Dubai, United Arab Emirates, April 25, 2020:    Deloitte has launched its innovative BrightStart apprenticeship program in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, offering a unique opportunity for growth to recent Saudi national high school graduates in their first year in university.  BrightStart allows students to continue their university education while simultaneously launching their training and professional careers at the Deloitte Digital Center in Saudi Arabia. The program provides an excellent opportunity to serve the KSA Vision 2030 by meaningfully driving the development of a digitally skilled workforce.

The Deloitte BrightStart program is an open invitation to ambitious young people to explore the professional world, and accelerate their career across 4 years. It offers an earn-while-you-learn experience and learnings, exposing participants to professional experts and allowing them to directly apply what they learn at university to their work while jump starting their careers and gain a long term competitive advantage. The program is in line with Deloitte’s WorldClass ambition and Deloitte Middle East’s commitment to impact 200,000 futures by 2030 through education and skills-building. 

“The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) has brought with it a host of digital innovations, which have become especially relevant during these unprecedented times as COVID-19 impacts many sectors, and specifically the education sector,” said Mazen Pharaon, Deloitte Digital Center Leader and Consulting partner, Deloitte Middle East. He added “GCC nations have a clear opportunity to drive forward the next industrial revolution and leaders can capitalize on these advanced innovations to help propel their businesses forward and ensure the health and well-being of their people and clients”.

“The disruptions that have been brought on by COVID-19 and the challenges that will need to be overcome will undoubtedly foster stronger cooperation and bigger innovations between businesses, governments and countries to ensure that people, and specifically youth, have exciting and rewarding opportunities for meaningful work,” said Tim Parr, CEO, Consulting, Deloitte Middle East. “To that end, Deloitte has embarked on this Apprenticeship program in Saudi Arabia to continue to provide professional and digital training opportunities to prepare them for Digital professions.”

Students who are accepted into the Deloitte BrightStart program will learn the business of the future as digital technologies and strategies are the focus of the students’ work and studies. The apprentices are to be accepted on the basis of a carefully designed qualification criteria which includes high school grades, performance on government-issued examinations, university acceptance criteria along with Deloitte-specific assessments. 

Across 4 years, Deloitte ‘BrightStarters’ will spend most of each week in the office, helping to solve some real market issues and most challenging problems, while the remainder of the week will be spent at university, studying for their degree. In this way, the scheme provides a depth of insight and involvement that goes beyond the usual university internship.

With more digitally-delivered forms of higher education growing in importance around the world, Deloitte is delighted to collaborate with Saudi Electronic University (SEU) to launch this apprenticeship program. SEU is a pioneering and specialized higher education institution that offers both graduate and undergraduate degree programs – an innovator in grabbing the opportunity to pioneer a new approach to higher level education. It is the first university in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to offer blended learning - a combination of both online and classroom lessons - to all its students. 
“The creation of this Apprenticeship program provides a unique opportunity for Deloitte and SEU to serve the KSA Vision 2030 together by meaningfully driving the development of a digitally skilled workforce, and make a positive impact in society,” concluded Pharaon.