Govt and big tech pledged more than 1 million IT training opportunities in 2023 to address skills gap

Government institutions and big technology companies such as Amazon and Microsoft collectively pledged to provide IT skills training to more than 1 million South Africans this year.

The boldest pledge was made by eThekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, who said at the GovTech conference in September that the municipality aimed to provide IT skills to 1 million young people over the next three years.

Amazon Web Services announced in August that it was going to train 100 000 South Africans to become cloud computing practitioners for free.