Former corporate executive turned social entrepreneur Lebogang Khunou trains unemployed graduates in essential IT skills

Lebone Marang and Summer has taken its programme national. Satellite offices are being established across multiple provinces to ensure that the quality of development on offer is accessible to young people regardless of where they are located.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

Former corporate executive Lebogang Khunou is embarking on a new journey after corporate life, and this time, to empower the youth by giving them IT skills to prepare them for the work place.

She drives her training IT programme through her new organisation, Lebone Marang and Summer, she has founded, which operates as a social investment company, working with the youth around the country’s nine provinces.

This initiative comes at a time when youth unemployment is huge and social unrest among the population is heightened, mainly due general unemployment bedevilling the South African economy, which last year only grew by 1 percent. The lack employability among those that are looking for work opportunities is also another factor sited by researchers as accentuating the unemployment issue in the country.

However when it comes to youth unemployment lack of experience and skills have been pointed out by economists and researchers as a huge hindrance to employment for the youth.

Therefore, Khunou hopes that her intervention will go a long way in closing this gap.

“South Africa has an access shortage. Every young person who comes through our doors proves that. Our job is simply to open the door wider and make sure it stays open,” says Khunou.

The organisation, says Khunou, has identified the gap in IT as the area that needs urgent intervention in a global economy in which technology plays an important role.

“South Africa faces a persistent and well-documented youth unemployment crisis. At the same time, the technology sector faces a growing shortage of skilled professionals. Many graduates leave university with qualifications but without the practical experience, professional readiness, or industry exposure that employers require.

“Lebone Marang and Summer sits at the intersection of these two realities. The organisation is not a traditional training programme. It is a deliberate intervention: a structured environment where graduates are developed into professionals who are technically capable, workplace ready, and entrepreneurially,” she says.

About Lebone Marang and Summer

Lebone Marang and Summer is 100% Black Female-owned, proudly South African youth development and innovation organisation based in Gauteng. The organisation is designed to develop unemployed IT graduates into skilled, work-ready technology professionals and tech entrepreneurs, giving young people a structured pathway from qualification into meaningful participation in the digital economy.

The organisation takes its name from meaning: Lebone means light, Marang means rays of light. That combination reflects the core belief that young South Africans carry extraordinary potential, and that with the right environment, that potential radiates outward and changes everything around it.

Lebone Marang and Summer is expanding nationally, with footprint being established across multiple provinces to ensure that access to quality technology skills development is not limited by geography.

What they do

The disruptive innovation entity runs cohort-based programmes that take unemployed IT graduates through a structured, immersive development experience. Participants build technical skills, professional identity, and real-world work readiness.

Programme Pillars

• Advanced technical skills development in areas including AI, cybersecurity, systems development, data science, and digital transformation
• Workplace readiness training covering professional conduct, communication, and business acumen
• Mentorship from industry professionals and technology leaders
• Entrepreneurship and innovation thinking, equipping graduates to create as well as as compete in a continuously evolving environment.
• Structured cohort learning that builds peer accountability and professional networks.

National Reach

Lebone Marang and Summer has taken its programme national. Satellite offices are being established across multiple provinces to ensure that the quality of development on offer is accessible to young people regardless of where they are located. The rollout is designed to balance intake across provinces so that the impact is both broad and sustainable.

This national expansion reflects the organisation’s confidence in its model and its commitment to making meaningful skills development a reality for young South Africans beyond the major urban centres.

Leadership

Lebogang Khunou, a former executive, is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lebone Marang and Summer. She leads the organisation with a clear conviction: that South Africa’s youth unemployment challenge is solvable, and that technology skills development is one of the most direct routes to solving it. Under her leadership, Lebone Marang and Summer has grown from a Gauteng-based initiative into a nationally expanding programme, with a growing network of participants, facilitators and stakeholders.

Partnerships

“Lebone Marang and Summer is actively building strategic partnerships with corporates, government bodies, professionals and other stakeholders that share its commitment to youth employment and digital skills development in South Africa. The organisation welcomes engagement from organisations interested in corporate social investment, enterprise and supplier development, learnership sponsorship, and skills levy alignment.

If your organisation is looking to make a measurable, sustainable contribution to youth technology development, Lebone Marang and Summer would welcome a conversation,” adds the Chief Executive Officer of Lebone Marang and Summer.

Khunou can be contacted on 0696763244/0820598364

Email: admin@lebonemarang.co.za