Steering youth towards IT careers

This year, IBM is hosting the Careers Village section of the Absa Soweto Festival. The IT company has invested more than R300 000 in the career education-driven festival, which will be held at the Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown - an historic township well-known for producing the Freedom Charter. The festival will be held during the heritage weekend, 22 - 25 September 2006.

"For us, IBM's involvement in the festival and the Careers Village in particular, gives the company yet another opportunity to steer our youth towards technology careers," says Mteto Nyati, IBM's director of global technology services division.

The company will be showcasing its various skills development and training initiatives. Nyati believes that by providing the youth with the necessary information at an early stage, IBM is making a timely intervention to address the crippling shortage of technical skills.

"At IBM we have already moved to develop a skills pool but this is a short term solution. In the long term, we believe that it is critical that the private sector works collaboratively with government and tertiary institutions to develop a sustainable solution that ensures that our universities produce work-ready graduates," adds Nyati.

At the Careers Village, IBM will also have specialists such as mainframe operators, IT architects and software engineers to motivate youngsters and share real-life information on these critical areas.