Google has announced plans to expand its Digital Skills for Africa program to reach children in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, in a partnership that will see the Tech company engaging local organisations through the Cape Town Science Centre to train 200,000 students in the three countries.
Google in a statement described CS First as a program aimed at children aged 9 to 16. Created by educators and computer scientists, CS First introduces coding and computer science to students in a collaborative and creative club environment. CS First club members build projects in Scratch (scratch.mit.edu), a blocks-based programming language. The training will be delivered through 26 collaborating organisations across Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. For areas with limited access to the internet and limited devices, CS First may be delivered through CS Unplugged.
In addition, Google also aims to reach students through an Online Safety Roadshow project building on its work with the Web Rangers program. This project according to Google, will reach parents, teachers and students in all three countries.
Also, the company is once again collaborating with SAP and UNESCO as part of Africa Code Week 2019 to engage community-focused organisations across Africa to enable them to host coding workshops for children (aged 11-18) in their local communities during Africa Code Week this month.
These activities, according to Google, form part of its commitment to train 10 million Africans in digital skills by 2022.
CALEB OJEWALE
