Butterframe Digital Skills

Many Africans embark on the dangerous journey to Europe in search of employment which has caused suffering and cost many their lives. This, however, has been due to a shortage opportunities on our continent, amongst other challenges.  Another problem is that many of Africans don't qualify for jobs available, due to lack of the required skills.

Digital technologies have revolutionized how business is conducted globally, presenting business opportunities such as reduced costs of marketing and communication, amongst many others. Young Africans, if given appropriate skills, can leverage these opportunities and launch their own businesses, or qualify many available jobs. 

Butterframe Digital Skills aims at reducing unemployment on the African continent and promoting entrepreneurship. If Africans get access to the right skills, they qualify better for available jobs, and can create their own jobs also which will in turn have an impact on the continent through improved standards of living.

A new UN study has found that a lack of opportunity is the main motivation for many African migrants trying to reach Europe. Youths account for 60% of all of Africa’s unemployed, according to the World Bank and with over 200 million people aged between 15 and 24, Africa has the largest population of young people in the world.In most African countries, youth unemployment “occurs at a rate more than twice that for adults,” notes the African Development Bank. The root of unemployment is not just a lack of jobs; a key underlying issue is lack of appropriate skills.

On the other hand, more than 70% of the youth in the “Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda are either self-employed or contributing to family work, according to the Brookings Institution report. This means many of the continent's youth are actually entrepreneurial. 

Butterframe Digital Skills combines physical and online training techniques to provide skills trainings to African youths on how they can leverage digital technologies professionally. Our mission is to produce competitive talent, which can be recruited in the available jobs, many of which require changing skill sets as well as entrepreneurs who can create jobs for others and thus reduce on the unemployment burden the continent.

We therefore are focussing on 3 outcomes.

1) More youths qualifying to the available jobs and can therefore be recruited. 

2) Youths who are unsatisfied, learning how to get better jobs, either through upskilling or reskilling. 

3) Youths being able to start their own digital businesses, and also hiring others.

With Butterframe Digital Skills, we're helping many Africans to get much needed digital skills by both employers and possible business partners. Access to such skills is limited, and yet lack of relevant skills is a major contributing factor to unemployment.

 Having applied these skills ourselves, in formation of Butterframe, and export of fruits and vegetables to the middle East, we are living examples and bear testimony to their impact. This gives us the confidence to share the importance of these skills, as well as train the skills themselves.

 Many African youths we've encountered don't know yet that you can start a company with almost no capital to fund its marketing, but still use social media marketing to reach out to customers organically for example. Many also don't know that they can advance in their workplaces or find new and better ones for example from teacher to social media marketer, as digital technologies have availed such career opportunities. We therefore are training them on how they can leverage such opportunities.

The world has gone digital, and most businesses in Africa have either already, or are in process of adopting digital techniques in operations, such as marketing. Employers therefore, now, more than ever are need their employees to have these skills, and require them when hiring. This means that employees who lack these skills face a big risk of losing their jobs, and jobseekers who lack them, are likely not to qualify for available jobs.

Butterframe Digital skills programme therefore aims at equipping these groups with digital skills needed to stay apace with the changing job market.

Butterframe digital skills is about impact. Unlike most digital skills programs in Africa such Google Digital Skills For Africa, we have designed a myProgress app as a tool to collect data and feedback from trainees so as to advise them continuously as they embark on their ventures. Be it looking for a job, or creating your own company, myProgress monitors your progress and advises you on what moves to consider. These may vary from creating a LinkedIn profile to paying for Google Ads. The app uses data collected to estimate the size and needs of the startup, or the individual himself in this matter.

This helps us track someone / a trainee until we confirm that his life has been changed by the program.

A key component of technology in Butterframe Digital Skills is use of digital technologies both in sharing of content and tracking of progress of trainees. Wheres we do many physical trainings, we also do offer the course online on our website. 

myProgress is an app we developed to track progress of our trainees. This app relies on data to estimate the level of progress in one's career, or business in case they started one. Depending on this level of progress, we send our trainees content to guide them in what to do to achieve their set goals. This is a measure that ensures a bigger impact in the lives of those we've trained.

we have apparently trained approximately 12000 people in Uganda. Our estimate next year is 300,000 people across East Africa. We want to train an impact the lives of 3,0000,000 Africans in 5 years.

