Today, I had the pleasure of meeting a phenomenal young entrepreneur who should serve as a source of inspiration to her peers. Portia Masimula, quite literally took the plunge and carved her own path in the world of entrepreneurship. She co-founded Karisani Developments in 2014, an Information Communication and Technology (ICT) company that has been built by young people who are passionate about entrepreneurship and technology.

Karisani Developments specializes in Web and Mobile applications and in addition focuses on skills development training. The company has worked with one of the City’s partners, the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative (CiTi,) which has played an integral role in in catalysing and supporting the Cape Town tech ecosystem for the past 20 years. 

Through funding from various partners, including the City of Cape Town, CiTi is able to provide programmes and initiatives that can help entrepreneurs to grow their business.

Karisani Developments is one of the host companies for the CapaCiTi Intern Programme where they accommodated trainees and involved them in work that allows them to gain technical experience. The intern provided to Karisani Developments is gaining experience in data capture, database management, analysis, software testing, software development to administration and help-desk management.

Youth unemployment continues to be a problem in South Africa and given the dwindling stats in employment opportunities, I am always pleased to hear of young people taking charge of their future. For believing in herself and seizing the opportunity to become an entrepreneur, I must congratulate Portia.

Therefore, my priority as Mayco Member responsible for economic opportunities in Cape Town is to work with strategic business partners and the private sector to make a dent in the numbers. We will achieve this by providing funding and resources to train and support young people to become entrepreneurs to build a flourishing business ecosystem in Cape Town.

By choosing to be an entrepreneur, you will not only be able to create a job for yourself, but you may even be able to create jobs for others and help stop the rising level of unemployment. Once again, Portia is a prime example of an entrepreneur who has created opportunities for other young people.

City of Cape Town supports tech skills development

The City has been supporting the Cape Information Technology Initiative (CiTi) to the tune of over R21 million between 2012/13 to December 2018. CiTi uses the funding to train young people with tech skills to support the rapidly growing sector in Cape Town. Through the City of Cape Town funding, CiTi has trained 1 719 people and placed just over 400 people in jobs. The majority of these beneficiaries were young people.

For the current financial year, the City has invested R6,5 million into this specific skills development programmes to train 100 young people from previously disadvantaged areas such as Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Macassar, Strandfontein, Hanover Park, Milnerton, Philippi, Retreat and Mfuleni.

The training programme for these 100 students is structured in such a manner that it introduces the young people to entry-level information communication and technology infrastructure, and fundamental data analytics skills. The technical training component is offered for a period of six months, followed by the completion of a six-month stint as interns on work-related training placements.

Between July 2018 and February 2019, 420 young people have been trained through this programme. The trained candidates were placed in internships following their training.
I would also like to personally encourage private companies and potential employers to get involved by hosting unemployed individuals for workplace experience opportunities too. Government alone cannot create job opportunities, while we do as much as we can, we need the private sector as partners in this journey to make a dent in youth unemployment.

We are continuously working towards reducing the unemployment rate and every single job created, training offered, or entrepreneurs and start-ups assisted are sure ways of creating more jobs.