CHIETA Wins The CEO Innovation Of The Year Award At The National Youth Awards

Yershen Pillay, CEO of the Chemical Industries Education & Training Authority (CHIETA) has won the CEO Innovation of the Year Award at the 7th installment of the National Youth Entrepreneurship Awards hosted recently at the Houghton Hotel in Johannesburg.

The organisers, Primestars, through their Step Up 2 A Green Start Up programme has over the years created one of the leading youth entrepreneurship development programmes aimed at inspiring small businesses to start and create jobs to address South Africa’s youth unemployment rate. 

One of the most Prestigious Awards on the agenda is the Innovation of the Year Award, which recognises organisations that embody and pioneer innovation for the benefit of the economy and the South African people. This year’s recipient was CHIETA – for driving innovation, digitisation, skills development and job creation in their sector. 

Mr Yershen Pillay, CEO of CHIETA, received the Award and was acknowledged by over 100 corporate executives, Government ministry, media representatives and young entrepreneurs who have benefitted from their support. 

Under the leadership of Pillay, CHIETA has been awarded for:

  • Supporting 17 221 new jobs in the chemicals industries plus another 6 567 this year alone
  • Investing R66.1 million in learnerships internships which have supported 2 500 1st time job seekers and young artisans
  • Recently signed a first of their kind agreement with the Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone to establish a Smart Skills Centre in 2022. The Smart Skills Centre is a fully automated in the country where rural communities around Saldhana Bay will be provided with basic digital skills in 4IR related occupations such as Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Welding.
  • CHIETA plans to invest a further R 50 million into 15 new Smart Skills Centres across the country by 2025.
  • As part of their innovation success stories, CHIETA recently invested R5 million into new and emerging technologies for skills development and training, including a virtual reality training facility for chemical operators. These types of initiatives have positioned CHIETA as a leader in Augmented Reality (AR) and (VR) training.
  • In 2021, CHIETA successfully collaborated with UJ’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, FASKEN Legal, Digify Africa, and other private sector partners to support 100 small businesses in sustainable chemical manufacturing. By 2025, CHIETA plans to support 2000 small and medium business and 200 cooperatives to grow and become sustainable. 

“It is a great pleasure to receive this award from Primestars who are recognising the strides we are making in our sector to develop the economy and the youth of South Africa. It brings us great pleasure to be involved in making sure that the next generation in the workforce is equipped with the tools they need to make a difference. In the same breath we would also like to reciprocate the recognition in applauding Primestars for their work in the Step Up 2 A Start Up program that has the same aim we have in fighting youth unemployment as well as combatting climate change,“ says Pillay.

Martin Sweet, MD of Primestars, concludes: “As we reach yet another incredible milestone in our Step Up 2 A Start-Up journey, I would again like to thank our wonderful sponsors. Organisations like CHIETA truly are heroes who helped start the fires of enterprise, igniting new businesses, glowing with entrepreneurial passion and purpose, resulting in a low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive planet.”.

Share
Scroll to Top