With rapid changes in technology and the recent pandemic, remote work is fast becoming the new normal. While remote work has brought in more flexibility, it has raised its own set of challenges. What does this mean for youth, who are new entrants to the labour market? In this new “online“ world, how are internships being structured? Can internships be designed entirely “virtually”?

This webinar discussed a recent initiative led by the private sector to experiment with virtual internships. The Alliance for YOUth (all4YOUth), a group of private sector companies, have developed virtual internship guidelines.

Watch the recording here!

This webinar is part of the ongoing ‘S4YE - Insights from the Private Sector’ series and focuses on how companies are developing innovative solutions to support youth in the wake of COVID-19.
 
COVID-19 continues to remain a global health crisis, disrupting on-campus learning, driving widespread unemployment, and leaving many searching for answers about employment opportunities in the future. Amid the uncertainty, the edtech companies and governments are finding new ways of supporting unemployed workers. 

The webinar highlighted how IFC and the private sector are working with governments on reskilling/upskilling the workforce and showcase lessons learned by  Coursera, an IFC client, in launching and scaling its Workforce Recovery Initiative in the wake of COVID. The recovery initiative enables governments to provide unemployed workers free access to their course catalog, helping them develop the knowledge and skills needed to become re-employed quickly. Coursera activated more than 220 programs for governments across 100+ countries and 25 US states. These programs have benefited more than 1M learners to date. This webinar focused on practical design elements required to structure large-workforce development programs, government agencies' role, and share lessons learned from the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Malaysia. You can also access the recorded webinar here. The presentations can be downloaded from the link below. 
 

During the session, Anita Tiessen, CEO of Youth Business International (YBI), focused on 4 key insights drawn from YBI’s work of supporting young entrepreneurs during COVID. She highlighted the importance of business pivots, the role of digital solutions, mentoring youth to build emotional resilience and inclusiveness in outreach. Marija Ralic, Lead of Google APAC from Google.org shared how their organization is supporting non-profit organizations with grants, technology, and volunteers. Roshni Venkatesh, Global Giving Lead in Accenture, highlighted the Skills to Succeed initiative and the Sky’s the Limit project, (an innovative digital platform that connects young entrepreneurs with business professionals, to get the mentorship they need). YBI with support from Google.org and Accenture, leveraged their 20 years of experience and 70 members and delivery partners across 65 countries to rapidly respond to meet the needs of entrepreneurs. This has led to YBI reaching over 130,000 entrepreneurs during the pandemic, to help them protect their businesses.

The session was also joined by Neelima Tippavajhala, Founder and CEO of Cocotang India and a young entrepreneur who shared her journey of grit and resilience during the pandemic. Neelima’s organization produces natural coconut drinks in India. BYST and YBI provided her with financial and moral support that allowed Cocotang to survive and thrive as the business added new types of drinks to their menu for local customers.

Watch the video recording here!

As we continue to operate remotely, entry-level and diverse job seekers face additional challenges in finding the right jobs. As learning and education systems are disrupted by the pandemic, the private sector is finding new ways of supporting under-represented groups of youth to become job ready and build careers in the digital industry. S4YE - Insights from the Private Sector recently featured Nicole Goldstein from Facebook and Darryl Pinkus from Coursera who spoke about their recent partnership on a social media marketing professional certificate program. This session focused on the insights and learnings in implementing an online learning platform. The speakers shared their experience of launching the certified course in the wake of COVID-19. The focus of the professional certificate program is to provide participants with hands-on, project-based training designed to be completed within 5 months and provide direct connection to open roles with an industry-recognized certificate. The program aims at people with no prior industry experience as well as under-represented, diverse groups of job seekers who want to build careers in the digital marketing industry.

 

Watch the video recording here!

This webinar is part of S4YE's recently launched Brief on How Technology Can Help Incorporate Youth Voice in Employment Programs. As organizations around the world have transitioned to remote operations, moving to virtual engagement can be challenging. Youth employment organizations are finding creative ways to engage young people through technology. This is to ensure that their projects efficiently meet the current local market demands and address the constraints faced by youth.

