United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in collaboration with The Zariah Elizabeth Foundation (TZE) has put together a two-week Youth Mobile App training Initiative for teenage aspiring techpreneurs in Abuja.
The Youth Mobile Initiative which seems to build on the experience of many worldwide initiatives that introduce young people to computer science programming (learning-to-code) and problem solving (coding-to-learn).
According to Dayo Akindolani, Executive Director, TZE, “This Youth Mobile App training builds on the consideration that for millions of young people, the smartphone in their pocket is a very powerful computer, it will be their only computer, and they use it for nearly every aspect of their lives: communicating, learning, taking pictures, and playing games”.
He further added that the training also seeks to build on experiences targeting young women who are vastly underrepresented in this field.
With this new initiative UNESCO and TZE strive to provide young people with the high-level skills and confidence to develop, promote, and sell locally relevant mobile apps that solve local issues of sustainable development and provide employment.
Akindolani stated that the world has become one “Global Village” which makes it imperative for us to help these young brains harness their innovative abilities in ICT to be able to make greater exploits later in life”
He explained that the Training classes at Summer Camp was divided to two major categories: Mobile App Development and Web Development using, html, css, php, mysql (for web) and MIT App Inventor for mobile development.
“At the end of this training programme,
successfully students who built exceptional websites that solved a problem and mobile app that provides solutions will receive an incentive” he stated.
Nazir Musa, one of the teenage participants at the Mobile App training, glowingly expressed his joy for being part of the 2017 Coding Training Class. He also considered it a rare opportunity to have been part of the Summer Camp.
“What a privilege to be part of a life changing Youth Mobile App training such as this, we thank UNESCO and TZE for this great and rare opportunity to develop our skills in ICT” said Musa.