Applications open — Cohort 06 starts September 2026
The accelerator.
Six months inside the conditions of a real engineering team: structured coursework, bi-weekly 1:1 mentorship, team projects, and sprint delivery — building work you can show, and habits a team can rely on.
- Start
- September 2026
- Location
- Buea, Cameroon
- Duration
- 6 months
- Seats
- 10 seats
For engineers at the start of the climb.
The program is built for people who already have foundations and want the team layer on top: workflows, reviews, delivery, and judgment.
Engineering graduates from higher institutions and universities.
Final-year engineering students completing their internship period.
Self-taught learners and career switchers with equivalent foundations — make your case in the application essay.
What you need
Personal laptop
Your own machine, set up as your daily workshop.
GitHub account
Your work lives in version control from day one.
Based in Buea
In-person attendance, daily, for the full program.
Real commitment
Coursework, team projects, sprints — six months of showing up.
Six steps, from selection to transition.
Each step raises the standard: from foundations, to teamwork, to shipping work others can use.
- 01
Discover & select
We look for curiosity, discipline, foundational ability, and the willingness to learn by doing. Small cohorts, deliberate selection.
- 02
Prepare
Selected applicants complete assigned foundational learning and set up the tools and habits the cohort runs on.
- 03
Build foundations
Core engineering, product, and collaboration concepts — from version control to system structure.
- 04
Work in teams
Plan solutions, write user stories, define domains and APIs, work in sprints, review code, respond to feedback.
- 05
Ship projects
Build usable solutions to locally relevant problems. Show the work, the process, and the learning.
- 06
Transition
Move toward internships, Iknite work, external employment, further specialization, or a founder path where available.
Capabilities, not a tool list.
Everything below is used together inside real team workflows — on projects, under review, in sprints. Nothing is taught as an isolated course and left on the shelf.
Foundations
- Ubuntu & dev environment
- Git & GitHub
- HTML & CSS
- JavaScript
- NPM
Engineering
- Go
- React
- Next.js
- Relational databases
- API design
- Auth & authorization
Systems
- Design patterns
- Domain-Driven Design
- Domain boundaries
- API contracts
- Maintainability trade-offs
Delivery
- Agile & Scrum
- User stories & sprints
- Linting & testing
- CI/CD with GitHub Actions
- Pull requests & review
- Refactoring
Professional
- Product ideation
- UX exposure
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Book Club
- Public demos
A working engineer in your corner.
Every trainee meets a mentor in structured 1:1 sessions every two weeks across the six months — working engineers and practitioners who review your work, share real-world context, and pressure-test your decisions.
- Cadence
- 1:1 sessions every two weeks
- Who mentors
- Working engineers and practitioners
- What happens
- Work review, real-world context, guidance
Deliberate, in person, competitive.
Small cohorts — 10 seats — mean every seat is earned. The process itself is the first test of commitment.
- 01
Apply
Submit the application with your background, motivation, and the essay.
- 02
Selection
Application review, assigned prep work, and an in-person interview.
- 03
Piscine
A two-week sink-or-swim challenge — a test of passion, not skill.
- 04
Program
Six months of structured coursework, mentorship, and team delivery.
- 05
Internship
Six months inside real work — the bridge into industry.
Know what you are signing up for.
The program asks a lot on purpose. This is the deal, in plain terms.
- Piscine
- 2 weeks, sink or swim — before the program
- Duration
- 6 months, structured
- Location
- Buea, Cameroon — in person, daily
- Cohort size
- ~10 trainees, selective
- Mentorship
- 1:1 sessions every two weeks
- Structure
- 4 months mentored training + 2 months team project
- Equipment
- Personal laptop + GitHub account
- After the program
- 6-month internship & industry transition
A pathway, not a promise.
The six-month phase leads into internship and industry transition pathways. Where each trainee lands depends on their work, the market, and the opportunities we open together.
We don't promise jobs. We build the evidence — real projects, real workflow discipline — that earns them.
Internship
A structured internship phase to apply the discipline in practice.
Iknite work
Contributing to Iknite engineering projects where openings exist.
External employment
Introductions to employers who evaluate evidence, not certificates.
Specialization
Deeper study in the direction your project work pointed to.
Founder path
Building on your own idea, where the fit and support exist.
Q1Who is eligible?
Graduates of engineering programs in higher institutions or universities, and final-year students on internship from engineering faculties. Credible self-taught learners and career switchers with equivalent foundations are encouraged to apply — tell us your story in the application essay.
Q2How long is the program?
A two-week piscine, then six months structured as four months of mentored training followed by two months focused on your team project — then a six-month internship into real work.
Q3How are trainees selected?
Application review (including a short essay on why you want to be a software engineer), assigned preparatory learning, and an in-person interview — then a two-week piscine, a sink-or-swim challenge that tests passion, not existing skill. Cohorts are small — around 10 seats — so selection is competitive.
Q4What do I need?
A personal laptop, a GitHub account, and the ability to live in Buea and attend in person daily for the duration of the program.
Q5What does it cost?
Cost and funding details for the September 2026 cohort are published with the application. Ask us directly via the contact page if anything is unclear.
Q6Is it remote?
No. The program is built around in-person collaboration in Buea — teamwork, reviews, and demos happen face to face.
Applications open — Cohort 06 starts September 2026