Digital Skills for Employment (DS4E)

Many young people around the world even with descend education and degrees are unemployed, underemployed, seeking employment for long time or between short-term jobs. Additionally, the lack of career-focused mentoring and training for young people make them not professionally competent and not well skilled in a changing and challenging world.

Digital Skills for Employment (DS4E) is an Algeria-based initiative that provides education/training programs to underserved and unemployed young people and university graduates and equip them with advanced tech and digital skills and entry level technology job opportunities currently in high demand in Algeria and worldwide, in additional to entrepreneurship skills that will help them create their own online or offline business/company. 

Our solution could change the lives of millions of people globally especially if it will be scaled globally and be an "online platform solution". It could make give them a direct path to employment and/or entrepreneurship and business creation.

In Algeria and worldwide, many young people even with descend education and degrees are unemployed, underemployed, seeking employment for long time or between short-term jobs. Additionally, the lack of career-focused mentoring and training for young people make them not professionally competent and not well skilled in a changing and challenging world.

Skills development is an essential prerequisite for youth employment and sustainable development. Yet limited access to high-quality education and relevant training present major obstacles for skills development and school-to-work transition, often contributing to the complex phenomenon of skills mismatches. 

Digital Skills for Employment (DS4E) is an initiative that provides education and training programs to underserved and unemployed young people and university graduates aged between 18 and 30 years old primary, by equipping them with computer science, UX/UI design, marketing, and data analytics job skills and entry level technology job opportunities currently in high demand worldwide, in additional to entrepreneurship and business skills that will help them create their own online or offline business/company. 

We provide youth and university graduates of any fields with hands-on technology training and a direct path to employment through Web/Mobile Development, Software Development, Marketing, Design, and Entrepreneurship instruction courses, project works, apprenticeships and internships internships, as well as job shadowing in all sectors.

The Digital Skills for Employment (DS4E) initiative focuses also on career awareness and preparation programs. We provide introductory classes, advanced courses, short and medium term certification programs (3 months, 6 months, and 9 months).

We serve the following categories of people:

1- unemployed young people and university graduates of all genders.
2- Young people and women in rural areas.
3- Any other unemployed people in different ages.

We address their needs by providing them educational and training programs through introductory classes, advanced courses, short and medium term certification programs (3 months, 6 months, and 9 months).

Equip underserved and unemployed young people and university graduates with tech, digital, and business skills to build a career in the tech and entrepreneurship world.

- We were in the same shoes of the population we are addressing, and we know very well the way how to solve this problem because we figured it out ourselves in the past.

- Our competitors are mainly online solutions only and they provide the online courses in English and their courses are not very well structured ones to solve the problem from the bottom up. Our target population do not speak English and a big percentage of them doesn't have access to Internet and/or online courses provided by international platforms (Coursera, edX, Udacity, etc).

- We know exactly what kind of jobs and roles are in demand in the job market, and we have built training programs that fit those jobs and roles. 

- We are focusing on 8 training pathway programs: UK/UI and Design, Web Development, Mobile App Development, WordPress Development and Design, Digital Marketing, Business Intelligence, Data Analytics, and IT Support and Administration.

We use Web Development, Mobile App Development, WordPress Development, UX/UI Design, Digital Marketing, Business Intelligence, Data Analytics,

We have trained 62 unemployed young people, final year students, and university/vocational education graduates in advanced IT and digital skills to unlock other careers pathways in the ICT sectors. In the first pilot phase (June-December 2019), we were able to help 43 trainees  (12 in web development, 15 in WordPress design and development, 6 in mobile apps development, and 10 in digital marketing) to secure full-time jobs in the private and public sector, and we are coaching the other 19 trainees to find jobs or create their own business in the ICT and marketing sectors. 

Our short-term strategy (2-4 years) to scale to the whole country and provide our services online and offline; is to partner with local big companies in Algeria (Sonatrach, Sonelgaz, Cevital, etc), with international companies/groups operating in Algeria (General Electric, Siemens, Schlumberger, TOTAL, Microsoft, Cisco, HPE, Ooredoo, Schneider Electric, etc) and other international companies (Google, Facebook, Accenture, SAP, Oracle, Deloitte, etc) to get the support needed to scale the solution at the national level, and why not at the regional and international level.

Our Scalability Plan:
1- Year 2021: At least 380 trainees will be trained and mentored in our region Souk-Ahras;
2- Year 2022 and beyond: Growth and scale to the national level with the implementation of our planned online platform (Digital Skills Academy) with tailored education and professional training programs in the sectors of IT, digital innovation, and digital marketing (it could reach at least 200,000 people at the national level) in year 2 alone.

Our medium- and long-term vision is to expand to the MENA and African markets.

In the Q3 and Q4 of 2019, we have trained 62 unemployed young people, final year students, and university/vocational education graduates in advanced IT and digital skills to unlock other careers pathways in the ICT sectors.

Our goal within the next year is to educate and train 380 trainees in our region Souk-Ahras, in the East of Algeria.

