The Hub Employment Ecosystems for People with Disabilities (HeePD) will next month introduce a coding academy for people living with disabilities.
Established in February by Riad Masoet, who has multiple sclerosis, HeePD is a commercial enterprise that works as an incubator and accelerator of various hubs which connect disabled people to skills development and job opportunities.
Based in Cape Town, the organisation combines seven ecosystems - recycling projects, urban farming initiatives, food schemes, contact centre services, transport services, recruitment, training and skills development to assist people living with disabilities to find employment. The coding academy to be piloted in the next two weeks will be the latest edition to the enterprise ecosystems.
"We are launching a pilot coding academy in partnership with CodeSpace and our own internationally supported online coding programmes, supported by our internal trainers at HeePD," explains Masoet.
"The objective of the coding academy is to provide coding skills to people with disabilities to build ICT skills in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, a sector where opportunities for people with disabilities are virtually non-existent in SA. This will provide invaluable in-demand skills for people with disabilities to find jobs on the open job market and become software entrepreneurs and developers for HeePD."
Seeking employment opportunities and assisting people with disabilities to become entrepreneurs is one of HeePD's long-term visions. The organisation says it has partnered with the SAB Foundation, which contributed R2.1 million and has also received funding of R480 000 from the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism.
According to HeePD, the coding academy will offer various coding languages from basic to intermediate to advanced HTML, Java, C+, Python and many IT skills in demand in the open job market. The pilot programme will officially launch over 13 to 25 August at the Open Design Festival in Cape Town.
"The government's target is to have 7.5% of people with disabilities employed in corporate SA. The actual employment figure is currently closer to 1%," says Masoet. "Our goal, with the help of the SAB Foundation, is to create 100 jobs over the next two years. Naturally, those 100 jobs will have an exponential positive effect in the community. The hub seeks to further expand its ecosystems and connect people living with disabilities to available job opportunities, through training and skills development in several areas, with the coding academy focusing on developing tech skills."
The organisation says it aims to fully establish the ecosystems and then replicate and roll out 20 or more intraHubs nationally by 2020, supported by Standing Tall Recruitment and Advisory Services.
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