City’s brightest digital interns off to Germany

18 September 2015

 

Twenty-eight young men and women on the City of Johannesburg’s Educating Digital Interns (COJEDI) Programme are leaving for Germany on Sunday September 19 to improve their technical knowledge and knowhow in the digital arena.

 

Launched by Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau in January 2015, COJEDI provides the city’s brightest young minds with the opportunity to learn skills in the technological world that they will need to be employable. The R20-million programme is seen as part of the “foundation of the development of a Smart City”.

 

The 28 young people are part of the first 250 of 1 000 interns being trained by the City and its partners in network engineering, website design, fibre optics, Microsoft certified systems engineering (MCSE), certified Cisco network associate (CCNA) and IT essentials. Most of them are from disadvantaged communities and 45% are females.

 

The interns will spend 10 days in Germany learning advanced information communication technology and electrical mobility. This was announced at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown on Thursday night.

 

COJEDI Programme Director Khathu Mashau said he was excited at the opportunity afforded the 28 interns and expressed confidence that they would impart their knowledge on their return. Mashau also announced that the second batch of 500 interns had been selected and would start training in January 2016.

 

The programme runs for 10 months – offering four months of technical training and six months in-service training.

 

The City’s Broadband Network Project Manager, Vumani Mangali, said the programme gave students the opportunity to equip themselves with essential technical and IT skills. He said the programme enabled interns to develop in the ICT sector and participate meaningfully in the digital economy.

 

“This programme prepares them to be future job creators and to play a big role in the development of the economy,” he said.

Mangali said the City and its partners were involved in the programme because ICT was one of the priority sectors central to improved productivity, economic development and job creation.

 

The programme has been designed by Seed Academy is supported by IBM, Microsoft, FibreCo, Cisco and Technology Innovation Agency. The participants are given mentoring and technical support through the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering and supported by the City. They are briefly placed in various companies and small businesses to gain experience.