At the Global Citizen Festival South Africa 2018, Cisco announced its commitment to train 10 million people worldwide including 1 million in Africa for jobs in the digital economy over the next five years.
The Chairman and CEO of Cisco, Chuck Robbins gathered with government officials as well as businesses in Johannesburg to share commitment pledges for Global Citizen as well as share initiatives and programmes that aim to address the skills and job deficit in South Africa.
Speaking about Cisco’s commitment Robbins said the company is looking to build job portals on the backend of their academy programme so that not only do they educate participants and wish them well, but actually give them the opportunity to work for their partners.
Robins revealed that the aim of businesses is to take a more active role in caring deeply about the issues that exist in the world other than just running businesses.
He said, “Historically we’ve been focused on ensuring that we provide connectivity and education to all parts of the world. We’ve seen that when you connect people and educate them, you give them an opportunity.”
Cisco’s announcement comes after Palo Alto, California-based Technology firm; Hewlett-Packard (HP) also announced its commitment to reach 100,000 learners across Africa over the next three years through the HP Foundation’s HP LIFE Program. The technology firm went ahead to launch a HP LIFE Center; a technology-enabled hub to facilitate learning, collaboration and entrepreneurship in a physical, face-to-face setting.
Note: Written with inputs from ITNews Africa.
