Ayiti Analytics

Ayiti Analytics addresses the problem of youth unemployment in Haiti. The World Bank estimates that 30% of youth in Haiti ages 15-24 are without work but they are actively seeking employment. Existing job creation programs focus on industries like manufacturing and textile, but these have proven to be low-wage sectors that perpetuate cycles of poverty. As a result, Haiti experiences repeated waves of outward migration and stagnant economic growth as the most talented seek opportunities abroad.

Ayiti Analytics will provide data science training to connect youth in Haiti with in-demand tech jobs. By 2020, IBM anticipates a 28% growth for all jobs requiring data and analytics skills. We provide Haitian youth with opportunities in the most disruptive sector of the 21st century. Our flagship program, the Data Science Bootcamp, educates and places youth in data-driven roles where they can provide direct analytical services to local companies, and nonprofits in Haiti.

Ayiti Analytics was created to combat the problem of unemployment in Haiti, a country with highly educated youth who lack access to opportunity. The World Bank (2018) estimates that 30% of Haitians aged 15-24 are without work but they are actively seeking employment. The causes for this are manifold, but hinge primarily on the lack of job opportunities outside of the agricultural sector. This explains why 60% of graduates from one of Haiti’s top technical institutes, an estimated 550 recent graduates, remain unemployed. Existing employment generation programs in Haiti focus on the manufacturing and textile industries, but these have proven to be low-wage sectors that trap workers in cycles of poverty. What’s worse, these industries have not experienced enough growth to absorb the increasingly educated workforce. The country suffers from a deficit of meaningful employment and opportunities for social mobility. As a result, Haiti has experienced repeated waves of outward migration and stagnant economic growth as the most talented seek employment opportunities abroad. 

This innovation impacts college-aged youth in Haiti (18 years old and up) who are traditionally left behind or marginalized—lacking access to digital and 21st century skills of today and tomorrow. About 35% percent of working age youth (15-24) find themselves unemployed in Haiti, regardless of their level of education. Haiti has a young population, with 54% under the age of 24. If there were opportunities available to them, they would seize it. 

By connecting youth to employment opportunities, we aim to catalyze a new generation of technologists in Haiti. Our constituency will become the first generation of data scientists in Haiti, pioneering a range of new services to help governments, private companies, and individuals make better decisions. Our free interactive data and digital literacy meetups allow us to reach a wider audience and foster a larger digitally literate community in Haiti. Our specific target population will not only support themselves with increased earnings after participation in our bootcamp and job placement program, they will also support their families. If we can guarantee employment for every student we train, the impact per dollar will be far reaching.

Ayiti Analytics is a data science lab focused on increasing analytical capacity in Haiti through education, consulting, and research. Our programs include the flagship Port-au-Prince Data Science Bootcamp which is organized in partnership with Digicel Haiti, biweekly interactive data science meetups, and consulting services. Our programs can expand opportunities in Haiti—allowing disconnected youth to compete in an increasingly digital global economy and create prosperous livelihoods for themselves in Haiti. 

We are launching the Port-au-Prince Data Science Bootcamp this year. The program is anticipated to run from March 9 through May 29 2020, where we will train the first generation of data analysts in the country. Over the course of this three-month program, these emerging data scientists will receive mentorship from industry leaders, as well as the opportunity to work on 11 group projects and an individual capstone project, while concurrently enrolled in Business English.

Over the course of three months, students learn how to:
● Extract, clean, and analyze data using Python
● Leverage Python’s powerful libraries to build machine learning models
● Understand relational databases and utilize SQL to query from databases
● Build intelligent dashboards and communicate findings to nontechnical audiences
● Utilize correct data-points, analytics models, and decision-making tools to help employers better understand their operations, customers, and markets
Students complete 

After participation, graduates are equipped to work as junior-level data science professionals in high skilled roles with local employers. 

Our range of educational services extend beyond the bootcamp to include free interactive meetups to teach practical data literacy and analytic skills. Meetups are hosted every first and third Saturday of the month. They are free of charge and open to anyone in an accessible location in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 

Long-term, we intend to pursue other activities of applied analytics. Select graduates from our bootcamp will be hired by Ayiti Analytics to provide direct consultation services to organizations in Haiti. Similar to the work pioneered by Data Labs around the world, Ayiti Analytics employees will be able to deploy machine learning techniques to improving our understanding of old and recurring problems in Haiti.

