Betty Moleya
Pretoria - The Gauteng government yesterday held a session with the youth in Hammanskraal to teach them about various digital soft skills.
The ICT training initiative was first held in September last year, with the aim of empowering young people, women and people with disabilities to obtain various digital soft skills.
The soft skills include 5G knowledge, cloud service development, Big Data, introduction to Artificial Intelligence, and the functioning of advanced robotics.
The deputy director-general for ICT Shared Services, Castro Mosina, who attended the event on behalf of MEC for Finance and e-government Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, said that as much as technology has negatively impacted some career fields it had also opened doors for new opportunities in the digital space.
“We are in an era of digital transformation and it has brought new types of jobs.
“The digital economy will create more jobs,” Mosina said.
“These new jobs require you to be equipped with such skills and training.
“We are not just doing this training but we want it to have a particular impact on young people.
“Where will we get the impact? Other young people will need experiential learning from the digital soft skills they learnt from this training,” he said.
Mosina said in order to mobilise other partners, they were working with multinational partners such as Microsoft and HP.
Richard Madie, a facilitator at Gain Learning, engaged with the youth about the resources needed to make a project materialise and also shared business ideas.
“A project needs resources, time frame, costs and management,” said Madie.
During the training, the youth were divided into groups and encouraged to ask questions in an exercise meant to help them with their interpersonal and communication skills.
The young people were able to express themselves in front of others and share their expectations.
They were also asked questions such as where they would like to see themselves in five years’ time, and what was the one thing that surprised people about them, and one thing they could do without getting tired.
Those who attended the ICT training will receive a certificate that will help them apply for jobs.
The next ICT training will be held in Atteridgeville.
Pretoria News