PROVIDING digital skills to young people in the Eastern Cape will enable economic recovery, develop critical skills and redesign the future of work in South Africa.
This was the address of Microsoft SA managing director, Lillian Barnard, during the launch of the digital skills virtual innovation hub in Komani on Wednesday.
Barnard said other benefits of this multi-year programme were to take part in the current changing jobs landscape.
She said the COVID-19 pandemic had made companies build on digital skills to ensure competitiveness.
“By investing in human capital we can be able to mitigate risk of unemployment and poverty, and enable local people to learn more about digitisation. We have selected 16 black female-owned SMMEs to train and get them certified,” Barnard said.
The Eastern Cape was the first province to benefit from the innovation.
She said more artificial intelligence (AI) was needed in South Africa, with Walter Sisulu University (WSU) reps having been trained to address the need for AI in the Eastern Cape.
“Companies are aware that AI skills are important to remain relevant. We aim to empower people and organisations and this programme will also respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR),” said Barnard.
Microsoft has partnered with the Eastern Cape provincial government on the project. Other partners are the EC Socio-economic Consultative Council, WSU, and non-profit development initiative, Afrika Tikku.
Eastern Cape Premier, Oscar Mabuyane, said COVID-19 had shifted the country into the fifth gear of the 4IR, adding that the government needed to respond accordingly.
It was estimated that the youth in South Africa account for 75% of the country’s unemployment rate of 32.6%.
“It is encouraging indeed to witness, in real-time, a prompt and apt response by social partners in our society, including business and leading centres of innovation and development, such as Microsoft South Africa, joining in the collective effort towards ensuring more favourable prospects for our most valued asset as a people and nation, our youth and future workforce,” said Mabuyane.
