Google has announced a commitment to train 1-million young Africans in digital skills in the next year.
In realising this commitment, Google is supporting its partner Livity Africa to run two training programmes: “Digify Bytes” to give digital skills to young people looking to develop a digital career; and “Digify Pro”, a three-month immersion program for digital specialists.
These programmes have already launched in Nigeria, Kenya & South Africa, and will be scaled to reach more people in the next 12 months.
A group of 65 volunteer Googlers from around the world are helping the Livity team with content development, “training the trainers” and, in some cases, delivering the training sessions.
The company has also launched digifyafrica.com, an online-learning portal that will house a range of digital skills courses, available to anyone in Africa – for free.
The courses are designed to be as “light” as possible so they don’t eat up valuable data. There are nine training courses already available and Google aims to have 50 available by July.
Luke McKend, country director: South Africa at Google, comments: “The Internet is at the heart of economic growth and the Digital Skills Programme is aimed at helping more Africans play a part in the digital economy. Everyone can succeed online, start a new business, grow their existing one, or share their passion.”