The government of Lagos has announced its CodeLagos initiative in which one million residents would be taught computer programming. This was revealed by Obafela Bank-Olemoh, Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Education. The initiative will be launched later this month.
Speaking at the flag-off of a three-day training session for CodeLagos Master Trainers, Obafela said the programme would, in addition to turning Lagos into a tech hub would also provide self-employment opportunities to Lagos state residents.
“If you look at India, people run to India for technology, it’s because they did a programme like this. Now if people want to set up an IT company they go to India, because they have this process. So we are trying to do the same in Lagos such that if anyone wants to set up an IT company they will come to Lagos,” Bank-Olemoh said.
According to him, the initiative is in line with the state government’s vision of positioning Lagos state as the technology frontier in Africa. He added that the ongoing training of Master Trainers would equip 100 trainees with the knowledge and skills to teach afterschool coding classes for the CodeLagos programme.
He said trainees were selected following a rigorous screening exercise, which commenced in March 2017.
“These Master trainers will go on to train over 1,000 CodeLagos facilitators who will eventually be deployed to different coding centres across the State. In this way, CodeLagos will create employment and business opportunities for Lagosians in the technology sector.”
Bank-Olemoh highlighted the contribution of the private sector to the CodeLagos project, thanking ARM who have committed to setting up 15 centres.
Other companies that have recently partnered include PricewaterhouseCoopers, SystemSpecs, Etisalat, Oando Foundation and Oracle Academy, to mention a few, who will be setting up clusters of coding centres.