Although the ICT sector is mainly dedicated to the creation and sale of software, the lack of employees for the tasks needed motivated the industry to generate its own training instances. In addition, they intensify the search for personnel in populations that are not usually reached by traditional training options. There are programs for people who have fallen by the wayside in their studies, but there are also some focused specifically on people with disabilities or vulnerable populations, to name a few examples.
Youth to Program
This program, promoted by the Ceibal Plan, exists since 2017 and aims to teach programming and testing to young people between 18 and 30 years old. Testing is the discipline that tests software, checking programs and applications to check their quality and ensure that everything is working. In Jóvenes a Programar they learn programming for nine months, as well as English and skills called transversal competencies. In the second year they are also helped with job placement.
The director of JAP, Carinna Bálsamo, said that "when young people are in the process of deciding whether to continue studying or go to work, there is an internal selection of where to go and many times technology is not considered".
Jóvenes a Programar seeks to reach 5,000 young people and so far has accumulated more than 1,400 graduates. This year they are focusing on women because they noticed that the gender gap in the industry and traditional educational options remains.
In the ICT industry there are 80% men and 20% women, in academia the ratio is 70-30 and in Jóvenes a Programar as well, that's why in this edition they are looking to equalize that imbalance.
This program operates throughout the country, with a strong presence in the north, in cities such as Salto, Rivera, Paysandú, Tacuarembó and Río Negro. Bálsamo said that the market needs to insert these young people.
"There is an appetite for these young people and the market is showing it, but it also takes time for companies to recognize where these young people can work with the new profile we are creating," said Bálsamo.
Remote and vulnerable populations
Bantotal is a software company for banking and financial institutions that faced the problem of lack of personnel and decided to develop a part of the company that would generate those trained personnel that they could not get.
But they also added the challenge of training high school students in programming and banking knowledge outside Montevideo, precisely in the city of Guichón.
Marcelo Bertorelli, Bantotal's relationship manager, explained how the idea was born: "We wanted to see what would happen if we developed new people, rather than waiting for universities to give new people to the market.
The project was a success and that led them to replicate the training model, this time in Montevideo. They began training young people at the Los Pinos educational center in the Casavalle neighborhood. Bertorelli said that "it was very successful. There are even people who now hold important positions in the company. We found people with a lot of capacity, who simply had to be given the opportunity.
Bertorelli pointed out the case of a 27-year-old woman: "Today she is responsible for the company's training, not only for the people who come to work with us, but also for the financial institutions that work with us. This is a clear case of people who can be inserted in the company in an excellent way".
Focus on disability
Another project that works with vulnerable population is focused on motor, hearing and psychosocial disabilities. The program is testing and is promoted by the Bensadoun Laurent Foundation, which works on labor issues related to people with disabilities.
In 2014 they detected that this population had a need for educational opportunities and job placement in ICT and today they provide five months of a theoretical and practical course.
Gabriela Barrios, technical director of the Foundation, explained that during the training they were given facilities so that they could learn at the level of any person who graduates from a testing course.
"They received the sign language interpreter, they were allowed to work on their own computers, specific supports for tablets, more detailed explanations on what they needed, accompaniment in terms of reinforcing their security in cases where they were more insecure and the result was excellent."
"We can say that the boys worked on equal terms with their peers and found incidents and errors in a short time of internship. They are people who can access the labor market and fulfill all the tasks," Barrios added.
Bridging the gap
In addition to training, there are experiences that are concerned about the labor insertion of more young people, such as the Nahual project, which seeks to shorten that kind of black hole into which graduates of various courses fall, who have no work experience and do not get a job for that reason.
Federico Toledo, collaborator of the Nahual program, explained why targeting this problem: "There are a lot of educational offers that generate people with academic knowledge but no experience. So we seek to close that gap so that they can access the labor market. We do it through spaces that connect companies with workers". Toledo explained that not having experience in ICT is not always a disadvantage.
"That brings a look that the expert in mathematics, programming or in the business, who have been working on the subject for a long time, does not have," he added.
Guillermo Skrillec, testing director of GeneXus Consulting, one of the companies that provides more support to these programs, explained what is generated with this creative search for people to enter the ICT industry. "Our core business is not the education and training of people but we have the need to do it because of the demand we have. But at the same time we help people who haven't considered a career in technology," Skrillec said.
Source: 180
Connect