Our approach is innovative in its very premise, promoting Haiti as a source of tech talent as opposed to just a source of unskilled labor. Organizations like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have for years funded manufacturing projects in Haiti, spending $224 million in 2012 to build an Industrial Park. This Park has not yielded the results promised, and the 6,000 of the initially projected 60,000 workers barely earn a living wage. Most employment generation programs in Haiti fall within this trap, investing in low-wage and low-growth sectors. What we propose in contrast provides access to meaningful employment and opportunities for social mobility. The impact per dollar is farther reaching and has the potential to break the cycle of poverty, as graduates from our training programs can expect to earn 5 times more than the national minimum wage of 500 HTG per day in data science and data engineering roles.

This project is designed to provide intensive training for youth from the Global South to enter the growing field of Data Science and Analytics. In the case of Haiti, there are vacancies within the computing sector, but there are no established training programs. This project leverages this growing demand to up-skill youth and to provide opportunities for economic mobility. 

Take for example, Haitian entrepreneur Duquesne Fednard. He hired 150 youth to work for his tech company in 2012, and five years later and they have all transitioned from extreme poverty to middle class. An inspiration for this project, Duquesne taught us that Haiti can change if we provide opportunities for youth to be their most productive selves. At its core, our mission at Ayiti Analytics is to connect youth to employment opportunities so that they are better able to support themselves and their families. We also seek to catalyze positive change and to inspire a new generation of technologists in Haiti. Our constituency will become the first generation of data scientists in Haiti, pioneering a range of new services to help governments, private companies, and individuals make better decisions.
Graduates from our Data Science Bootcamp will be trained to use cutting-edge technology and machine learning techniques to unveil new solutions to old and current problems in Haiti.

We are serving 25 youth through our inaugural data science bootcamp. Through the community-based educational meetups that we organize, we have reached 100 plus youth and young professionals in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. We seek to graduate 250 youth from our bootcamp over the next five years (25 students per 6-month cohort). 90% of students will be full-time employed within six months of graduating. 50% of graduates will be female. Tracking % increase in median incomes will also guide our understanding of the program’s effectiveness. If implemented annually over successive years, we envision significantly increasing the pool of data scientists in Haiti and increasing access to opportunity.

Within the next five years, we aim to be a fully operational data lab, providing data science consulting and research services. 

Ayiti Analytics’ vision goes beyond training data scientists in Haiti, as we are more broadly seeking to build a platform for solutions and insights. In countries with inadequate data infrastructure, it is difficult to assess which interventions have had measurable impact or which populations are vulnerable, but collecting and analyzing data can increase our understanding of these problems in Haiti. Our goal for 2020 is to train a foundational pool of 25 junior-level data scientists. Our goal for 2025 is to train 200-250 and to pursue other activities of applied analytics (applied research and consultation services). Select graduates from our bootcamp will be invited to conduct independent research or to provide professional consultations on behalf of Ayiti Analytics. Similar to the work pioneered by Data Labs around the world, Ayiti Analytics employees will be able to deploy machine learning techniques to improving our understanding of old and recurring problems in Haiti.

The barriers that currently exists pertain to accessing content in Haitian Creole. Most of the online instructional material for data science are in English and to a lesser extent, French. However, our learners are mostly proficient in Haitian Creole.

We seek to make educational content more accessible to a broader pool of learners. Our curriculum design team is working to localize content into Haitian Creole.

We are a for-profit company legally registered in the U.S. We also have a formal partnership with the Millennium Challenge Corporation's Data Collaboratives for Local Impact (DCLI) program. They manage a consortium of data labs around the world. Partnering with DCLI has connected our innovation to the U.S. and to data labs around the world. 

There is one full-time staff (the founder and director), and 5 part-time staff members working on the solution team. 

We are committed and we have garnered tremendous support from local and international actors in the past year of building this innovation. 

The Digicel Group, MCC-Pepfar's Data Collaboratives for Local Impact (DCLI), and a number of local universities and private-sector organizations in Haiti.