Over 10, 000 students from various universities and colleges are set to benefit from a free software development training course to widen their knowledge and skills.
The training courtesy of Power Learn Project, a Pan African impact organization aims at building capacity in technology through provision of software development scholarships.
Power Learn Project’s Chief of Growth and Operations Mumbi Ndung’u said the initiative targets to equip the youths with skills required in the local and international market to compete for opportunities globally.
Speaking in Kisumu during the graduation ceremony of the first cohort of 50 youths trained in partnership with Compassion Kenya International, Ndung’u said the training has been designed to benefit youths at grassroots who hitherto could not afford the training.
This, she added, was being executed through partnerships with like-minded organisations to ensure that as many youths as possible benefit.
“This pilot programme with Compassion International Kenya is the first of many that we intend to do at Power Learn Project in line with our mission to make digital skills accessible and affordable,” she said.
Beneficiaries of the programme, she added shall be assisted to upskill and become data scientists, cybersecurity experts and entrepreneurs.
“We know the world is now technologically driven in every aspect. We need to make sure that we empower young people with these skills to enable them to compete globally,” she offered.
The acquired requisite skills and brilliant ideas, she noted, will help them in the next level and we expect to go back to their communities and empower other young people with jobs.
She noted that the new graduates will now be able to immensely contribute to the economic development of the particular areas that they come from.
“Our recruitment is ideally not limited to the educational background in a sense of academic qualification. It is more of what skills they have. They must have basic computer skills regardless of where they are. It happens to be that most people in Africa with these skills are either in the universities, tertiary institutions or in urban centres,” she observed.
The goal, she said, is to make Africa a hub of technology talent adding that the organisation targets to train one million software developers across Africa by the year 2027.
Youths in Kenya and across the continent, she added lack equipment adding that the cost of internet and bundles was a major hindrance in technology development.
Power Line Project, she said, has tried to alleviate these challenges by working with the different partners to offer tangible and lasting solutions.
Agnetta Atieno, a Kisii University Student, said the five months course entailed computer programming, web development and coding using the various languages.
“We have also done professional ethics and I am very happy that we are graduating full of newly-acquired knowledge and various skills to use in the field,” she said.
Hillary Ogutu, a medical engineering student said through the program he has been able to specialize in computer programming.