• Tuesday, April 23, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Bulb Africa’s tech fellowship to tackle youth unemployment in Africa

Bulb Africa’s tech fellowship to tackle youth unemployment in Africa

The Bulb Africa, a tech talent accelerator and tech hub for Africans created a Tech Fellowship Program to drastically reduce the unemployment rate by equipping African youths between 18 and 35 years with in-demand tech skills.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), unemployment in Nigeria has reached 33 percent and the World Bank says that 60 percent of the unemployed in the country are between the ages of 15 and 35.

Fellowship at the Bulb accepts applications on a rolling basis and has recently concluded application submissions for its fourth cohort. The fellows will gain Data Analysis, Quality Assurance, Product Design, or Product Management skills after four months and be paid while learning.

The full application criteria, which include a university degree certificate as well as how to apply can be found on the company’s website.

“Africa can take advantage of the global high demand for technology talents. We set out with the Fellowship at the Bulb to equip that unemployed population with relevant tech skills and ensure that both startups and established organizations have quality human resources that make their businesses viable and sustainable,” Wande Adams, Co-Founder, and CEO of The Bulb Africa, said.

Read also: Unemployment and inequality in Nigeria: Assessing state level catastrophe

The Bulb Africa is a talent incubator and tech hub that connects innovation from Africa to global opportunities. It creates training and employment opportunities for tech talents, supports entrepreneurs with incubator programmes that allow them to turn ideas into business realities as well as helps start-ups scale up with accelerator programmes.

“The Fellowship programme confers skills that are in-demand in the workplace. For our most recent recruitment, we introduced tracks that do not require coding skills for individuals that are interested in non-technical roles in the ecosystem.

Our graduates have gone on to secure well-paying jobs at local and international organizations and in this economy with lots of low-paying jobs, this is an opportunity to change the earning power of young Africans,” Modupe Durosinmi-Etti, Program Director at The Bulb Africa, said.

Bulb Africa has received over 5500 applications since its first cohort in 2020. The successful applicants get paid as they learn their desired skills and have the option to sign up for internship placements after the training.