In this webinar, S4YE was joined by two partners Educate! and Africa's Voices Foundation. Emmanuel Kalyebi, Senior Program Manager of Educate! and Samuel Kimeu, Executive Director of Africa's Voices Foundation spoke about how their organizations have used radio technology, SMS platforms, and social media tools to engage young people in Africa. This session focused on the design and implementation of incorporating youth voice into youth programs, and delve into the factors, practical challenges and opportunities of doing so. 

You can find full access to the video recording here. 

The role of the private sector in advancing youth employment is crucial. As part of our Insights from the Private Sector series, S4YE recently hosted an engaging discussion with Bickey Russell from Google who talked about Kormo Jobs, a job-matching and career development app, that is operating in Bangladesh, Indonesia and India. The other two speakers, Kazi Inam Ahmed, Director of Gemcon Group and Sabbir Nasir, Executive Director of ACI Logistics (Shwapno) provided practical insights into the implementation of the Kormo Jobs app in their local businesses in Bangladesh.

The webinar highlighted Google's experience of creating Kormo app to cater to the emerging needs of informal young job seekers and employers in the wake of COVID-19. You can find the full presentation in the link below and the webinar recording here.

This S4YE webinar featured Isabelle Salcher from New York University and Karla Yoder from Global Communities. The seminar focused on the the effects of a nationwide, government-sponsored apprenticeship program in Ghana and the YIEDIE project which implemented an apprenticeship that provided over 14,000 youth with technical skills. You can find access to the National Apprenticeship Program Ghana Experimental Evidence presentation slides here and the YIEDIE Ghana apprenticeship model Global Communities presentation here.

The World Bank's Youth to Youth Community in collaboration with S4YE hosted Zhenia Viatchaninova Dalphond (one of the winners of last year’s Y2Y Youth Innovation Fund). The session presented the lessons learned from the Youth Innovation Fund pilot project focusing on online work training for vulnerable youth in Ukraine during the lockdown. The pilot project was one of the case studies of the recent S4YE publication “Orange Economy: As a Driver of Jobs for Youth”. 

COVID-19 has put the jobs of millions of youth, especially in the informal sector, at risk. Estimates suggest that more than one in six young people have stopped working due to the pandemic. S4YE joined the Local Economic Development Series on October 7th, 2020 session to explore strategies to create employment and entrepreneurship opportunities to facilitate longer-term resilience and stronger recovery from COVID-19. The session brought together panelists from S4YE's network to discuss how organizations are reviving small and medium businesses, increasing private sector engagement, leveraging new digital job opportunities, and increasing virtual learning access for vulnerable youth.

Opening remarks were given by Ian Walker, Manager, Jobs Group, World Bank and Ingo Wiederhofer, Practice Manager, Social Sustainability and Inclusion Global Practice, World Bank. The fire side chat was moderated by Namita Datta, Program Manager, S4YE. The speakers included:

Mamadou Biteye, Vice President, Social Impact for Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa, (CEMEA) region at Visa, based in Dubai,

Rob Urquhart, Lead, Knowledge & Research, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator,

Akshay Kashyap, Deputy Head, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna, National Skill Development Corporation, India, and

Colin Blackwell, Founder, Enablecode.

You can find full access to the slides, webinar recording, and other resources here.

Gülcan Yayla, Co-Founder and CEO of Kodluyoruz (We Code), and Youth Advisory Group (YAG) board member introduced the journey of how their organization scaled their award-winning technology-based skills development initiatives in all 81 cities of Turkey, reaching more than 30,000 people in only less than four years. The webinar elaborated on the importance of youth communities in achieving a sustainable and scalable skills program anywhere in the world. Kodluyoruz is a social enterprise working to make Turkey a worldwide talent hub for technology sector while addressing the youth unemployment and underemployment problems. Gülcan holds an MBA and MSW Joint Degree from Washington University in St. Louis as a McDonnell International Academy Scholar, along with a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Middle East Technical University. Before moving back to Turkey for Kodluyoruz, she worked for Malala Fund and World Bank in Washington, D.C. to support girls’ education and to provide strategic directions to governments on how to adapt education systems to the third industrial revolution. She also worked as a strategic planning and business development consultant for 3 years in Turkey.