Telkom has pledged R100 million to create the\u00a0Telkom\u00a0AI Institute, which aims to equip South Africans with artificial intelligence and digital skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The partially state-owned company said that the investment will foster local innovation and accelerate inclusive participation in the digital economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pledge was announced in Geneva as part of the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Partner2Connect (P2C) Digital Coalition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The coalition has surpassed $82 billion in global commitments to connect the world, with Telkom among the few African companies recognised in the recent round of pledges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telkom said the nation’s digital divide is not simply a question of network coverage, as AI is reshaping economies faster than most skills can keep pace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said that a second, hard-to-close gap will emerge, a digital divide where everyone is connected but only a few know how to use digital connections to build a livelihood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Connectivity without capability only gets South Africa halfway there,” said Serame Taukobong, Group CEO,\u00a0Telkom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have spent years building the networks that connect this country. The\u00a0Telkom\u00a0AI Institute is our commitment to ensuring that connectivity translates into skills, jobs and opportunity.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The institute will focus on practical, job-ready AI and digital skills training, with a focus on reaching young people, small businesses, and communities currently underserved in South Africa’s digital economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pledge also forms part of Telkom’s broader Vision 2030 ambition, which looks to move beyond an infrastructure provider to becoming an active builder of the country’s skills base. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Telkom has pledged R100 million to create a new AI Institute in South Africa, with a focus on addressing a new digital divide emerging in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":856812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2075109454559715464","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-865854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865862,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865854\/revisions\/865862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}