In December 2018 at the CapaCiTi campus in Salt River, Cape Town, 340 young South Africans completed their technical training and received their certificates. They are now ready to be placed within tech internships in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
CapaCiTi, the Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative (CiTi)’s Tech Career Accelerator, has been preparing young people for the tech sector for 8 years. The organisation’s aim is to support both youth and business in the hubs of Johannesburg and Cape Town. Now, CapaCiTi is inviting SA businesses to interview these ambitious future tech professionals for an internship – to begin work as soon as possible.
With SA’s youth unemployment skyrocketing, CapaCiTi seeks to leverage growing opportunities in the tech sector by providing key technology skills. Indeed, CapaCiTi’s programmes are essentially accelerated career pathways for previously unemployed youth. Key to the initiative’s success, however, is the commitment by SA businesses to create internship opportunities for youth. Such opportunities are urgently required in order for young professionals to apply and grow their technical skills and confidence in the workplace. In turn, organisations are able to access temporary tech support for their teams and projects, which is particularly valuable at the start of a year.
“This year, CapaCiTi is proud to have equipped several hundred SA youth with the relevant training and coaching they need to accelerate their careers into the tech sector. We’re calling on South African businesses to support our future talent on the next six months of their journey, helping them to apply and build their skills and confidence and contribute to the digital economy. They’re ambitious, tenacious, and will add huge value to your teams as you kick off 2019. These young people are the future of South Africa’s tech sector, let’s all join together to help them start their journey towards a successful career that will be life-changing,” states Fiona Tabraham, Head of Skills Development, CapaCiTi.
Since 2010, CapaCiTi has partnered with close to 150 leading organisations to hire interns and graduates. Corporates such as Media24, BCX and Absa have been strong supporters of interns and grads from the Accelerator, as well as a growing list of SAAS businesses and digital agencies.
“Absa has had tremendous success with the talented young people from CapaCiTi’s programmes. Since 2016, we’ve taken on 55 talented interns, and 16 going on to full-time employment with Absa, which we are looking to scale up significantly with CapaCiTi over the next few years. Their aptitude, attitude and aspiration has blown us away! They are hard-working, passionate about technology and creative, with the maturity to negotiate the trickiness of working in teams, as well as rise to the challenge when we put them in leadership positions,” states Alwyn van Wyk, Head of Cape Town Dev Shop, Absa.
The Interns:
CapaCiTi had a large group of youth completing programmes in December 2018, who are ready to join business teams in January. These young people were all unemployed or under-employed when entering the programmes, and have now completed an intensive programme in a technical discipline relevant to skills in-demand in the tech sector. Importantly, they received coaching and skills training to prepare them for the 2019 workplace – critical and creative thinking, collaboration, presentation, etc.
These ambitious young people are now ready to apply and amplify their knowledge during a 6-month internship, to gain the experience they need to land a tech job.
What they’ve learnt:
CapaCiTi’s programmes run from 9 to 12 months and are designed for matrics and graduates looking to start a career in IT.
The interns available to start in January 2019 in Cape Town and Johannesburg have completed an intensive training programme in the following:
- Software Engineering – Trained in Java, Python [CPT & JHB]
- Full-Stack Development – Trained in Full Stack Mobile Dev, Net, JavaScript, PHP, Android [CPT]
- Java Development – Trained in Java, JavaScript [CPT & JHB]
- Software Development (postgrad) – Trained Post Graduates with Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, PHP and MY SQL Databases [CPT]
- CISCO Security –Trained and certified as a Cisco Network Security Associate [JHB]
- ICT Infrastructure – Trained in IT Essentials, Routing and Switching, Linux Fundamentals, CCNA [CPT]
Company Hosts:
As a host, you will help cement the youth of South Africa’s futures in the business world.
Hosts will accommodate the trainees in their respective offices with access to a computer and involve them in work that allows them to grow their technical experience.
Hosts are required to pay a stipend to support their interns with transport and living costs.
Company Benefit:
Interns can support your teams with existing or new projects with data capture, database management, analysis, software testing, software development to administration, help-desk management. What’s important is that they are exposed to technical projects, team-work and ways of working that build their confidence and knowledge.
Join CiTi in supporting young South Africans to positively shape their future:
As a company partner to CiTi, allow these ambitious, motivated interns to contribute to your teams, and projects, where you need it most.
Help support South Africa’s youth to change their future by hiring talented tech interns for your team.
To register your company’s interest in interviewing CapaCiTi interns or grads, please visit www.citi.org.za or email hire@capaciti.org.za. Please indicate whether you are in Johannesburg or Cape Town, and the focus of your business.
Edited By Darryl Linington
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