Deborah Igunma is a Founding Scholar at Academy. She joined the programme after graduating with a first-class degree in Philosophy from Nottingham University.

During her studies, Deborah excelled. She won a startup grant of £5k, through the Mayor of London’s Digital Talent Programme, to fund her fintech company and was named on Powerlist’s UK 2019/20 Future Leader list.

“I’m always playing around with tech-enabled solutions/ideas & the biggest barrier I’ve had so far is having the ability to build them myself!

I currently use no/low code tools but I’m ready to equip myself fully and find myself technically as I work as a software engineer for a company.

I also resonate deeply with the Academy’s desire to completely reimagine graduate careers, education and software engineering talent as we know it, particularly as I’ve worked a great deal on reconceptualising Eurocentric academia at university and by way of being an entrepreneur constantly reimagine the industries I try to disrupt.

Beyond that, joining intentional, mission-driven builders was a no brainer!”