Apprenticeship programs are common practices around the world for training young people for their first experience in the job market. The immense social divide in Brazil led the Federal Government to create the Young Apprentice initiative to assist and protect young people from social risk. Such an initiative aims to allocate adolescents and young people aged between 14 and 24, as well as individuals with disabilities, into the job market. Large and medium-sized companies are mandated to participate. The Information Technology (IT) sector is expected to have an average demand of 159,000 vacancies annually until 2025 in Brazil, where only some programs aim to train the target audience in IT. However, they are superficially technically trained before their first contact with the company, generating insecurity in the apprentice. This paper presents the design of an apprenticeship program focused on IT services, aiming to better prepare individuals in the IT area, including front-end programming. The proposed program includes a selection process by the training entity and an initial technical and behavioral training phase for the participants, followed by a more specific training phase in programming. The program prioritizes socially and economically vulnerable students, aiming to reduce social inequalities. In addition, it meets four Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first class achieved a 90% approval rate in the initial technical training course, being successfully qualified for inclusion in the IT market. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
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