KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has been allocated just over $1 billion to continue the roll-out of the Youth Employment in Digital and Creative Industries Project this year.

As outlined in the 2018/19 Estimates of Expenditure that were tabled in the House of Representatives on February 15, the project is designed to build the capacity and enhance the skills of Jamaica’s youth to improve their employability in the digital and animation industries.

This will be done by providing animation training for individuals and capacity building for institutions delivering training; developing an Animation Policy for Jamaica; providing business development support to existing and potential businesses in the local industry; and providing training, apprenticeship and job opportunities in the digitisation of government records for unattached youth, aged 18 to 24.

Additionally, the project aims to support science, technology and innovation, as also institutional capacity building for project management.

Targets under the project, which spans September 2014 to August 2019, were revised following the initiative’s restructuring in November 2017.

These included training 400 youth in 2D and 270 in 3D animation; training 5,000 youth (50 per cent female) in the digitisation of government records, and another 3,000 in science technology innovation; training 250 youth how to access global work online; and refurbishing 12 community/youth centres to facilitate digitisation training/work.

Achievements up to December 2017 included establishment of a business entity – Technology Hub – in tandem with LIME/Flow and the Jamaica National Group and registering it as a limited liability company; training 158 persons in specialised aspects of 3D animation; procuring 558 3D animation software licences for six training institutions; and hosting the 2016 KingstOOn animation festival, which was attended by 1,300 participants from 93 countries.

Targets for 2018/19 include developing a Strategic Plan and Policy note for the proposed Animation Policy; procuring hardware and software for seven training institutions; training 100 unattached youth in accessing global online work; implementing training/apprenticeship in digitisation of records for 3,000 unattached youth; refurbishing six community/youth centres; undertaking stakeholder consultations for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy development; and hosting KingstOOn 2018.

The project is jointly funded by the Government of Jamaica and the World Bank.