She is Digital

She is Digital by Junior Achievement Americas (Central & Latin America)

She is Digital is the technical training and employability programme of Junior Achievement Americas (Central & Latin America), co-designed with IDB Lab and developed in strategic alliance with Kyndryl Foundation, Cisco, Delta and Valvoline. It closes the gender gap in tech by equipping young women aged 18–29 with certified technical training, socioemotional skills, and active employability support — fully online, fully funded and structured around their real-life constraints.

The programme operates in three sequential phases across approximately eight months:

Phase 1 — Technical Training with International Certification: Participants complete 300 hours of structured learning covering cybersecurity fundamentals, network infrastructure, cloud concepts, endpoint security and cyber threat management — aligned to an internationally recognised certification syllabus. Upon completion, participants sit the certification exam (currently CISCO CCST Cybersecurity). The resulting credential is globally verifiable, industry-recognised, and transferable across borders. High-performing participants may also pursue optional modules leading to complementary certifications.

Socioemotional Skills — transversal throughout: Self-confidence, communication, teamwork, adaptability, problem-solving and proactivity run in parallel with technical training from day one through graduation. This is by design: the programme's independent impact study identifies self-efficacy as the primary enabler of active job-seeking behaviour and successful labour market integration. These skills are structural to the model, not supplementary.

Phase 2 — Road to Employment: A structured transition to the labour market. Participants receive CV building, LinkedIn optimisation, mock interviews, group mentoring, and individual coaching. They connect with hiring partners through virtual job fairs, a live employer job board, and direct placement pipelines. Graduates are listed on the She is Digital talent portal for priority employer outreach.

Impact to date: She is Digital has awarded full scholarships to more than 9,700 young women across seven countries (México, Costa Rica, Brasil, República Dominicana, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala), with over 5,300 graduates, 2,500 certified and more than 1,100 placed in technology roles. An independent impact evaluation confirmed that formal employment rose 19 percentage points (from 12% to 31%), average income increased by more than 33%, and 62% of employed graduates work directly in the technology sector.

Junior Achievement Americas (Central & Latin America) delivers more than 3.2 million educational experiences annually across 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.