Effort to scale up African youths for digital economy has started yielding the expected results, as the global search engine, Google yesterday announced its commitment to train one million young Africans in digital skills in the next one year. This development is expected to further grow digital entrepreneurs in sub-Sahara Africa.
In realising this commitment, Google is supporting its partner Livity Africa to run two training programs including ‘Digify Bytes’ to give digital skills to young people looking to develop a digital career; and ‘Digify Pro’, a 3-month immersion program for digital specialists.
The capacity building programs which have already been launched in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, according to Google will be scaled to reach more people in the next 12 months.
To make this happen, a group of 65 volunteer Googlers from around the world are helping the Livity team with content development, ‘training the trainers’ and, in some cases, delivering the training sessions.
Additionally, Google also launched digifyafrica.com , an online-learning portal that will house a range of digital skills courses, available to anyone in Africa for free.
The courses are designed to be as “light” as possible so they don’t eat up valuable data.
There are nine training courses already available and Google aims to have 50 available by July.
Making the announcement, Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Country Manager, Google Nigeria with excrement told newsmen that, “The internet is at the heart of economic growth and the Digital Skills Program is aimed at helping more Africans play a part in the digital economy.
Everyone can succeed online, start a new business, grow their existing one, or share their passion.”.
According to her, the initiative would help young entrepreneurs looking for ways to develop digital skills for the challenges ahead.
Espalier in his remarks, Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Communications & PR Manager, West Africa assured that Google will continue to provide digital opportunities for the continent and across the world.
He said that Google is passionate about empowering youth with IT skills and knowledge needed to address digital divide.