Our goal within the next five year is to scale to the national level with the implementation of our planned online platform (Digital Skills Academy) with tailored education and professional training programs in the sectors of IT, digital innovation, and digital marketing (it could reach at least 200,000 people at the national level) in year 2 alone.

Our medium- and long-term vision is to expand to the MENA and African markets after serving the whole Algeria's need.

>> Barriers in the next year: 

- Lack of qualified mentors and teachers. 

- Lack of funding to help us scale.

>> Barriers in the next 5 years: 

- Lack of talented people to scale our solution to reach the whole countries and then expand to the MENA region and Africa.

To address the challenge of lacking qualified mentors and teachers: We are planning,  we will collaborate with the university to allow some professors in the computer science, business, and marketing sectors to be mentors and teachers with us.

To address the challenge of lack of funding, we are looking for sponsors (companies, government agencies, SMEs, etc) to sponsor the trainees in order to hire them after completing the training programs. We will also apply for local grants provided by the government, as well as for grants provided by some embassy or international organizations.

Nonprofit with a social enterprise business model.

Full-time staff: 5

Part-time staff: 2

Contractors: 4

Summer job staff: 4

- Our big passion is the intersection between: education, technology entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and people. 

- Members of the team are passionate about solving two problems: access to quality education that change lives, and creating sustainable jobs for unemployed people, because they have faced these two problems in their lives and  they have experienced the journey to solve them. For that, their life's mission is to work in solving these problems and make the biggest impact on people's lives

- Our team is formed of: one university professors, 2 technology entrepreneurs, 2 teachers, and 2 NGOs activists with a passion of making a positive impact in their community, country, and in the world. 

Our organization, the Youth for Challenges and Development Association (YCDA) founded in April 2016, with the mission of improving the socio-economic situation in Algeria through youth-focused initiatives and programs mainly in education, skills development, employment, leadership development, entrepreneurship, and youth/women empowering.

Digital Skills for Employment (DS4E) is a joint initiative program of the Youth for Challenges and Development Association (YCDA) and Singularity Computing, a technology startup developing advanced computational modeling, high performance computing, engineering intelligence solutions.

We have other partners in our region including: the University of Souk-Ahras, The National Agency for Employment (ANEm), the National Youth Employment Support Agency (ANSEJ), and local vocational training institures and NGOs,

A- Digital Skills for Employment (DS4E) program: We generate revenues from the following revenues streams: 
- Companies/Employers: Pay the enrollment cost of screening/selecting potential trainees and the cost of the training of their pre-selected future employees.
- Government agencies (ANSEJ, ANEM, ANJEM, etc), Municipalities and the Ministries of Education/Labour, Employment and Social Security pay the cost of enrolling a student/learner.
- Trainees: pay their tuition fees if they don't have a sponsor and can pay the program's costs.

B. Professional Training Services: revenues generated from providing professional training courses/workshops to the employees of companies/SMEs, local government administrations, university, and schools (IT related courses, productivity and leadership courses/workshops, etc).

C- Tutoring Service: Revenue generated from the paid tutoring courses for high school students (maths, physics/chemistry, science English, French).

- Partnerships with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Youth and Sport in each country.

- Partnership with the universities (Career Centers, Students Affairs Offices, etc).
- Partnership with local government agencies concerned by the education, youth, employment, business and job creation.
- Partnership with local and international NGOs in each country.
- We are in contact with the Ireland-based Digital Skills Global (digitalskillsglobal.com) to get advice and potential future collaboration to build the best possible online "Digital Skills Academy" and scale our solution.

- Access to mentorship and coaching opportunities.

- Benefit from the support and advice of experts, leaders, and funders. 

- Access to marketing, media exposure.

- Access to funding opportunities. 

- Attend the Solve by MIT event to network with world's solvers ans leaders.

- Technology support and implementation. 

- Marketing, Business Development, and International Go-to-Market.

- Funding and access to investors. 

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Udacity, Coursera, edX, etc. 

Partnerships related to: technology development, marketing, mentorship, etc.

Our solution will help refugees to get the technological and digital skills that will help them access to tech and marketing related careers or create their own jobs. Our solution will also reduce the barriers to access to tech jobs for refugees. 

Our solution will help women to get the technological and digital skills that will help them access to tech and marketing related careers or create their own jobs. Our solution will also reduce the barriers to access to tech jobs for women. 

Our solution will help working-age adults to get the technological and digital skills that will help them access to tech and marketing related careers or create their own jobs. Our solution will also reduce the barriers to access to tech jobs for working-age adults. 

Our solution could reduce the technology and digital illiteracy rates among adults.

We are planning to use AI in the future to build a a career paths and options recommendation system that could find the best career fit for our trainees and other people in the world. The system will be used also to make training personalization for them to maximize the performance and outcomes. 

Our medium- and long-term vision is to scale our solution to the regional (Africa and MENA region) and international level with the the implementation of our planned online platform (Digital Skills for Employment and Entrepreneurship Academy) with tailored education and professional training programs in the sectors of IT, digital innovation, and digital marketing, in order to reach millions of users globally.