Transforming lives through technology

Through the LEAP Digital Academy programme, Capgemini has been supporting India’s underprivileged youth to seek new employment opportunities

As a leader in digital transformation, Capgemini also operates as a responsible company working to ensure that technology and innovation help drive sustainable and social development for all.

One of our key initiatives is the LEAP Digital Academy network to promote Digital Inclusion by skilling India’s employment -seeking youth. India is a country of young minds with half of its population under the age of 25. While this demographic dividend promises immense opportunities,
the social challenge is to equip these youngsters with relevant job-ready skills.

To help bridge this gap, Capgemini launched the first LEAP Career Academy in 2015. In 2018, the
academies were renamed as Digital Academies and the skilling focus sharpened to offer IT/ITES courses.

The Digital Academy (DA) programme targets youth in the 18-25 years age group, who are school and college dropouts, and mainly from marginalised communities — the most underexplored talent-pool in the country.

These youngsters are often constrained by low income, inadequate skills, irregular employment, absence of opportunities for training and development, family debt and very little bargaining power at an economic or social level. To help them gain a foothold in the competitive job market, DA equips these youngsters with the necessary technical and soft skills, delivered in an environment of learning and mentoring.

Currently, there are 25 Digital Academies covering 10 cities that have touched the lives of over
30,000 youngsters. The initiative has been strategically accelerated through collaboration with NGO partners, government organisations and clients such as HSBC and JP Morgan. The job
placement rate is about 86%, and over 200 candidates have joined Capgemini.

Capgemini is now strengthening the employee engagement model for DA. Employees step in for skill mapping, conduct expert sessions, assess the faculty capabilities, mentor participants, give guidance with resume writing, and more. The DA initiative is being scaled up with nine more centres on the anvil and a target of 50,000 beneficiaries by end 2022.

Capgemini has also set up centres exclusively for women, such as the JP Morgan School of Coding, which aims to upskill women from disadvantaged backgrounds. The centres have come up in three
cities and train over 1,200 women.

The journey to prepare India for the coming wave of digitally skilled employment has only just begun.