By Freya Purnell
The Young ICT Explorers (YICTE) competition has received a boost, with the commitment of $1.4 million in cash and in-kind contributions by the Australian Government-funded Digital Careers program and SAP over four years.
This new funding will see the competition expanded beyond New South Wales and Queensland to also encompass Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and an additional event in Townsville in 2014.
Now in its fifth year, YICTE aims to encourage young people to create and innovate with ICT, while promoting greater understanding of the real-life applications of technology and the career paths it enables.
Greg Miller, vice president and general manager of SAP Global Partner Operations for Australia and New Zealand, said, “In the four years this competition has run, we have seen increasingly innovative project submissions from students. It’s vital to encourage this innovation from an early age so that, in the future, the industry is not faced with the skills mismatches like we’re seeing today.
“Businesses are struggling to find the right people for the job as there is a lack of applicants with the right science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills. Yet at the same time, there has been recent discourse addressing the critical level of youth unemployment in our country. Digital Careers has been doing great work to help resolve this issue and we’re grateful for their integral support of YICTE,” Miller said.
Digital Careers will help drive outreach activities for the competition, including communications to students, parents and teachers to raise awareness of the opportunity, as well as provide instrumental operational and logistical support.
“We’re throwing our full support behind expanding the opportunity to schools across Australia and encourage teachers and parents to jump on board with registering students in this fun and rewarding experience,” said Karsten Schulz, national program director, Digital Careers at NICTA.
The SAP Young ICT Explorers Competition runs in partnership with leading universities, including University of Queensland, University of New South Wales, Swinburne University, James Cook University, and Australian National University. The projects will be judged by industry professionals, government officials and academics. Each project is assessed on criteria of creativity, uniqueness, quality, level of difficulty and project documentation.
