South Africa’s digital future depends on ensuring that young people have the skills and opportunities to participate meaningfully in an increasingly technology-driven economy. The Village NetAcad Programme, led by Digititan Holdings in partnership with The Innovation Hub, is responding to this need by working to expand access to Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) skills across the country.
The programme aims to establish more than 500 networking academies across South Africa and has already reached 12,000 learners, while onboarding more than 50 partner organisations. Currently operating in six provinces, Village NetAcad is also expanding into Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo.
But expanding digital skills cannot simply be about preparing young people for the future of work. It must also address who gets to participate in that future. In particular, South Africa needs to ensure that young women are not left behind as technology reshapes the economy.
Digital skills are no longer optional. South Africa faces a significant jobs and skills challenge, with an estimated 7.4 million new jobs needed by 2035, while thousands of specialised ICT positions remain unfilled.
For Dennis Memela, Managing Director of Digititan Holdings, the challenge is about ensuring that young people are equipped with skills that respond to the realities of a changing economy.
“Village NetAcad was created to address South Africa’s pressing jobs and skills challenge.”
Technology is creating new pathways into employment, entrepreneurship and innovation, but young people need access to the skills required to take advantage of these opportunities. Village NetAcad provides industry-aligned training in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, coding, robotics, networking and digital literacy to young people aged 18 to 35.
This practical approach is critical. Skills development must prepare young people not only for existing opportunities, but for an economy where technology will increasingly influence how businesses operate, how services are delivered and how people work.
However, the conversation around digital inclusion must go beyond whether young people have access to technology. We must also ask who is acquiring digital skills, who is creating technology, who is building digital businesses and who will become the technology leaders of tomorrow.
Young women must be part of the answer.
If women remain underrepresented in technology, South Africa risks reproducing existing gender inequalities within a new digital economy. Digital transformation, however, provides an opportunity to change this trajectory by opening pathways into sectors such as cybersecurity, coding, networking, artificial intelligence and robotics.
For a young woman, acquiring digital skills is about more than obtaining a technical qualification. It can provide access to employment, entrepreneurship, further study and leadership. Women should not simply be consumers of technology; they should have opportunities to become the people developing, managing and leading it.
Providing training, however, is only the first step. The real measure of digital inclusion is whether people can turn their skills into meaningful economic opportunities.
Village NetAcad supports schools, youth programmes and community hubs through facilitator enablement, learner support and pathways towards certification and employment. As Memela explains, the programme is focused on “democratizing access to Fourth Industrial Revolution competencies”, with training designed to prepare young people for employment, entrepreneurship and further study.
This distinction is important. Digital inclusion should ultimately translate into economic inclusion. Young people should be equipped not simply to use technology, but to use it to solve problems, pursue employment, start businesses, innovate and create opportunities for others.
For young women, these pathways can be particularly transformative, helping them enter sectors where they have historically been underrepresented.
Another important aspect of Village NetAcad is its ambition to take digital skills development beyond traditional technology hubs. The goal of establishing more than 500 academies recognises that talent is not concentrated in major cities. Young people in townships, rural communities and smaller towns have the potential to become software developers, cybersecurity specialists, network engineers, entrepreneurs and innovators.
What is often missing is not talent, but access.
Bringing digital learning closer to communities can help challenge the perception that technology careers are reserved for those living in major urban centres or those who can afford expensive private education.
The programme’s partnerships with government, industry and education, including Cisco Networking Academy, CompTIA, The Innovation Hub and departments responsible for cooperative governance, women, youth, persons with disabilities and social development, reflect the scale of collaboration required to close South Africa’s digital skills gap.
Ultimately, South Africa cannot build an inclusive digital economy without ensuring that women are active participants in it.
We need more young women learning technology, teaching technology, creating technology and leading technology businesses. Girls and young women must be able to see careers in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, coding and software development as spaces in which they belong.
The future of work is already becoming digital. South Africa’s challenge is to ensure that access to that future is not determined by gender, geography or circumstance.
Village NetAcad represents an opportunity to rethink how the country prepares its young people for this future. South Africa does not lack talent; it needs to democratise access to the skills, networks and opportunities that allow that talent to thrive.
Young women cannot be an afterthought in this process. They must be among the coders, cybersecurity specialists, entrepreneurs, innovators and technology leaders shaping South Africa’s next chapter.
The digital economy is being built now. Our collective responsibility is to ensure that young women have the skills, access and opportunities to help build it.