Graduate job drive fires up Microsoft MD

28 October 2012 - 10:48 By Sabelo Skiti
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GIVING BACK: Mteto Nyati Picture: JAMES OATWAY
GIVING BACK: Mteto Nyati Picture: JAMES OATWAY

Software leader puts R4bn into youth opportunities around the world, writes Sabelo Skiti

MTETO Nyati has an impressive string of achievements behind his name - but it is finding ways to help others reach their full potential that really gets him excited.

Nyati is the managing director of Microsoft SA and the driving force locally behind his company's mission to tackle youth unemployment worldwide.

In just under five years, two of his initiatives, Student-2-Business and Student-2-Government, have created jobs for 6 500 graduates in South Africa .

The programme provides training and facilitates placement at private companies and government entities.

He is delighted by the initiatives' impact, saying that, at a basic level, those employed have " dignity and they are supporting their families".

Nyati, who lives in Johannesburg, is familiar with being on the receiving end of a golden opportunity.

His own rise from a middle-class upbringing in Tabase near Mthatha in the Eastern Cape was sparked by a bursary from Afrox to study engineering at the University of Natal in the 1980s.

The company later gave him the opportunity to complete an MBA. This would become a springboard for him to join IT giant IBM, and serving as a director at the company's Paris operation.

Nyati's success resulted in a nomination for a Yale Fellowship in 2006 and he still counts his link to the US Ivy League university as one of his greatest achievements to date.

Nyati said the fellowship brought home the reality of the challenges facing the world, including youth unemployment.

His two youth development programmes are set to grow thanks to Microsoft's latest initiative, YouthSpark, launched last month.

Through the R4-billion programme, the software giant hopes to create over 300 million opportunities for young people in more than 100 countries.

And Nyati has already set the company a target of employing another 3 000 youngsters next year.

"We want to multiply it [and] that means partnerships ... going beyond our normal networks."

One of the recipients of the company's largesse is Fundiswa Mgcoyi, 26, one of the programme's 2012 graduates, who is proving to be an asset at the Sunday's River municipality near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape.

The information technology graduate was unemployed for six months when she saw an advert for the programme in her local paper.

"I was starting to feel hopeless about ever getting work. But now Í am happy, not only to be employed, but to also have an internationally recognised certificate on top of my diploma," she said.

As desktop technician and assistant administrator Mgcoyi, together with an external service provider, looks after Sunday River network.

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