Organization

Passerelles Numériques Cambodia


Passerelles Numériques Cambodia (PNC) is a two-year information technology school in Phnom Penh for young people from poor families.[1] It is the Cambodian program of Passerelles Numériques (PN), a French nonprofit founded in 2005 by French supporters of Cambodia who wanted to help very poor young people leave poverty through education and work in information technology.[1][2] PNC was the organization's first country program and the model for its later programs in the Philippines, Vietnam and Madagascar.[1][3]

History

The school began as the Center for Information Systems Training (CIST), a program incubated, supported and hosted by the French association Enfants du Mékong and supported by a Bridging Digital Gaps grant from Accenture.[4][5] Its founders were Virginie Legrand, Alain Goyé, Gérard Dusquesne and Hakara Tea. Hakara Tea, a polytechnic graduate and former volunteer with Pour un Sourire d'Enfant, managed the first center.[4] Many of the first students came from families living near the public landfill in Phnom Penh, and the partner charities Pour un Sourire d'Enfant and Enfants du Mékong looked after their living conditions and gave them board and lodging.[2] Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco supplied hardware and software, and 31 Accenture volunteers gave their time to teach without pay.[2]

Twenty-five students began the first course, in systems and network administration, in October 2005.[2][1] CIST became independent of Enfants du Mékong in 2006, although the association kept a founding seat on the PN board.[4] A year after the first course, with major support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CIST began its first one-year program. On December 5, 2006, the Veolia Foundation granted €40,000 toward a new three-story school building with five computer labs, six classrooms and offices, so that the school would no longer risk eviction.[2]

The PN Cambodia building was inaugurated in 2007, the year the first class of 20 students graduated.[1] A web programming course followed in 2009. In 2011 the school enrolled 100 new students for the first time and took the name Passerelles Numériques Cambodge.[1][4] That year it had 250 students, out of 453 across the organization's three countries.[6] By late 2013 it housed and trained 200 students, half of them women, split evenly between web programming and systems and network administration.[7]

PNC held its first career forum in 2014 and celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2015. In 2016 it launched oPenh, a two-year project to rework its training program.[1] It started the NomadLab project with the education charity SIPAR in 2019, and a cybersecurity project with the Foundry and SHE Investments in 2020.[8] Also in 2020, with support from the Skills Development Fund of Cambodia's Ministry of Economy and Finance and from the Asian Development Bank, it enrolled 150 students.[1] In 2022 it began a framework for new teaching methods to be used in all PN centers.[1]

On May 1, 2024, PNC began a three-year partnership with the French Development Agency called the BRIDGES project, which funds the selection, training, support and job placement of disadvantaged young people in Cambodia and the Philippines.[9][1] PNC celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2025 and that year created Promoting Skills for Success (PSS), its local operational partner.[1]

Training

The program is a full-time, two-year course in information technology for young Cambodians from poor rural and urban families, and it is free to students.[1][10] Over the years its specializations have included software development, web and mobile programming, and network and systems administration.[1][11] As of 2026, students choose between two majors, Software Development and System and Network Administration and Cybersecurity. The course ends with a 16-week full-time internship from August to November. Graduates receive an Associate Degree in Computer Science and a Passerelles Numériques certificate. PNC is registered with the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.[1]

Technical classes run from office software and algorithms to web design, databases and programming. Students also study general English, IT English and workplace communication, along with critical thinking, creativity and teamwork. Company visits, mock interviews and CV workshops prepare them for work, and a mentoring program and clubs for sports, music, reading and photography round out the course.[1] In 2020 the training ran 40 hours a week. Students lived in a boarding house in their first year and managed their own budget for housing, food and supplies in the second, and six former students were on the teaching staff.[11]

PNC pays for each student's housing, equipment, meals and health care. The dormitories are less than five minutes' walk from the school, three hot meals are served each day, students receive an allowance for other costs, and a team of educators gives social and personal support.[1]

Selection

Each year, from February to November, a selection team travels across Cambodia to find between 75 and 100 young people, with a target of at least half young women.[1] The four stages are information sessions, written tests, career guidance interviews and home visits, followed by a final committee.[1] In 2023 about 3,500 young people attended 52 information sessions in 17 provinces, 1,101 took the written tests, and the team made 236 home visits. That year 75 students were selected, 51 percent of them girls, and 72 graduated.[12][13] In 2025 selection reached 23 of Cambodia's 25 provinces. Young women make up 52 percent of current students, and 98 percent of students come from rural areas.[1]

Graduates

PNC's reported graduate count has grown over time: 1,485 in early 2020, 1,693 by 2023 and 1,842 as of 2026.[11][12][1] PNC reports that 98 percent of its graduates work in the IT sector and 92 percent find a job within three months of graduating.[1] It gives graduates' average starting salary as US$305 a month, compared with an average of US$48 per person in their families before they joined. In 2024 the Comgest Foundation reported an average graduate wage of US$388 a month against a family income of US$50 before enrollment.[1][14] PN credits these earnings with helping many graduates lift their families out of poverty.[1][5]

Organization and funding

Passerelles Numériques is a nonprofit under French law with its head office in Paris, and PNC is its registered program in Cambodia.[10] PN gives 2005 as its founding year. The Cooperation Committee for Cambodia lists the association's founding as November 13, 2006, with its registration published in the French Official Journal on December 9, 2006.[10][15]

Funding comes from corporate partners, which have included Accenture, CA Technologies, Microsoft and Econocom-Osiatis; from foundations such as Fondation de France, the Comgest Foundation and the Veolia Foundation; from public donors including the French Development Agency and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and from individual donors in France and elsewhere.[10][14][2][5] Since 2018 the Comgest Foundation has paid for two years of schooling for ten students.[14] Donors in the United States give through Friends of Fondation de France.[5] Companies also work with PNC by offering internships, hiring graduates and donating laptops.[1]

Team (2026)

Key staff listed by PNC.[1]

  • Hybunna Hang, country director
  • Sreynich Leng, external relations manager
  • Thaina Seang, selection project manager
  • Sim Hul, education manager
  • Lihuy Hok, training manager
  • Sreysros Sok, administration and finance manager

Eléonore Iriart was director of PNC in 2020.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 Passerelles Numériques, Cambodia
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Veolia Foundation, Passerelles numériques project (2006)
  3. ↑ Wikipedia, Passerelles numériques
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Wikipedia (French), Passerelles numériques
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Friends of Fondation de France, Passerelles Numériques
  6. ↑ Field Actions Science Reports, A Digital Gateway (2012)
  7. ↑ Open Development Cambodia, Championing girls in IT – Passerelles Numériques Cambodia
  8. ↑ Passerelles Numériques, 2022 annual report
  9. ↑ French Development Agency, BRIDGES project (2024)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Passerelles Numériques, home page
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Le Petit Journal Cambodge, Passerelles numériques, un tremplin vers les métiers de l'informatique (February 2020)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Passerelles Numériques, Annual report 2023
  13. ↑ Passerelles Numériques, Annual report 2023 (light edition)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Comgest Foundation, Passerelles Numériques Cambodia (2024)
  15. ↑ Cooperation Committee for Cambodia, NGO database: Passerelles Numeriques Cambodia
Retrieved from "https://dev.khmerconnection.com/w/index.php?title=Passerelles_Numériques_Cambodia&oldid=8914"
This page was last edited on 2 October 2026, at 01:35.