CelcomDigi doubles Young Talent Programme intake, launches campus initiative to bridge skills gap
- ID
- 35292
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 14 Oct 2026, 7:05 PM
- Fetched
- 15 Oct 2026, 9:49 AM
- Provider
- Digital News Asia
- Category
- malaysia-tech
- Original URL
- https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/digital-economy/celcomdigi-doubles-young-talent-programme-intake-launches-campus-initiative-bridge
- Source URL
- https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/rss.xml
Summary
- Score
- 5.0
- Created
- 15 Oct 2026, 9:49 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_ml_learnerssaas_founders
What happened
CelcomDigi announced the second cohort of its Young Talent Programme on 2 Oct, selecting 20 students from about 3,000 applicants; the first cohort of 20 is now in its second year. It also launched campus@celcomdigi to bring industry projects and mentorship into university education, with certifications via partners like Universiti Tenaga covering immersive AI learning. CEO Albern Murty said the two-year track is meant to give participants real work responsibility, not a conventional internship, and raised concern about Malaysia losing talent to overseas markets.
Why it matters
For Malaysian founders or engineering leads hiring early-career talent, this is a small pipeline signal: 20 people per cohort from about 3,000 applicants is not a broad recruiting channel, so don't build hiring plans around it. The campus@celcomdigi model—embedding industry projects and AI certifications into university courses—is worth watching if you want to co-design local talent pathways, but the article gives no placement, retention, or hiring-outcome numbers.
Discussion angle
Can a 20-person-per-cohort telco programme meaningfully reduce Malaysia's talent leakage, or is the real bottleneck competitive pay and real ownership? Discuss whether Malaysian startups should copy the campus@celcomdigi model or build broader graduate pipelines.