Yum! Brands spinoff Yum China is investing in more digital education for underserved areas. The company today launched its Digital Classroom Initiative that gives children in rural parts of China access to online classes that will teach coding and other digital skills.
The digital divide between China’s urban and rural populations has narrowed somewhat in recent years. Still, the COVID-19 pandemic once again highlighted its existence, showing the disadvantages the rural population is at when it comes to online learning and, in some cases, access to the internet.
Yum China says it will use its newly launched Digital Initiative program to provide children in the Hunan province with free computer equipment and instructor-led virtual coding courses.
The company has been involved in bringing digital education to remote areas since 2019 when it began establishing digital classrooms with help from Leap Learner and the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation. Yum China has been quietly expanding the program ever since, first in the Ningxia and Hunan provinces and now in the Hunan province.
While highlighting his company’s own evolution in an increasingly digital restaurant industry, Yum China CEO Joey Wat talked in today’s press release of preparing rural youths with “much-needed skills to thrive in a digital world.” Increasingly, restaurants are part of that shift. The march of technology into restaurant kitchens, dining rooms, and off-premises experiences will create new types of digital jobs in these settings. Some companies are now training underprivileged groups with the kinds of skills they would need for such jobs but may not have the opportunity to gain on their own. Over in Berlin, Germany, Delivery Hero highlighted this recently when it launched its own program, the Tech Academy.
For its part, Yum China says it will eventually expand its program across more rural areas of the country.
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