The UNDP Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) and Cisco Systems will jointly fund and set up ten Cisco Networking Academies in nine developing countries in the region.

The program will seek to provide students with advanced IT curricula to leverage the enormous opportunities created by the Internet while creating a qualified talent pool for building and maintaining networks.

The partnership builds upon NetAid, a global program that harnesses the Internet to battle extreme poverty in the world.

"The Networking Academy Program is a pivotal point in our vision to use the Internet to bring new opportunities to the developing world, and to find new tools to defeat poverty," said Gabriel Accascina, regional coordinator of APDIP in Kuala Lumpur.

Accascina said that the UNDP is looking at this initial set as a pilot to be eventually expanded to other regions.

Richard Freemantle, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Cisco Systems, commented, "One way for these countries to compete in the Internet Economy is by developing a workforce with Internet skills and knowledge. We are teaming with APDIP to help them achieve that."

The Cisco Networking Academy Program is a not-for-profit education initiative designed to equip students with conceptual and practical skills that will enable them to design, build, maintain and troubleshoot the networks that connect computers.

The curriculum also prepares students for the Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA) exam, a certification that positions them for immediate openings in a talent-hungry job market or for engineering- and science- focused college studies.

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APDIP will serve as a Regional Networking Academy, supporting ten Local Networking Academies in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Fiji, India, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. The regional academy will teach the instructors who oversee programs at the Local Networking Academies under its jurisdiction.