Microsoft and the Eastern Cape provincial government have launched the Eastern Cape’s first Digital Skills Virtual Innovation Hub as part of an empowerment partnership to develop critical digital skills and build the information and communication technology (ICT) capability of individuals and small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs).

The new hub aims to equip young people and SMMEs with the skills and capabilities required to build a digital economy that will help unlock inclusive growth for the region and better enable economic recovery.

The hub’s implementation partners include the Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council (ECSECC), the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa, Walter Sisulu University and nonprofit organisation Afrika Tikkun.

“Digital transformation is unfolding at a high pace. The digital economy is a reality. For anyone to be relevant in the modern world, they need to know how to navigate the digital economy and be an active participant in it,” says Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane, noting the critical need to invest in building capabilities as digital skills become the backbone of future growth and recovery.

Taking a multipronged, cross-sectoral approach to digital skilling, the Digital Skills Virtual Innovation Hub comprises various building blocks and priority projects to drive skills development from basic digital literacy to deep technical skills for individuals and SMMEs.

Microsoft’s Global Skilling Initiative will provide digital skills courses, certification and resources from LinkedIn, GitHub and Microsoft to help young job-seekers move to a skills-based economy by reskilling themselves to pursue in-demand jobs.

Selected partners will also provide training required by the province for up to 100 interns as part of the Microsoft Internship Programme, which is a job creation initiative geared towards delivering in-demand technology skills to unemployed youth.

Ten schools in the province have been selected to participate in a Digital Schools Initiative, with ten teachers and ten Grade 10 learners from each school participating in a workshop designed around the Microsoft Education Transformation Framework, which will also help leaders in education develop the strategies to assist young students to navigate the ever-evolving world of learning and work.

As part of the Microsoft AI University Programme’s Train the Trainer programme, Microsoft has also trained representatives from Walter Sisulu University to address the demand for artificial intelligence skills in South Africa.

The programme has been designed to pass on the future skills employers need by teaching young multidisciplined graduates with limited or no work experience to explore, transform, model and visualise data, and create the next generation of intelligent solutions.

Microsoft has also developed a local landing page of its Cloud Society for the province’s citizens, and will develop and deploy Cloud Society in a Box for the province to provide training, certification opportunities and face-to-face engagement opportunities with Microsoft cloud experts. These resources will be available through the ECSECC website.

Further, 16 black-owned and black women-owned ICT SMMEs will receive training to be certified as Microsoft Gold Partners as part of the Emerging Partner Programme.

“Equipping young people with critical digital skills is essential to get them employed or self-employed, but it is equally important to invest in SMMEs, which are engines of economic growth and job creation,” says Microsoft South Africa CEO Lillian Barnard.

“By lowering entry barriers to SMMEs in priority sectors like agriculture, health, education and disaster management and accelerating their journey to Gold partner status, we will help grow a sustainable, diversified, and inclusive supply chain that contributes more broadly to economic growth in South Africa,” she continues.

The successful implementation of the Digital Skills Virtual Innovation Hub in the Eastern Cape will see the framework being rolled out in other provinces across the country, with three to five more planned in the next financial year.