Thirty young Kenyans were this month presented with certificates after completing a three-month cloud computing training programme through Amazon Web Services re/Start.
The ceremony was held in Nairobi during the inaugural AWS Kenya Education Conference 2022, which was attended by over 150 educational technology experts and leading professionals.
The free 12-week programme, which has so far trained more than 500 youths in the country, is designed to support unemployed or underemployed people who have little technology experience for careers in cloud computing. It provides them with career and resume coaching and interviews with local employers.
It was launched in Kenya in May 2021 and is a collaboration between AWS and the ICT ministry through the Ajira digital platform. It will also be accessible to all citizens in over 300 training centres across the country from early 2023.
Ajira is a Ministry of ICT initiative to empower over one million young people to access digital job opportunities. The local program is part of AWS global commitment to train 29 million people by 2025 as cloud skills become increasingly critical to the success of workforce development initiatives.
"It all started with a flier and a link which I used to apply. I was shortlisted for an interview after that. The training programme exposes us to a wider market since you can apply for a remote job offer from anywhere in the world," said Winnie Anyango, a coder and one of the graduating cohorts. During the event, AWS announced the signing of new partnerships with Computer Learning Centre (CLC), Moringa School and Zalego Academy to accelerate the training of underemployed and unemployed youth for high-quality jobs in the technology sector.
Robin Njiru, the regional public sector lead for West, East and Central Africa at AWS says there is a need for lifelong learning beyond foundational education if we are to equip people with the right skills in a changing business landscape.
Njiru says such upskilling is also available to people currently in the corporate world.
Together with Ajira Digital, Mastercard Foundation and GetINNOtized, AWS is building an inclusive and diverse pipeline of new cloud talent in Sub-Saharan Africa by upskilling young people who otherwise might not have had access to this career path.