Today, technology is the basis of innovation, but it alone is not enough. For technology to reach its true potential, citizens, and most importantly young people, need to be empowered and engaged through technology.
A Nokia establishes efforts to empower young Africans in the use of technology. According Brahim Ghribi, Nokia’s head of government relations for the Middle East and Africa, “there is an urgent need to enable young people in Africa to contribute to their local economies, to run a youth-centered information society and to prepare them for the future".
He adds that, first of all, we need to put young Africans online and, although this may seem obvious, it remains a challenge on the continent. If you look at statistics, we still have billions of people, especially young people, who are not connected or do not have access to a good online experience.
Nokia has been supporting the project CodeBus Africa, a circuit of 100 days that connects the Finns and the African innovators as part of the official 100 celebrations of Finland. The CodeBus Africa trip, which has been underway since February this year, will cover ten countries in total - Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The aim of the project is to boost the teaching of basic computer programming and contribute to long-term efforts to promote quality education, youth empowerment and employment.
The challenge of placing young Africans online also depends on developing infrastructures on a national scale, improving coverage in remote and underserved areas, and improving international capacity on a level of content.
Initiatives that encourage young people to become involved in innovation are also critical. In addition to connectivity and access to Internet, we need to think about modernizing and transforming the education and training systems we have on the continent and we need to have a system that can recognize talent.
We hope that in the next list Angola will be present ...
