Digital devices and systems are crucial components of almost all professions and are changing industries and economies worldwide. Familiarity and competence with these technologies are usually the result of education and access to the technologies.

Technology multinational IBM’s Digital-Nation Africa (DNA) cloud-based education platform will provide millions of people with access to certified short courses aimed at developing digital skills, which are in high demand and increasingly necessary for businesses, and therefore empower businesses, government and societies.

“The DNA initiative aims to empower African citizens, entrepreneurs and communities with the knowledge and tools to design, develop and launch their own digital solutions, enabling digital competence and nurturing innovation in Africa,” says IBM South Africa country GM Hamilton Ratshefola.

Modern digital professionals have diverse ranges of skills and are comfortable using a range of technologies, and readily learn and adopt new technologies as part of their work. These professionals are the so-called ‘new collar’ workers.

The platform is part of IBM’s global push to build the next generation of skills needed for new collar careers, which will support the adoption and use of digital systems in all industries and sectors in Africa.

“To find solutions to Africa’s challenges, industries across the spectrum need to enable the existing and future workforce to perform at the forefront of technologies such as cognitive and cloud computing. This will be the key to spurring economic growth,” he says.

The DNA initiative is in the pilot phase and the full launch and drive to generate mass adoption will start at the end of June.

While the platform will eventually be used to disseminate a range of educational content, as well as provide a jobs marketplace for new collar workers in Africa, the courses and content are currently focused on digital skills and reviewed and validated by IBM and its programme partners.

This is done to ensure that the information is as relevant as possible – based as it is on IBM’s in-house expertise and latest technologies – and certifiable and formal, which provides certainty in terms of the quality of skills and enables people who complete the courses to use them to seek job opportunities.

Further, IBM aims to ensure that the platform offers a consistent user experience, which is especially relevant, owing to hetero- geneous populations and experiences, IBM Middle East and Africa skills development and university programmes manager Juan Pablo Napoli says.

LEARNING JOURNEY
The platform will provide a learning journey. Courses and interactive content will be available from basic, everyday digital skills to technical and commercial digital skills, he explains.

The early-stage digital skills courses are grouped together and designed for “digital explorers”. They are short tutorials and basic interactive demonstrations and simulations that develop specific, basic digital skills and capabilities, such as sending emails, using social networks and searching the Web.

The goal is to make engagement with the platform rewarding and interesting by using gamification techniques. People can use the platform as a social network to send messages and play games and can customise their digital identities – managing and protecting them also form part of the explorer training – and can also earn points by completing learning topics that can be used to customise their profiles and digital avatars, as well as unlock advanced content, mobile apps and games, says Napoli.

“We are paying careful attention to user adoption in Africa. A series of beta testing sessions is helping us to carefully craft and adjust user experience to the needs of the population. Based on initial feedback, we are including elements of gamification and collaboration, which are bolstered by the various courses and games available on the platform.”

People who are accustomed to working with digital systems are grouped into the “digital innovator” and new collar portions of the platform that focus on skills such as design thinking, mobile application (app) and program development, blockchain systems, cognitive technologies, cybersecurity, data science, artificial intelligence and cloud technologies.

The digital innovator courses are more formal and teach specific technical digital skills and capabilities, such as how to build a new mobile app in minutes without coding, publish it in the free apps marketplace for everyone to use, or how to build a Web app within a few hours using the Java, Java Script or Python languages, which also support the creation of entrepreneurial ventures.

The courses for new collar workers are longer – typically more than ten hours for each course – and provide detailed information about current, new and emerging technologies, such as business intelligence, predictive analytics, cloud applications, data warehousing, cognitive solutions and digital marketing. The courses also provide use-case demonstrations, simulations and competence tests.

There are 15 new collar courses focused on specific careers currently available on the platform and more will be added. IBM is validating the user interface and determining the scope of additional, complementary content that must still be developed, he adds.

The DNA platform is also supported by IBM’s cognitive system, Watson. Watson will analyse the behaviour of digital innovators and new collar workers using the platform and prompt them to complete additional courses that will add to their existing skill set and open new employment opportunities.

“The initiative is about transforming lives. Enabling youth to gain new skills free of charge and arming them with information about the jobs market – provided by Watson – [are ways] to get millions qualified with skills that are in high demand. Digital skills are also viewed in a positive light and sought by most youth,” Ratshefola emphasises.

Effective, high-quality information technology (IT) education will be a key driver of economic vitality in Africa. Through access to open standards, best practices and course materials, as well as IBM’s tools, the broad scope of this initiative will allow for the development of skills that are increasingly vital to all industries, professions and the development of nations, he says.

Open-access skills development platforms provide an achievable opportunity to transform development patterns in the twenty-first century, says United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) South Africa country director Walid Badawi.

The UNDP has partnered with IBM to roll out the DNA platform. The UNDP provides detailed insight into the policies and programmes in countries hosting the platform and facilitates engagement with governments through its established platforms and structures. The UNDP can leverage the 170 UN member countries to increase the scale of the initiative.

There is a need for skilled IT professionals globally – the IT industry at the end of 2016 was a $3.8-trillion industry. Investing in building the capacity of African youths to participate and access the global market will provide clear economic benefits, he says.

“However, exclusion from such platforms can increase inequality and segment the population. Therefore, our role as a development organisation is to ensure that government and social actors play their parts to provide social protection.

“A key finding of research on the topic of development in India and Turkey is that the private sector must be brought into the discussion about content development for these education platforms,” says Badawi.

In South Africa, the UNDP is running several programmes that present the opportunity to leverage the DNA platform and, in turn, the UNDP’s experience of local youth skills development programmes can provide information on how to scale and share the initiative with the continent, says Badawi.

“The UNDP has a special focus on fostering market-driven IT skills in Africa and the Middle East. IBM will also collaborate with the UNDP on opportunities for science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills delivery, certification and accreditation,” confirms Ratshefola.

The UNDP will use its network of existing government partnerships to extend the programme throughout Africa. The DNA initia- tive has secured ten companies as partners and more than 50 companies across Africa are in the process of becoming partners. Nongovernmental organisations, start-ups, universities, schools and government agencies are important in ensuring that the initiative is aligned with the programmes and policies in place in different countries.

There are currently 5.2-million places available in tertiary education institutions in Africa, which is inadequate to cater for the continent’s need for skills, says Napoli.

Too few children in Africa can access education – leading to challenges of unemployment and children not seeing a future for themselves within the economy – and graduates do not always have all the skills and experience necessary to ensure their employment despite having an education, confirms Ratshefola.

The initial role of universities in the DNA platform is to help provide insight into course completion and manage the typically high attrition rates of free online courses, says University of the Witwatersrand vice chancellor Adam Habib.

“Universities can support the DNA initiative by providing additional and supplementary degree programmes on the platform and opportunities for further study and full courses for participants.”

Habib emphasises that providing access for poor students is crucial to ensure that the patterns of inequality are not perpetuated by the DNA platform. Overcoming this challenge will require collective action by social, public and private organisations.

Ratshefola agrees, noting that universities are avenues for the development of high-level skills, such as cognitive computing and data science, and thus are complementary to the DNA platform.

While the platform helps to reduce barriers to education and the development of certified skills that can transform lives, the cooperation of all education institutions and private, social, government and nongovernment partners is needed to effect real development, concludes Ratshefola.