The Power Learn Project (PLP), a pan African impact Organisation has officially launched a #1Million Devs4Africa program in Nigeria.
The project was in partnership with Adanian Labs Nigeria which was flagged off in Lagos State Southwest Nigeria, becomes imperative after registrations have since started online for the preselection of potential candidates for the Nigeria 1st Cohort.
The Chief Growth & Operations Officer for Power Learn Project, Ms. Mumbi Ndung’u said the project’s goal was to drive transformative change for the youth of Africa through technology skills.
Ms.Ndung’u said that the program would offer online junior software development training, consisting of curated programming languages as well as a soft skills component in employability, and entrepreneurship to enable the learners acquire entry level smart technology jobs.
According to her ; “Through support from partners, the course will be covered on full scholarships, so the learners’ only concern is to learn and absorb as much as they can, as they prepare to navigate the digital revolution with us.”
“Upon completion of the course, the learners will have access to a number of opportunities and alternative educational pathways through the organization, ranging from internships and proof of work opportunities or venture studio and incubator connections if they want to explore entrepreneurship.”
She further stated that obtaining a future-ready skill was a necessity for both personal and professional growth and opportunities.
#1MillionDevs4Africa) to train 1 million young people and empower them with tech employability skills.
The PLP Chief Growth & Operations Officer explained that Africa faces a huge digital skills gap, which is diluting economic opportunities and development. Some 230 million jobs across the continent will require some level of digital skills by 2030.
She said that, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing many businesses to go digital to survive, the need for these skills has become obviously more apparent since 2020.
The Project Head PLP Nigeria, Mrs Ajo Balogun while reiterating the importance of the program to Nigerian youths said the program had already been launched in some countries before now, including Kenya,South Africa, Tanzania and the fourth is Nigeria.
She said PLP aimed to train Nigerian youths to become a software developers within a period of 4 months and program is 100% funded via a scholarship base.
Mrs Balogun stressed that PLP seeks to empower youths within the age of 18 and above with relevant technology capacity through the provision of quality, affordable and decentralised tech training, transfer of skills, skills development, and technological capacity which is critical to developing solutions for unemployment and underemployment in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
She called on Nigerian government to be of help in the area of power supply so as to enable the operations of the program comes into reality as availability of power supply would serve as a morale booster to Tech developer.
While stating the relevance of the program, she explained l that, they were all working towards the Pan African dream of building relevant capacity to extract value from the fourth industrial revolution and Nigeria being the largest economy in Africa.
“Obviously, the challenges before us is huge,the reason we are calling for partnership to enable the program have a base in Nigeria. We are trying to mobilize the youths from schools and communities since the training is scholarship base which will help Nigerian youths acquire more knowledge to enable them secure employment without waiting for government but to be self employed or employer of labour.” she concluded.
The program seeks to train #1MillionDevs4Africa across seven countries, namely: Nigeria, Kenya,South Africa,Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania,Burundi and Zambia spread over several cohorts.
Lateefah Ibrahim
