In support of EO 788- “Promoting a Youth National Service”, initiating a new era of volunteerism and community spirit and requiring agencies to develop relevant programs for the youth issued by the President on March 30, 2009; DOLE is implementing an earning and learning project named Kabataan Information Technology Opportunities (K-ITo), through which the IT-literate unemployed youth shall be tapped in improving IT literacy among the out-of-school youth and other disadvantaged youth through free mentoring sessions and in bringing the government closer to the people through free, supervised internet access to online government programs and services.

In collaboration of DOLE Regional Office XI and Information & Communications Technology Davao Incorporated (ICT Davao, Inc.), the umbrella organization of all IT groups hosted by Davao City  as the private sector partner for this project.  This aims to hire 100 unemployed computer literate youth aged 18-24 years old as mentors and 300  non-literate as benificiaries from selected barangays in Davao City.

Youth volunteer mentors will spend at least four hours of teaching and will receive a modest stipend of Php 25.00 per mentoring hour to cover for fare and food. The ratio for mentor and student is 1:2 or 1:3 to achieve quality ICT literacy training.  ICT Davao Inc. will help source the mentors and recipients from the barangays, will shoulder the cost of the training venue and rental of facilities during this initial phase.

A Phase 2 will follow which is the Social Networking Skills Development Project where best performers from the initial batch of 36 Out of School Youth will become the recipients.  This is a barangay IT enabling project of ICT Davao Inc. (IDI) thru a grant funding received from JICA – Davao Industry Cluster Capacity Enhancement  Program (DICCEP) and will be implemented on the same month.  The lead team that will help implement this project is the Davao Software Industry Inc.  (DSII) one of the members of ICT Davao Inc.  Social Networking Skills Development Project aims to promote private and public ICT initiatives through the Barangay by extending ICT literacy for the out-of-school youth.