The Information and Communication Technology Centre for Skills Development is to open in Soweto in August, to offer tuition to young people.

UNEMPLOYED youth will be able to sharpen their computer skills when an Open Source centre opens in Soweto later this year.

To be located at the Soweto Development Centre in Orlando, the Information and Communication Technology Centre for Skills Development will offer tuition in Open Source software, online marketing and information management.

"We found that there are few people in our townships with computer skills and in order to fill up this gap, we decided to target Soweto to set up a computer skills development centre," says Denis Ackulay, the managing director of Lulatech, the company behind the centre.

And it is looking at recruiting 25 unemployed youngsters between the ages of 17 and 35 who have some experience in computers to attend courses at the centre when it opens in August.

At the centre, youth will learn about and work on the development of websites and portals. In this way they will learn the whole environment of website management from development to marketing, Ackulay says.

"They will learn about Open Source tools such as Mambo, Joomla, Dolphin and many more. They will use Open Source languages and databases such as php and mysql.

"The programme will help local youth to advance their knowledge and skills in order to grow personally and better equip themselves for the labour and business market. Our aim is to facilitate the development of competent and skilled software and network developers for the community."

After finishing the programme - which may take up to a year to complete - participants will be awarded an International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) certificate, according to Ackulay. "Participants can either choose to work with Lulatech, work with other [Information and Communication Technology, ICT] companies or run their own businesses."

Lulatech is also working with the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown to develop the computer skills of more than 25 young people, including young Sowetans and students from the University of Johannesburg.

"The project with Sci-Bono started in October 2007 and it has been going very well. However, we have a number of challenges which include funds and transportation for participants. We hope organisations like Umsobomvu will come on board and help us," Ackulay explains.

While marketing this computer skills development programme, Lulatech spoke to people interested in participating at the University of Johannesburg campus in September 2007.

"More than 200 students from the university attended the seminar, where they learned about ICT skills exchange. As the government is slowly moving to an Open Source environment, the students were encouraged to enrol for the programme because there will be a high demand for Open Source skilled people in the near future," Ackulay says.

Interested people between the ages of 17 and 35 who wish to participate in the programme can contact Denis Ackulay on 074 123 3647 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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