The City of Cape Town hosted its first ever Digital Transformation Summit at the Cape Town Civic Centre on Thursday, June 05, 2025. The summit highlighted the milestones by the Information Services and Technology (IS&T) Department that has been achieved over the last five years since Council approved the Digital Transformation Strategy.
Reportedly, one of them was the Digital Internship Programme that was launched in the year 2023. The morning consisted of noteworthy panel discussions amongst the City of Cape Town‘s top tech and data experts.
The topics ranged from the cyber threats that government and businesses face on a daily basis, on how important data cleansing is for both the municipality and its residents, as maintaining up-to-date data records which will ensure that the City is more responsive to the needs of citizens by making better data-driven decisions.
The summit also featured interesting guest speakers such as – an extreme endurance athlete – Mr. Jamie Marais, who spoke on resilience and endurance, as well as the Executive Director of Digital Transformation from ABSA – Ms. Pragashani Reddy, who addressed lessons from ABSA, cybersecurity and bridging the digital divide.
The young minds who are part of this exciting journey through the City’s digital internship programme, were also present at the summit. This internship programme attracted many students from Western Cape universities who were completing their studies in Computer Science, Science, Engineering, Industrial Psychology and even Astro Physics degrees.
The first intake of 13 interns gained experience in project administration and management, change management and the technical IS&T work. The City of Cape Town announced that 11 of those interns have secured permanent posts this year, which is a testament to the City being able to retain top talent at the municipality.
Considering this, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Corporate Services – Alderman Theresa Uys said that at the summit they introduced seven new interns who form part of the 2025 digital internship programme intake.
These ambitious students will be placed in various roles within IS&T, across Enterprise Architecture, Emerging Tech, Digital Transformation and SmartCape. Alderman Theresa Uys said, “I know they will experience huge growth working with some of the most talented minds in this field. We wish them all the best as they embrace this opportunity to learn and grow in this exciting digital space.”
The new graduate interns who were introduced at the summit stem from communities right across Cape Town such as Philippi; Parklands; Ottery; Khayelitsha and Heathfield. They were appointed recently in May 2025 and are completing degrees in Commerce and General Accounting, Computer Science and Business Management.
According to Uys, the discussions further confirmed the pragmatic approach to ensure that the digital transformation journey prepares them to become future-ready and future-fit from a technology perspective while still upholding the service delivery standards.
Theresa Uys was especially excited to listen to the esteemed panels discussing important topics like cybersecurity and data, and how the City protects staff and citizens as government entities remain prime targets for cyber-criminals.