IT Training and Digital Entrepeneurship

In line with the sectoral pillars set in the Beyond Aid strategy, The Portland Trust is working to help establish the foundations to supply the economy with more highly skilled graduates in computer science and engineering, by focusing on educational gaps at secondary and tertiary level.

The Portland Trust helped establish a school coding programme to attract top secondary school students to the field of computer science. Launched in the summer of 2015, the programme focuses on providing summer camps for selected students with mentorship provided by US based university students. Implementation has been led by the PalTel Foundation. The second camp was successfully held in the summer of 2016 and the third in the summer of 2017.

The lack of a large trained workforce remains an impediment to expanding the IT sector and outsourcing firms cite the need to train recent graduates upon hiring. An impasse has developed wherein Palestinian IT firms cannot bear the risk of training recent university graduates without the security of future revenue via outsourcing contracts.

The Portland Trust identified semiconductor design verification as a niche subsector with high potential to foster growth and employment in the technology sector, based on a growing outsourcing market. The Portland Trust engaged local and international stakeholders to develop the concept and design of a postgraduate training and business development initiative to improve the existing graduate talent pool capacities to bridge the skills gap and enable job creation through partnerships with multinational technology companies in the semiconductor industry. TPT partnered with multinational companies working in the semiconductor industry, service providers and local IT companies to launch the initiative which resulted in contracts extended to local companies and successful job creation. Together with partners, TPT is now scaling the initiative by helping Palestinian universities revisit their computer engineering content and delivery methods as well as establishing specialised VLSI computer labs with the commercial tools and equipment necessary for linking theoretical hardware engineering with specific industry application.

An entrepreneurial ecosystem has started to emerge in Palestine over the past few years with Tech-startups such as Yamsafer raising over $10 million in funding from local venture capital investors such as Sadara Ventures as well as from international investors. The Portland Trust is currently conducting a survey of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and is assessing a range of potential initiatives to support the growth of the sector.