Nearly 100% of the young people that have received digital skills training through the Cisco Networking Academy have been able to find jobs, says Smangele Nkosi, GM of Cisco South Africa.
Nkosi was speaking to ITWeb TV as part of World Youth Skills Day, on 15 July, which recognises the importance of equipping young people with the skills needed for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship.
Nkosi has been at the helm of the California-headquartered IT and networking giant’s South African operations since February 2022.
In the wide-ranging interview, the GM spoke about her journey in the ICT industry, leading Cisco’s SA operations, how the firm has doubled down on investing in innovations of the future, building a strong channel ecosystem, and its role in digital skills empowerment of young people.
Like many developing nations, SA faces a critical digital skills shortage, especially among its majority youth population. However, efforts to deepen the pool of digital talent have been amplified, with government, private sector partners and academic institutions all playing a role.
According to Nkosi, the networking academy provides digital skills to learners across the globe, with a particular focus on South Africa.
The academy is the firm’s global skills-to-jobs programme, launched in 1997, in a bid to shape the workforce of the future.
The GM revealed that since the inception of the academy, over 410 000 South African learners have been trained in digital skills. “In the past 12 months, the number has been around 125 000 learners trained, with a focus on cyber security, and 61% of them are female.
“We want to drive inclusivity and make sure we build the pipeline that is so necessary to drive technological transformation in our country. We know that the future is going to be digital, so we need to ensure we close the digital skills gap.”
Commenting on the absorption rate into employment opportunities for upskilled youth, she explained: “They are being upskilled for the entire market. We have a platform where we match them with our partners who might be looking for that skill, as well as our customers with Cisco platforms in their environment.
“We also have a programme where we track and trace them to see whether they find jobs. Our statistics tell us that 96% of them can find jobs after our training, so from a throughput perspective, it’s quite a successful programme.”
In addition, the firm has “a country digital acceleration programme” whereby it has committed to driving digital skills in the country, and development and support of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs).
As part of this initiative, the company has set up community-based innovation hubs, so that SMMEs are able to go the centre to learn about technology, provide solutions they’ll be taking to market and are also brought into the Cisco channel ecosystem, she noted.
Channelling progress
According Nkosi, the company’s local channel ecosystem consists of over 2 000 channel partners.
When considering how many people its channel partners employ, the channel is a vast and thriving ecosystem that enables the economy of this country, she stated.
“Technology is ever-changing, so they find opportunities to reinvent themselves, especially with the advent of AI [artificial intelligence], in terms of how they wrap their solutions around Cisco’s capabilities to compete in the market.”
She said Cisco is intentional about the partnerships it goes to market with because of the common vision shared. “We tend to intensify the collaboration that we take to market with our partners, so the strength of that relationship is key for our success.
“We also want to make sure we drive the channel in the communities that we operate in. We want to plough back into the economy of the country and that’s why our channel is important. We want to make sure the countries we operate in are thriving and that we build businesses.”
Way of work
Cisco has been operating in the local market for over 30 years, during which it has partnered with government and enterprise organisations, and provided IT solutions for SMMEs and connected communities, she said.
Webex, a web conferencing and video-conferencing platform, is among the solutions Cisco provides in-country.
Nkosi said there’s been “a lot of demand” for the enterprise-grade tool in the market. “This is not just in South Africa but across the globe, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. This is because, from a security perspective, it is a highly-secured platform and is driven by AI.
“We continue to add innovation within the platform. As a result, we launched a POP [point-of-presence] here in SA in February for Webex calling and contact centre, because we see the opportunities that it presents in the market.
“We also want to drive improved user experience for our customers because when the POP is in-country, we are able to localise the data that we have, and it therefore drives down latency.”
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