Non-profit organisation (NPO) Collective X has removed the fixed application windows for its Digital Skills Impact Fund,availing R200 million to local businesses to apply for financial support for upskilling initiatives all year-round.
Introduced in 2024, the fund is based on a co-funded model that provides a financially-viable training solution to help employers develop a skilled digital workforce at reduced costs.
It forms part of Collective X’s broader plan to double South Africa’s annual output of digitally-skilled workers to over 40 000 by 2030 and help 500 000 young people into digital roles by 2034.
In a statement, the NPO says more than 1 800 young people have participated, or are currently participating, in programmes supported through the fund across all nine provinces.
It adds that 97% of participants have been absorbed into employment, with more than 75% of them still employed after six months.
“The fund has shown that paying for results, rather than for training inputs, connects young people to the skills and workplace experience employers actually need,” says Nsika Mutasa, executive for the Digital Skills Impact Fund at Collective X.
“Removing fixed application windows means we can respond when employers and implementation partners are ready to launch a programme, instead of asking them to work according to a funding calendar that may not suit their timelines.”
The fund is now operating at a scale where opening and closing applications a few times a year has become a bottleneck rather than a useful control, adds Mutasa.
Collective X expects the new ‘always on’ approach to financing to result in growth of the number of active employer and implementation partners, from 30 to 100 by the end of 2026.
It serves as a co-ordinating intermediary for South Africa’s national digital skills plan, bringing together employers, funders, training providers and government to unlock demand-driven, scalable solutions aimed at solving the country’s digital skills crisis.
Training on fund-supported programmes is mapped to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). This ensures programme beneficiaries achieve a minimum SFIA level three competency, providing employers with a talent pool that meets global standards.
Collective X says the fund supports two routes into employment:
- The full route to competence: For young people with no post-school technology training, combining foundational training with a structured period of paid, supervised work experience, called work-integrated learning.
- The workplace experience route: For young people who have already completed relevant technology training and are ready to move straight into structured workplace experience, called work-integrated learning.
“This only works if the whole system moves together,” notes Evan Jones, CEO of Collective X. “When funders, employers, training providers and young people are all working towards the same verified outcomes, you get a pipeline that businesses can actually hire from and a real route into the digital economy for young people.”
Applications are open to employers, delivery partners and aggregators, as well as organisations that assemble and manage groups of young people on behalf of several smaller employers, so that businesses too small to run a cohort on their own can still participate.
Click hereto apply.
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