New Way Now: Harambee fights youth unemployment in South Africa using Google Cloud and AI

*Featured in this video:* Hanlie de Bod, Chief Information Officer at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator *Executive Summary:* The nonprofit Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator uses Google Cloud to scale its digital platform and connect young people in South Africa with jobs. With youth unemployment at a critical level, Harambee needed a technology foundation to help scale innovative solutions for job seekers. The company knew they wanted to incorporate past experience for job seekers into its matching algorithm to broaden the job matching results. They also needed an easy-to-access platform that’s free for users. Harambee uses AI-enhanced job matching and a cloud infrastructure built for reach and efficiency to break down systemic barriers to employment — helping 4 million people so far. *Challenge:* In South Africa, more than 50% of young people are unemployed, due to a lack of access to jobs, skills mismatches, and systematic barriers. By partnering with government agencies and the private sector, Harambee helps unlock pathways to work. But to support young people across the country, Harambee’s platform needed an infrastructure that could scale and stay under budget. *Solution:* Using Google Cloud, Harambee built a scalable and accessible platform to support its mission without a lot of additional budget or team members. With Google AI, it’s improving job matching by factoring in informal work experience and non-traditional skills. This helps more young people get matched to roles they may otherwise be overlooked for. *Results:* Harambee has built an innovative, scalable digital platform that provides enhanced job matching services for free for its young users. It’s able to work faster toward its mission and serve millions of unemployed young people. *Key takeaways and highlights from our interview with Hanlie de Bod, Chief Information Officer at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator:* → “We plan to enhance our job matching algorithm using Google AI an