Hunter businesses are being invited to link in with and benefit from a new pilot program to provide the region’s young people employment skills for the digital world.
The pilot for a free, eight-week, Digital Marketing Accelerator program is an initiative of the Australian government funded Hunter Futurepreneurs program. It will consist of workshops to develop an entrepreneurship mindset, 10 digital media training sessions and weekly one-on-one mentoring. Participants will be together two days per week in a shared workspace and also undertake one day of independent study per week.
The Hunter’s Entrepreneurship Facilitator, Cheryl Royle, is looking for businesses, particularly small businesses and start-ups, to link in so students can work on real world digital and social media projects and tasks as part of their training.
Cheryl said businesses may also wish to provide some employment or freelance work to the students to assist them with ongoing digital work.
She is partnering with local digital media company KYU Media on the program. KYU will provide digital media training and participants will work in its GreenRoom co-working space at Warners Bay.
She said the program is designed to inspire and help young people to understand their digital strengths and skills and find the right job or business opportunity.
“Digital Marketing Accelerator will help young people understand and experience the process that enables entrepreneurs with limited resources to identify, evaluate, and transform a simple idea into a sustainable business,” Cheryl said.
“Digital literacy isn’t essential for occupations such as programming and coding; it is a skill that all Australians need for the future of work.
“Requirements for digital literacy will continue to rapidly increase over the next couple of years. 90% of the workforce will require at least basic computer skills and more than 50% will need to be able to use, configure and build digital systems.”
KYU Media was established in 2018 by Matt Purcell. The award-winning young entrepreneur runs a podcast, The Examined Life, and is the Author of Life Hacks for Mindful Living. A musician, life coach and youth mentor, he was nominated for Australian of the Year for his work with young people.
South Korean born, Matt was adopted by an Australian family. In The Examined Life podcast series Matt interviews well-known Australians including Mark Bouris, Pete Evans and Osher Gunsberg about business, leadership, mental health, spirituality, and relationships.
The program will start on May 1 and run until mid-June.
Free one-hour information sessions for participants will be held April 17 at 11am and 6pm.
Cheryl is one of three youth entrepreneurship facilitators in Australia. The Australian Government established the facilitators in regions where there is high youth unemployment and low uptake of self-employment.
IMAGE | Local young people will have the opportunity to access the pilot for a free, eight-week, Digital Marketing Accelerator program.
