By: Staff Writer
July 9, 2021
A world-class management consultancy firm is delivering on digital training in the Caribbean that is bringing Caribbean people into the new age.
Avasant Foundation, based in Los Angeles., sent a document to Caribbean Magazine Plus explaining their work in the Caribbean. They have been conducting several digital training programmes across the Caribbean from Jamaica, to Haiti to Trinidad and Tobago and The Bahamas.
Avasant Foundation’s core mission is to “To improve lives and communities by empowering youth in emerging economies through education, employment, and entrepreneurship.” Their clients are made up of major public and private institutions that span many different industries with varying technical needs. With our help, our clients are free to focus on innovating and implementing their core business initiatives.
Executive Director of the Avasant Foundation, Chitra Rajeshwari, told Caribbean Magazine Plus, “we live in a world today of borderless workforces, hence it is important out students embrace digital technology to be able to work anywhere We really do not have to physically be in a location to be able to do our jobs this is the future.”
The foundation has been delivering on education, employment and entrepreneurship programmes as a recent project in Jamaica has delivered on Jamaica’s its pilot training programme in 2015 for 30 candidates in customer services for them to be hired in the growing business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. With Avasant’s intervention they have helped to have graduated over 600 deserving youth from disadvantaged backgrounds, of which over 90 percent of them having secured employment with leading information technology or BPO firms.
Anupam Govil, a partner at Avasant, as reported in the Jamaica Observer, said “We have seen tremendous growth and maturity coming into the BPO sector in Jamaica. It, of course, has a very successful track record and is today recognised as the second-largest, nearshore, English-speaking destination for US markets – and that is after Canada of course. Also, it is very renowned for customer support and other customer interaction services – which require a good understanding of the North American market.”
In Haiti they were involved in the immediate aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, which fuelled the need for the Haitian government to develop their outsourcing sector as a key to the future successful socio-economic transformation of Haiti.
As a nearshore destination to the US, Haiti’s abundant educated talent pool, multilingual workforce, geographic proximity, and cost effectiveness offer a unique opportunity for global investors,” writes Avasant.
The Avasant Digital Youth Employment Initiative’s (ADYEI) focus was to foster employment creation for Haitian youth and enable the, to succeed professionally in BPO sector, while adding to the sustainable growth of the Haitian BPO industry. 30 candidates in the pilot initiative graduated and found employment between Digicel and Natcom. The program partners included the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Centre for Facilitation of Investments (CFI), Connect Americas, Digicel, Nearshore Americas, and Triangular.
Tthe Avasant Foundation is now in The Bahamas, helping to lead the pathway forward on the post COVID-19 recovery by funded by the Inter-American Development Bank LAB (IDB Lab). Avasant kicked off its Digital Skills Training program designed to help workers in the Bahamas displaced by Hurricane Dorian and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic.
The program, designed by the Foundation, will help unemployed and underemployed young people build technological skills in high demand in the current global economy including project management, data analytics, and Agile development. The first cohorts began training on June 21st, and eventually 500 fully funded scholarships will be awarded.