Keeping in Touch: Praise Wenegieme’s Time with the UCCRSA

3 Oct 2025

Praise Wenegieme, a second-year Business Information Systems student, recently concluded his role as IT, Website and Social Media Assistant with UCCRSA. We caught up with Praise to hear about his experience with the association and his academic career.

Q1, Could you please tell us about your background and interests, particularly about your studies in Business Information Systems (BIS)?
Currently, I am going into my third year of Business Information Systems (BIS). The programme is a mix of commerce and computer science. The goal of BIS is to bridge the gap between these two fields.

I chose BIS because I really enjoyed business in secondary school, but I also did programming as a hobby at the time. So, getting the chance to study both areas in college was ideal for me.

Photo: Praise Wenegieme

Personally, I prefer the programming side of the course — for example, web development, SQL, and Python. However, I still find it valuable to have an understanding of subjects like accounting and economics.

Q2, Could you tell us a bit about your role and activities within UCCRSA?
While I was with UCCRSA, one of my main responsibilities was disseminating emails to the right audiences and updating the website and social media.

I also supported other organisations when needed, including ICORSA, the IrishRSA, and the UCC Cork-Singida Partnership. So, during my time at UCCRSA, I was also working with other organisations.

Another key part of my work was to enhance UCCRSA’s social media presence, which included taking over the Twitter (now ‘X’) account, creating a Gmail, and setting up a LinkedIn profile for the association. It was fun!

Q3. Can you tell us a bit about the main objectives of the President's Orientation Café? What was your role in it?
Since UCCRSA had been somewhat dormant for a while, especially since COVID, the President's Orientation Café was a great way to reboot, and get us active and visible again. During the event, I spoke with lecturers and PhD candidates who might not have been familiar with UCCRSA, letting them know that we are here and available to help if needed — for example, by helping them disseminate their project work, linking them with other researchers and events.

Q4. Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
I really enjoyed my time with UCCRSA. I was able to meet a lot of different people, both at UCC and internationally. I found it to be a really good experience and really enjoyed it overall. I learnt a lot about researcher careers, and research for the future.