- Today, KPMG announces their global Youth Empowerment AI Hackathon supported by Microsoft, Enactus and UNESCO, will take place February 26-27, 2022. Focused on young people and students aged 18-25, the event forms part of KPMG’s ongoing commitment to enable young people everywhere to possess the skills they need to become future-ready. It is being organized within the framework of UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition and launched as a response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
- With global youth unemployment almost three times higher than that experienced by the over 25s1 the number of young people around the world not in employment, education or training is expected to increase to approximately 273 million in 20212. Participating students will be supported to foster a technical and social understanding of AI and encouraged to develop ideas that will economically empower underserved communities of young people across the globe.
Participants from across the globe including Ireland, Italy, Nigeria and the United States as well as a number of other countries will each receive an intensive weekend of training on the fundamentals of data analytics and AI with volunteer technical tutors and business mentors from KPMG and Microsoft providing support throughout the experiential learning process as they develop and apply new AI skills. Using curated global data sets on education, skills and jobs, the student teams will make AI predictions on how KPMG, Microsoft, UNESCO, Enactus can most effectively economically empower young people from underserved communities. To further empower future generations, Microsoft, KPMG, and UNESCO will work together to organize a new series of Imagine Cup Junior Virtual AI Hackathons for students aged 13 to 18 years old from around the world, including an event dedicated to young women to be held in March.
After the hackathon, all participating students will be offered a KPMG mentor to support them as they journey along their learning pathway and progress from student to the workforce.
“By adopting an approach developed by the hackathon participants we can uphold and support young people’s human right to education and build more inclusive prosperity as envisaged by the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Brown. “Sadly, too many young people today are deprived of equity and opportunity, however many can still be innovative agents of change, and KPMG is committed to support and empower as many of them as we possibly can.”
The winner, announced on March 23, 2022 will be selected by a panel from KPMG, Microsoft and other leading organizations, with the winning idea taken forward for development through KPMG: Our Impact Plan.
For media queries, please contact:
Daniel Caines,
Senior Manager,
Global External Communications,
KPMG International
T: +44 7732400262
E: Daniel.Caines@kpmg.co.uk
About KPMG International
KPMG is a global organization of independent professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. KPMG is the brand under which the member firms of KPMG International Limited (“KPMG International”) operate and provide professional services. “KPMG” is used to refer to individual member firms within the KPMG organization or to one or more member firms collectively.
KPMG firms operate in 143 countries and territories with more than 273,000 partners and employees working in member firms around the world. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. Each KPMG member firm is responsible for its own obligations and liabilities.
KPMG International Limited is a private English company limited by guarantee. KPMG International Limited and its related entities do not provide services to clients.
For more detail about our structure, please visit kpmg.com/governance.
Footnotes:
1 ENG_ILO_Report_GlobalYouthEmployment_Layout_InsidePages_Final.indd
2 ILO Reports on Growing Number of Unemployed, Uneducated Youth | News | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD
