Since May last year we have been working with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to grow our GET-IT programme in Africa and the Middle East. GET-IT is part of HP’s social investment strategy aimed at innovating teaching and learning to help young entrepreneurs achieve success in their future careers. The programme provides IT equipment, a cash donation, IT training and also ‘train-the-trainer’ sessions for trainers from our respective local partner organisations.

So far, HP and its partners have rolled the GET-IT programme out to nearly 100 centres in 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reaching more than 43,000 people through online and offline training courses. The plan is to grow GET-IT even further to reach over 500,000 young people by end of 2010.

I am happy to tell you that we are now opening another 20 new GET-IT centres in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The centres will be in Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. This figure more than doubles our GET-IT community in Africa and the Middle East.

The need for IT and entrepreneurship education in these regions is particularly high. UNIDO constitutes a strong partner for HP and has done an excellent job in selecting our GET-IT partners in Africa and the Middle East. You can find the list of our new partners in Africa and the Middle East here. 

Our partner MEA-I will be holding ‘train-the trainer’ sessions for the trainers of our new GET-IT partner organisations over the next three months. The sessions are called ‘Guidance Courses’. They are held over five days and offer instructor-led, classroom-based and high interactive training, incorporating experiential learning methodologies.

The goal of this course is to provide trainers with the foundations in technical and facilitation skills and the knowledge required to conduct the GET-IT curriculum and training for students. Moving forward, we are looking to bring parts of the ‘train-the-trainer’ sessions online in due course.

I will soon be able to update you with other great new developments with the programme, starting with advanced online tools and games through to our annual networking conference which be held in October. So, stay tuned for more information on our flagship progamme GET-IT.

Daniela Opp, Manager Social Investment EMEA