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Empower Students

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Microsoft Nigeria in partnership with the Future Project and The Zariah Elizabeth Foundation (TZE Foundation) is set to empower 6000 public school students in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria with basic skills in Kodu, Minecraft, HTML and CSS.

The initiative which is part of a larger campaign to get #1MillionFingersCoding has been dubbed Code2Create and intends to train 600 students in 10 schools across the Federal Capital Territory.

According to the TZE Foundation, training of the students will last for 10 days, and further training will be provided for teachers of each school at the foundation’s HUB and through the Microsoft Youthworks portal Aiki Nigeria.

Through its partnership with Microsoft, the foundation plans to introduce students to the world of ‘coding’ at an early stage and start a code club in the schools with support from Partners.

According to TZE Foundation Executive Director, Mr Akindayo Akindolani:

we believe that learning programming skills will benefit children in many ways, whatever their ultimate career – almost akin to the reason for giving children the chance to learn a musical instrument or a foreign language.

Mr Akindayo added that

one of our major objectives is towards building the next set of developers that will eventually emerge as the next Bill Gate, Mark Zuckerberg that Nigeria and Africa will be proud of.

In his words the Citizenship Manager, Microsoft Nigeria Olusola Amusan said,

at Microsoft, we believe if we can inspire, enable and provide a conducive environment through digital literacy and coding skills, we are securing the nation’s future.

Amusan stated that

the ‘Code2Create’ initiative is part of the #1millionFingersCoding campaign of Microsoft and will empower 6000 youths in the FCT among which there might be the leaders of tomorrow’s technology empires; adding to GDP and providing limitless opportunities.

The initiative which is in line with the Federal Government’s need for diversification of Nigeria’s economy, intends to introduce young students to the IT world at an early age to enable them positively boost the country’s image in the ICT sector.

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Positive Orientation In ICT

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NGO says capacity building, positive orientation in ICT usage will curb fraud:

Abuja, May 27, 2016 (NAN) A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the Zariah Elizabeth Foundation (TZE), says capacity development and positive orientation in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) usage will curtail fraudulent acts.

The TZE Executive Director, Mr Akindayo Akindolani, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday that many fraudulent acts among youths could be stopped if the youths had a good orientation.

According to Akindolani, focused capacity building in the usage and application of internet programmes is key, if government wants to divert the attention of youths to become productive.

The government is doing something which I celebrate and like; creating ICT hubs in different locations across the country.

However, it should not end there. After creating the hubs, what do we do with the hubs?

If we develop the capacity of young Nigerians and have a positive orientation, the energy of these youths will be channeled to better uses.

A lot of fraudulent acts are happening that are not being reported on a daily basis, especially in our banks, many of these fraudsters go unpunished.

Many Nigerians go to India to learn how to hack into people’s files and into organisation’s systems and come back to the country to carry out these dastardly acts,’’ Akindolani said. The executive director said most of the young people involved in fraudulent acts are jobless youths that were sponsored by the very rich in the society who got the bulk of all the booty.

These boys are not just small boys, the rich sponsor them because they know a lot of money will come from it and they use it for business. Most of these boys are not ruffians, or street urchins but well educated people that are well grounded in world affairs, especially in technology. They see it as a legitimate job, they dress corporately as if they are going to the office on a daily basis to go and hack.

Akindolani said that a lot of gap had been created because of the lack of knowledge on the part of the youths and because people’s capacities were not being developed with patriotic orientation. He urged the government and the private sector to come together to build the capacity of the younger generation and protect the system from ICT scavengers.
NAN reports that the TZE Foundation in partnership with Microsoft is currently impacting ICT skills on 6000 students in 10 government schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The foundation aims to build the capacity of youths so that they can use their ICT knowledge to counter the acts of those in the business of defrauding others. It also aims to build the capacity of youths to become programme creators instead of programme consumers.