Young ICT Explorers program expands to ACT, Vic

SAP and the government-funded Digital Careers program have jointly committed $1.4 million over the next four years towards extending the Young ICT Explorers (YICTE) program into new Australian states.

YICTE is an annual competition designed to encourage Australian students to develop innovative applications for ICT. The event is now in its fifth year, and around 950 students have been involved.

With the additional funding, the event is being extended from NSW and Queensland and into schools in Victoria and the ACT. The competition, previously only conducted in selected secondary schools, will also be extended to some year-three students for the first time.

Prior winners include Lucky Katahanas, who was subsequently offered a full-year internship at SAP in Brisbane and is now pursuing a bachelor in ICT at the Queensland University of Technology.

SAP General Manager of Global Partner Operations for Australia and New Zealand Greg Miller said initiatives such as the YICTE competition are important for stimulating an interest in ICT among Australian youth.

“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,” he said.

“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 is a government program led by NICTA designed to increase the number of tertiary ICT students in Australia. University partners in the YICTE program include UQ, UNSW, the ANU, Swinburne University and James Cook University.

Image courtesy of Brad Flickinger under CC