South Africa has more than 118,000 unfilled digital and tech jobs, even as youth unemployment runs above 46%. South Korean electronics giant Samsung is betting that a new skills programme can help close that gap.
The company has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Durban University of Technology (DUT) to launch the Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), a training programme hosted within the university’s Business School. Samsung announced the agreement on 11 June 2026, following a signing ceremony in Durban, South Africa.
A response to the skills gap
The SIC programme will train 60 young people in high-demand fields, including Python programming and artificial intelligence. Samsung said it aims to move participants beyond job-seeking toward building their own technology ventures.
The Samsung Innovation Campus is a global youth-skills programme the company runs with universities and governments. The DUT partnership extends it within South Africa, where Samsung has linked the effort to the country’s National Development Plan and its 2030 goals.
South Africa’s skills shortage is well documented. Statistics South Africa puts youth unemployment, among those aged 15 to 34, at over 46%. A 2024/2025 study, “Decoding ICT Demand” by research group The Collective X, found more than 118,000 digital and information and communications technology (ICT) roles unfilled, many of them entry-level.
A three-year investment
Lefa Makgato, corporate social responsibility (CSR) manager at Samsung South Africa, said the company would invest in the programme annually over the next 3 years, framing it as a stake in the country’s digital future rather than a one-off course.
Samsung, which also runs its Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition for public schools, said the campus is designed to close the distance between academic learning and what employers actually need.
“Our role in this collaboration is to ensure that our curriculum equips our young people with skills that will help them to become employable,” said Prof Pfano Mashau, director of the DUT Business School. He said he hoped graduates would use the training to start their own businesses.
A public-private model
The launch brought together Samsung, DUT and the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) provincial government. Nhlakanipho Nkontwana, head of department at the KZN Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, cast the programme as a link between the lecture hall and the digital economy.
“This collaboration is both timely and strategic,” Nkontwana said. “It brings together academic excellence and industry expertise, creating a bridge between theory and practice.”
The SIC launch is the latest in a run of corporate-backed skills schemes in South Africa. Google’s Hustle Academy and a local AI training programme for small businesses target similar gaps. Whether such initiatives can scale to the size of the shortfall remains an open question.
Leave a Reply