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The Lulatech Soweto Open Source Centre is offering a year-long learnership programme to unemployed youngsters interested in information and communication technology.
SOWETO youth interested in information and communication technology (ICT) have been enrolled for an ICT skills development programme at the Lulatech Soweto Open Source Centre in Orlando.
The learnership programme, which runs for 52 weeks, aims to open up opportunities for more than 25 unemployed young people in the township in Joburg's southwest.
"The programme is offered free to youths. In order to be enrolled they need to have a matric certificate and strong ICT-related skills," says Monde Maphai, the operations director of Lula Technologies, the company behind the centre.
To be launched on 2 February, the programme is an exchange project that will improve the skills of people interested in the sector, Maphai says.
Job opportunities
It will engage young people in the development of the ICT sector and create job opportunities.
"The programme is open to communities in Soweto and will contribute to the eradication of unemployment. Youths will be placed in internship programmes in the government and the private sector.
"With our skills development programme, we will increase the number of young people interested in the information and communication technologies sector."
Students will learn about open source migration, a move from Microsoft-supported systems to open source software. They will learn about open source tools such as Mambo, Joomla, Dolphin and many more, and will use open source languages and databases such as php and mysql.
Provincial government
Some participants in the programme will be able to assist the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC) in migrating the IT system of the Gauteng provincial government from its current Microsoft platform to an open source platform, while others will be able to start their ow business or work with other ICT companies.
While learning, they will be involved in different ICT projects in the arts and culture, tourism, sports and entertainment sectors.
Located at the Soweto Development Centre in Orlando, the centre also offers tuition in online marketing and information management. Students learn about and work on the development of websites and portals, so developing a wide knowledge of website management, from development to marketing.
Over the years Lula Technologies has been working with the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown to develop the computer skills of many young people, including young Sowetans and students from the University of Johannesburg.
The prograqmme will be extended to other areas.
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