Experience AI educational programme comes to classrooms in Nigeria

Experience AI educational programme comes to classrooms in Nigeria. Official launch with dignitaries from The Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Teachers Registration Council, National Youth Service Corp and The Federal Ministry of Education on 2nd May, 2026 by 10:00am at the NYSC Orientation Camp, Kubuwa, Abuja. Our pilot states for the programme are Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Kwara, Anambra, Rivers, Kaduna, Kano, Taraba, Gombe, Jigawa, Nasasarawa.

MindtheGap Foundation is delighted to partner with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to bring Experience AI to Nigeria to introduce students to artificial intelligence (AI) through cutting-edge resources. AI plays a huge role in the world young people are growing up in, and this new partnership is about supporting Nigerian educators to teach the next generation of AI innovators confidently.

The partnership was officially launched by (the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Youth Development alongside key government and international stakeholders at the NYSC orientation camp, Kubuwa, Abuja, on the 2nd of May, 2026. It included presentations by Dr. Maryam Ismaila Keshinro, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Dr Frances Alimigbe (Ph.D) – Representative of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Mr Samson Ateli, FCT State Coordinator for NYSC representing the Director General of NYSC and a Kahoot Game to all participants. Some interested educators also talked about their excitement on the new initiative.

Experience AI, developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind, and funded by Google.org, supports teachers in the exciting and fast-moving area of AI, and gets young people passionate about the subject. Based on rigorous research, teaching materials include lesson plans, slide decks, videos, student activities, and assessments which introduce students to the foundations of AI. Young people will also benefit from new resources on AI safety, including how to protect their data.

AI literacy opens up career opportunities and offers solutions to real-world challenges

Teachers in over190 countries have already downloaded the Experience AI resources. Now students in Nigeria have the opportunity to access the benefits of AI literacy, such as learning skills to solve real-world challenges, and gaining awareness of the range of careers that use AI.

“We are delighted to welcome Mind the Gap Foundation to our Experience AI global network of partners. Working together, we look forward to equipping teachers with the skills needed to teach AI confidently, ensuring it’s both engaging and relevant for their students. Through the partnership, we aim to ensure that young people in Nigeria develop a foundational understanding of AI technologies and the role that they can play in their lives.” — Philip Colligan CBE, CEO, Raspberry Pi Foundation

As AI continues to shape our world, it’s crucial that every young Nigerians has the chance to learn more about and engage with this transformative technology. By making AI education more accessible, we can empower young people to make more informed decisions about using AI applications in their daily lives, and encourage safe and responsible use of the technology.” – Anna Koivuniemi, Head of Google DeepMind Impact Accelerator

Speaking in a video address, Ben Garside, Senior Learning Manager from Google DeepMind stated: “Through shared commitment to youth empowerment, we can create a world where the potential of AI is harnessed for the benefit of all.

“This is about more than teaching technology—it’s about preparing Nigeria’s young people to lead in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” said Tayo Olosunde, Executive Director of MindtheGap Foundation. “When we train one educator, we create a ripple effect that reaches hundreds of students.

Speaking at the launch, Dr. Maryam Ismaila Keshinro, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, delivered a rousing call to action that positioned AI literacy as both a national imperative and a generational responsibility. Framing the NYSC experience as a critical opportunity for national transformation, the Permanent Secretary declared: “NYSC is time to build lasting relationships and opportunities. Let’s build together the Nigeria that we want, a Nigeria that is AI compliant.”

“AI Will Not Take Our Jobs—It Will Take the Jobs of Those Who Refuse to Master AI”

The launch event drew powerful testimony from educational regulatory authorities about the urgency of AI integration in Nigeria’s education system.
Dr Frances Alimigbe (Ph.D) – Representative of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), declared. “As we stand today, AI is the real thing, and if you’re not connected to AI then you’re going to be left behind, and that is when that assumption that AI will take our job will be true. AI is not going to take our job but it will take the jobs of those who refused to master AI.”

Emphasizing alignment with national education priorities, the representative continued: “Today we live in a digital space and it’s constantly evolving and education must evolve too. Even the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, in the seven point agenda, has placed digitalization and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) at the absolute forefront of the national education agenda.. Digital competence is no longer optional, it is foundational and the heart of this transformation is artificial intelligence.”

The TRCN representative challenged participants with a clear directive: “The goal is simple: do not just be consumers of the technology today, become creators, innovators and problem solvers with it.”

“Artificial Intelligence Has Come to Stay and It Will Continue to Grow”

State-level leadership has embraced the programme with enthusiasm and commitment to grassroots reach.
Mr Samson Ateli, FCT State Coordinator for NYSC representing the Director General of NYSC.

Addressing corps members directly, the FCT Coordinator issued a call to action: “I encourage Corps members to take part in the training after the launch. I encourage Corps members watching us from other states to embrace the program. Take advantage of AI for creating solutions.”
This grassroots implementation focus, channeled through NYSC’s nationwide network, ensures that AI literacy reaches Nigeria’s most remote communities, not just urban centers.

In a historic development announced at today’s launch, MindtheGap Foundation and NYSC have signed a Memorandum of Understanding ensuring that interested serving corps members who joined the Education Community Development Service Group (ECDS) will be trained and deployed as AI Empowered Educators.

The Cascade Model: From 10,000 Educators to 880,000 Learners.

Experience AI employs a train-the-trainer cascade model designed for exponential reach. Educators who receive training then deliver AI literacy lessons to their students, creating a multiplier effect.

Since partnering with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2025, Mind the gap has trained more than 10,000 educators, who have reached over 1 million young people.

But beyond the numbers lies transformation. Educators report increased confidence in technology integration across subjects. Students are demonstrating critical thinking about AI systems, questioning biases, and creating their own AI-powered solutions to local problems.

Schools are witnessing a cultural shift toward innovation and digital fluency.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a global charity with its headquarters in Cambridge, UK, with a mission to enable young people from all backgrounds to fully realise their potential through the power of computing and digital technologies. We engage millions of young people worldwide in learning computing and digital making skills through a thriving network of clubs and events. We enable any school to offer students the opportunity to study computer science, equipping them with essential digital skills and a foundational understanding of AI. We do this by providing the best possible curriculum, resources, and training for teachers, working with global partners who share our vision. Through our research, we work to deepen our understanding of how young people learn about computing and digital making, and use that knowledge to increase the impact of our work and to advance the field of computing education.

Google DeepMind is a unit within Google that is committed to building AI responsibly to benefit humanity.
The unit’s breakthroughs over the last decade include AlphaGo — the first computer program to defeat a Go world champion, Transformers — neural networks that learn context and meaning by tracking relationships in sequential data and underpin modern language models, AlphaFold — an AI model that can predict the structure and interactions of proteins, DNA, RNA, ligands, and beyond, and Gemini — a family of versatile AI models built from the ground up for multimodality, seamlessly combining and understanding text, code, images, audio, and video.

MindtheGap Foundation is a Nigerian non-profit organisation dedicated to bridging the digital divide by building technology literacy and 21st-century skills among educators, young people, and underserved communities across Nigeria. MindtheGap Foundation is the lead local delivery partner for Experience AI in Nigeria, responsible for educator training, programme adaptation to the Nigerian context, and stakeholder coordination. For more information, visit https://mindthegap.ng/

Watch the launch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSk3tAC4OX0&t=1394s

Learn more about the Experience AI program here: https://rpf.io/exai-mind-the-gap