Our Pledge to Educate 100,000 More Entrepreneurs across Africa
by David Rozzio, Managing Director at HP South Africa
It was with great excitement that this weekend Johannesburg welcomed the first-ever Global Citizen Festival in South Africa. The event was in celebration of community and the power it has to combat one of the world’s greatest challenges: extreme poverty.
More than anywhere else on earth, sub-Saharan Africa is feeling the effect of rapid urbanisation, digitisation and globalisation. With youth unemployment in Africa up to 3x higher than that of adults, there is a very real need for quality learning and digital literacy to unlock our full potential.
As well as being a fundamental human right, access to education is crucial to promoting diversity, innovation, and progress. Unfortunately, according to UNICEF, sub-Saharan Africa remains the worst-performing region globally for educational quality and learning outcomes.
That’s why at yesterday’s festival we announced our pledge to educate and support 100,000 entrepreneurs across Africa in the next three years. And it starts with the opening of an @HP LIFE Centre right here in Johannesburg. The centre offers free business and IT courses to help established and would-be entrepreneurs make the most of the increasingly digital economy. It works in conjunction with our Reinvent the Classroom, HP Learning Studios and NETA initiatives to go straight to those who will benefit most.
HP LIFE is an important component of HP’s global $20 million investment in achieving better learning outcomes for more than 100 million people by 2025. 100,000 people across Africa have already benefited, and we won’t stop there: at yesterday’s Festival, HP committed to empowering a further 100,000 learners across Africa in the next three years, using our products and services to improve their educational outcomes.
HP has been a proud partner to Global Citizen since 2013, and their ethos is one that I really believe in. Along with my colleagues across the region, I look forward to supporting a new generation of South African entrepreneurs ready to take on the fourth industrial revolution.
