• SAP South Africa has launched its SAP Educate to Employ drive in South Africa at an event held in Johannesburg this week.
• The drive will see 100 young people trained in SAP software and seeking to earn a spot of employment at SAP itself over the next six to twelve months.
• The programme seeks young people from across Africa and has 18 000 applicants from SA, Kenya and Nigeria.

German software firm SAP and Unicef have teamed up to bring the SAP Educate to Employ upskilling and youth employment drive to young people in South Africa. The drive was showcased at an event on Wednesday held by Unicef in partnership with the South African government.

The initiative aims to educate young people aged 16 to 24 on software skills related to SAP and eventually place them in positions at the company. Students will be using the SAP Learning site’s student zone to learn the latest SAP solutions free of charge to kickstart their careers.

100 young people, out of 18 000 applicants across the continent from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa will were selected at the event on Wednesday to receive a remote learning opportunity over the next six to 12 months from SAP. These youth will be looking to earn employment at SAP itself as young professionals.

“Upskilling and mobilising Africa’s youth population is one of the defining challenges of our time. To build a prosperous future for all, we must urgently address one of South Africa’s and the continent’s greatest challenges – youth unemployment – which affects a disproportionate number of African youth,” explained Kholiwe Makhohliso, Managing Director at SAP Southern Africa, in a press statement.

The youth enployment initiative forms part of SAP’s global commitment to supporting UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited (GenU), a public-private-youth-partnership that aims to deliver innovative solutions to challenges youth face around the world.

It is also only one of SAP’s other youth skills development drives throughout the continent, which also includes Africa Code Week which has trained around 14 million young people in basic coding skills over the years.

“Skilling of our youth to meaningfully participate in the digital economy is essential to an equality-centric and prosperous nation. We welcome SAP’s continued investment into skills development for the youth, and extend our congratulations to UNICEF and SAP on their partnership. The South African government is encouraged by the initiative and we look forward to supporting efforts to scale the SAP Educate to Employ initiative,” enthused Pinky Kekana, Deputy Minister in The Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, who was present at the event.

SAP says that the 100-person cohort is but one of the first it will run in the country, and that brings some hope for the future as the youth unemployment issue in South Africa is an incredibly profound one that will require a lot of work to begin righting.

[Image – Provided]