The City of Johannesburg Educating Digital Interns (COJEDI) programme welcomed its second intake of interns in Johannesburg yesterday.
The COJEDI programme, initiated in January, aims to equip 1 000 Gauteng young people with the ICT skills they will need to participate in developing Johannesburg as a smart city.
The programme, which is taking in 250 interns per quarter, offers a choice of courses in network engineering with Microsoft and Cisco, Web development and design, or fibre optic development.
Interns complete a 10-month course, divided into a three-month technical "bootcamp", one month of leadership and innovation training, and six months of learnership at a digital corporation.
Gender divisive
The notorious gender divide in ICT careers was a pervasive topic at the intake event, initiated by ETV anchor and event MC, Penny Lebyane, who swiftly noted that the panel of seven executives from the City of Johannesburg and tech partners including Microsoft and IBM, was entirely comprised of men.
"Girls, you need to work harder so we can change that table: the way it looks," said Lebyane, to loud applause from attendees.
Khathu Mashau, managing partner at COJEDI partner Nunnovation Africa Foundation, quipped that the partners' women executives had been "too scared" to sit on the panel, before beginning his address by joking about woman interns' menstrual cycles. "I don't know what to do with them" when they're 'having that time of the month'," he chided, met with laughter from attendees.
Lebyane reminded Mashau that lack of access to sanitary supplies can stunt young women's school attendance, and noted the stigma that furthers menstruation's effects on women's education. "We are more than just that day," she retorted.
Mashau continued to slight women throughout the event, blaming Lebyane's gender when she read out a misprint on the event programme.
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