SAP Australia has inked a new partnership with youth education and employment consultancy, Thinq Group.
The aim is to support participation from parents, teachers and students in targeted youth education programs to help foster digital skills.
Thinq Group will also focus on the growing interest in Young ICT Explorers, a not-for-profit youth technology challenge founded by SAP and offered to schools at no cost to encourage students to create digital projects.
It will also support SAP to help scale its youth education programs with The Smith Family and Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.
“Together with a growing list of industry and education advocates, SAP believes we can make a significant and lasting difference in Australia’s talent landscape, taking on both youth unemployment and a widening ICT skills gap,” SAP A/NZ managing director, John Ruthven, said.. “Now with the support of Thinq Group, we are ready to scale on the foundation of a proven platform – of engaging youth early, often and meaningfully with technology and work experience.”
Thinq Group managing director, Daniela Ascone, said industry and school engagement was a critical element of ensuring that young people are made aware of their post-school training and employment options.
This year, the competition is expanding to seven states and territories across the country with South Australia added to the program, bringing the total to nine Young ICT Explorer competitions acrossNSW, Victoria, ACT, Tasmania, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and New Zealand. There will also be an Australian national final.
In 2015, the program experienced a record number 874 students present 371 projects.
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