Youths need the right skills to qualify for more jobs as well as be able to start their own businesses. This means, that given the right skills, unemployment among these youths will be cut significantly. More employment amongst youths means many of them have a source of income, and therefore can have better standards of living.

Our mission is to train and impact over 3,000,000 African youths in 5 years in that manner.

Our plan is to monitor them after being trained for a period of 2 years to see to it that they implement what they learnt. We continuously advise and educate them through our myProgress App to ensure effectiveness.

We also seek to partner with government bodies and other organisations to see to it that trainees can secure funding for their projects, or easily access available job opportunities.

Butterframe Digital Skills is a social initiative by Butterframe Digital Limited, A Ugandan startup.

12 full time staff

20 part time staff

Butterframe was founded shortly after we graduated from University. All co founders were Bachelor's of Information technology students at Muteesa 1 Royal university. Our skills include from computer programming, networking, digital marketing.

Shortly before graduation, we had thought about looking for jobs, which are really hard to find in our country. We then thought to ourselves, how about we look for clients instead?, we also made a value of our to train fellow young people on skills that can help them after studies. That's how we came up with the Butterframe and Butterframe digital Skills.

We have participated in the Google Digital Skills for Africa programme in Uganda throughout 2019, and it is on this program that we learned how to train effectively, and it is on this program that we witnessed how digital skills can imp-act the lives of young people in Africa.

We therefore have the experience and motivation to tackle unemployment amongst the youths on the African continent through digital skills training.

We have worked with the following partners in digital skills training:

• Africa 118, as a sub contractor, on the Google Digital Skills Programme.
• Upskill Uganda, at the innovation hub Kampala, to develop new content and train a lot more individuals.

Butterframe Digital Skills Programme is mainly targeting youths on the African Continent. Many of these people are unemployed (about 70% of them in Uganda), and yet form the largest population group on the continent.

What they need are skills that can help them qualify for more careers than what the current education systems are preparing them for. They also need these skills in order to start successful businesses. Our digital skills programme is centered around producing competent young people be it job seekers or entrepreneurs. They can expect to learn about the opportunities provided by the current good internet penetration, and how to leverage it by starting careers such as website development, content curation, ecommerce, etc.

We seek to partner with other companies and social entreprises in funding this program. We are currently applying to many government and Non Profit Organizations for grants.

We also are creating a paid training program for larger businesses. This will get us funds to cater for expenses of the free program

Besides, we also offer professional services such as software, digital marketing, amongst others for businesses. These are paid for and are a source of funds.

Inorder to train using the most relevant and up to date content, we need international partners especially in the field of Information technology. We also need lots of strategic advice and we believe we can get all these through Solve's networks.

Given our program is in need of funding, we are also applying with hope f getting a grant to help us fund our activities.

Our program is targeting all youths in Africa, many of these youths are refugees because of crises in their countries, for example, there are many Eritrean refugees here in Uganda. The majority of them are unemployed and lack appropriate skills. We want to address this by training them digital skills for free.

We will use the Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion to reach more refugees communities which are scattered all over East Africa, pay trainers to train them digital skills, and facilitate all the trainings entirely.

Butterframe Digital Skills' mission is to address unemployment amongst youths on the African continent by providing them with skills that will make them fit for a wide range of careers that have come with increased internet penetration in Africa. These careers include website development, ecommerce, content curation, amongst many others.

We believe our solution enables working-age adults to build the skills and resources they need to access well-paying jobs in a changing marketplace and thus qualifies us for the GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship.

We will use the GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship to  book venues to conduct physical trainings, carry out research to create up to date training content, pay our trainers and entiley facilitate our trainings.

Many Africans risk losing their jobs due to lack of appropriate skills given the recent technological changes brought about by the increased internet penetration on the continent.

Butterframe Digital Skill is a program designed to provide them with skills that will make them competent and remain fit for their jobs. This is one of the ways we plan to solve the problem of unemployment on the continent and we believe our solution qualifies for the Gulbenkian Foundation Award.

We will use the Gulbenkian Foundation Award to book venues to conduct physical trainings, carry out research to create up to date training content, pay our trainers and entiley facilitate our trainings.