing with both some personal issues and his studies at KTH, he managed to take out some time every day to handle the case.
“I multi-tasked, strategised and wrote pseudocode on the fly. For the first time in my life, I planned my data analysis and mentally set up pseudocode while out grocery shopping,” he says.
“The experience was quite challenging, yet immensely enjoyable. I tested my multi-tasking powers to their utmost, and learnt how to use some of the tools that I wanted to but didn't have experience with."
Shekhar says his presentation of results from the case work wasn’t the most beautiful the jury got to see at the finals event. He had instead focused on making the content better than the competition.
“The presentation considered the current state of the art, and presented well where the potential for further development is and what fields may be saturated in terms of the development potential,” says Danica Kragic Jensfelt, a professor at KTH and member of the jury that selected the winner.
With that in mind, she says Shekhar took additional parameters into account, regarding both the specific sector and society at large.
“The presentation was delivered in clear language, with a well-planned outline and relevant summary, offering important insights of relevance for SEB,” says Petra Ålund, head of SEB’s Technology unit and also member of the jury.
Shekhar says he is eagerly looking forward to meeting and working with various teams at SEB, and learning how things work in industry environments and the banking and finance sector, in particular.
“Since I'm at the start of my professional career, I'm also looking forward to the mentorship and guidance that I'll receive through this award and my association with SEB,” he says.