SAP drives digital literacy across Africa – one workshop at a time
Over the next few days Mozambique will play host to a series of train-the-trainer (TTT) workshops during the official build-up to 
SAP’s Africa Code Week (ACW), taking place in Maputo from 29 to 30 September.
Founded in 2015, ACW is a continent-wide initiative to simplify the face of software coding for Africa’s youth. The initiative’s objective is to spread digital literacy across the continent and start shaping tomorrow’s skilled workforce through hands-on and playful learning. Spearheaded by SAP, world leader in enterprise software, the initiative is supported by hundreds of international partners as well as local Mozambique partners, including; CADE, The University of Eduardo Mondlane (UEM), the Mozambique Information and Communication Technology Institute in Maluana (ENPCT) MozDevz and CeCAGe. Of particular interest is the collaboration with Muva, an initiative of Ligada managed by OPM, which is an innovative, adaptive five year programme working with young disadvantaged women living in urban areas in Mozambique.
Last year’s ACW event saw more than 89,000 youngsters across 17 African countries introduced to software coding within a mere ten days – four times the initial goal. The aim for 2016 is to double that, reaching a minimum of 150,000 youth across 30 African countries – with Mozambique having its first code experience of ACW.
Next week’s TTT workshops will provide a platform for the transfer of skills and knowledge from ‘Master Instructors’ to local parents, teachers and educators, enabling them to become the next expert coding teachers who can train potential students in their communities. Aimed at local school teachers, the TTT workshops will seek to train hundreds of Mozambique participants with a special focus on female training. The objective is to empower as many people as possible, with the long-term goal to empower more than 200,000 teachers reaching in excess of five million children and youth over the next ten years.
TTT workshops will take place in Maputo on Thursday 29 September and Friday, 30 September at the The University of Eduardo Mondlane (UEM), at the Main Complex. The workshops are open to all school teachers and any other parties interested in becoming part of ACW. Attendees will receive 90 minutes of software coding training based on MIT’s Scratch system, a USB with course notes and Scratch pre-loaded and a training certificate upon completion. The objective is for participants to take the skillset back to their communities and host sessions for children during the official ACW event in October.
“This year’s train-the-trainer workshop has a target of training 600 trainers and we are pulling-out all the stops to ensure that our future teachers are trained by the very best – this will be done by flying four master trainers from Portugal to attend and facilitate the workshops. Critical to the success of Africa Code Week, the model relies heavily on the participation of volunteer trainers,” commented José Luís Carvalho, consulting Director, EMEA SAP Digital Business Services. “In order to provide a new generation of Digital Economy workers in Mozambique with the basics of the prerequisite skills for the competitive job market under the auspices of Africa Code Week, we need knowledgeable instructors in place to provide mentorship and skills transfer to participating youngsters.”
According to Luize Guimaraes, MUVA Program Manager, “Africa Code Week is an opportunity for us to showcase that Mozambique supports growth through technology. The mission of Muva is to economically empower women in urban areas and MuvaTech will take the lead to include more women in the ACW teacher training with the aim to increase the access of women and girls to technology and to create greater interest and knowledge about opportunities in the ICT industry. Muva Tech will support the process to educate disadvantaged girls and women on the ICT skills they need to find employment in this industry.”
Africa’s working-age population is growing rapidly, but it’s estimated that less than one percent of African children leave school with basic coding skills. ACW helps contribute towards shaping a relevant future workforce by sparking interest in software coding with participants receiving not only basic skills but also invaluable hands-on experience. The initiative provides learners from the ages of 8 – 17 with coding basics and the opportunity to program their own animations, quizzes and games. Older learners, aged 18-24, are provided an introduction to web technologies such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and SQL in order to provide them with a basic understanding of website architecture, teaching them how to develop a fully operational and mobile-friendly website.
ACW provides a number of ways in which the public at large can get involved. Over and above TTT attendance, opportunities exists for interested parties to host a free coding workshop and receive free online training in Scratch. SAP ACW will take place in schools and community based centres in Maputo B from 15 – 23 October 2016.
For more information and to register for the TTT Maputo workshop, please contact Sonia Santos on [email protected] or call 82 768 47 14.
ACW video footage can be found here: http://africacodeweek.org/media/videos/ Follow SAP on Twitter @sapafrica
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of SAP Africa.
