The rollout of vaccines marks the beginning of the end for the loathed Corona Virus. Lockdown restrictions are beginning to ease, allowing businesses to open and people to get back to work. Although these positive developments give us hope, we cannot forget about our current reality. The decimated jobs, the uncontrollable unemployment rates, an economy under pressure and glaring inequalities, especially in education and healthcare. It is natural to feel a sense of despair and give in to the hopelessness, but we must find the opportunity in and among the dark clouds.
The road less travelled requires us to be bold in pursuing our renewal. It requires us to act, not out of fear or desperation, but out of a deep desire to be better and build opportunities for as many people as we can. At Deviare, we have made the road less travelled our mission. Having trained over 3000 unemployed youth in 2020 in areas such as data science, cloud computing, software development and cyber security, we are doubling our efforts to provide many of those trained with much sought after work experience through our Virtual Global Apprenticeship (VGA) programme. More importantly, this investment is a deviation from the norm because it places and exposes our youth to the heart of the 4th industrial revolution stage, the competitive global economy.
The VGA programme enables unemployed youth, through the Deviare platform, to be able to complete work assignments with global companies from the comfort of their homes. The investments Deviare has made ensure that learners have the devices and connectivity to work for some of the leading global brands and putting their recently acquired skills to good use. This is what our young people need. South Africa must be a competitive provider of critical digital skills to the global economy and only a skilled youth can ignite this necessary possibility.
Our hope for you is that you continue to develop your digital skills and accelerate your path to becoming a valuable contributor to the 4th industrial revolution, whether this may be through your current employer or your own start-up. New aged digital skills are enablers of new products and services that could solve many of our societal problems, here at home and abroad. As we continue to hope for a sustainable renewal that will benefit everyone, let us not forget to be bold in our thoughts and actions.