How Do You Tech?

Women, Teens, and individuals who live in Rural Towns and Villages that are not densely populated like their city counterparts miss out on tech opportunities, education, and awareness that take place in the cities. If you run a quick google search for Hubs in Lagos, and Hubs in Ijebu, you would see the obvious difference, one has so many hubs and the other doesn’t.

Teenagers in most public and sometimes even private primary and secondary schools in our rural towns and villages who are taught computer studies as a subject have majorly theoretical knowledge to show for it, hardly any practical is done in most of these schools. Some know how to be on Facebook because it is popular, and perhaps how to use WhatsApp, but that’s all tech they are familiar with.

They are not digital literate enough or lack the skills needed to be, to survive in our 21st-century digital world, neither are they in the know as to how tech tools and the internet can be leveraged upon to improve their soft and hard skills, aid their learnings, thus motivating their creative minds to be builders of technology.

We want to keep changing this narrative, one teenager at a time. The population of our state is approximately 3.7 million and counting, this is just one out of the 36 states and one capital in the country. Out of these 37 states, only about 7 of them are considered big cities, economically-wise, these are the cities where the majority of the tech investments would go, this in itself would continue to lead to them being overpopulated and unfit to live in.

If we can put more effort into replicating what is happening in Lagos in other states, especially in towns, the effect will spark creativity and thirst for IT knowledge in those who are living in these townships & communities. This will in turn translate to economic growth for these people and their communities.

Co-work spaces can be found all over Lagos with huge benefits for networking and learning. The same goes for centres teaching young people how to code. A quick google search on any of these two within Ijebu environs before the year 2018 and early to middle 2019 will reveal nothing of that sort exists. We have changed that in our little way. We hope to encourage others to follow through.

So the question remains how does an average person who has just gotten a smartphone and is told google has all the answers finds these places?

Our approach to this is the; Hub, Empower & Teach Model.

Since we opened our hub, we have been piloting an innovative “hub, empower & teach” model that is focused on youth impact, scalability, and sustainability.

HUB

First, we operate a conducive and well equipped “hub” that provides an enabling environment for teenagers and women during the day and early evenings.

This centre is designed to be a serene co-work model centre for the community, providing women and teenagers with all the building blocks they need to be empowered.

Currently charging no amount, our hub is designed to empower.

Empower

Using our “hub” as a model, we run programmes to support our teenagers and women with ICT training, resources & on-going mentorship to empower and enlighten them on the opportunities in the digital age, with a commitment to teaching someone else what they have learnt.

Teach

Using our “Empower” as a model, we use google classroom online to encourage student peer to peer review, helping each other to grow, while we add our own feedback on ways they can improve. We also make sure each beneficiary teaches a newcomer what they have learnt while in the hub to boost confidence and more learning.

Our target audience is secondary school students who attend public and private schools in our area. Our annual teen camps have seen parents bringing their kids from neighboring states as well. Though they are taught computer science in their schools, this does not come close to what they need to know about the digital world we now live in. Our solution will guide them on the right starting part, build a community of learning they can always reach out to for guidance, and provide a base for mentorship in the IT world, people around here would not need to travel to big cities to get the exposure and access to digital tools and knowledge needed to navigate the world we live in today.

We are also targeting women in our area, working women, mothers, who can in turn encourage and impact what they have learned on their wards.

We want to be able to change this narrative by focusing on building talents in our rural towns, by contributing to the human capital and growth of the local towns, we can encourage other individuals and companies to do the same.

Most importantly, we want our audiences to become producers of technology that will improve the economic growth of our environment, we should not just be consumers of technology.

Myself and my team are particularly invested in the growth of our community and its people. I am from the town where we have built our first hub, I live and work from here, and we have had a number of outreaches in the past enough to know what solutions we can offer our community. 

These outreaches we have done have informed our Hub, Empower and Teach model which is what we are currently focusing on. The increasing number of teens whose parents sign them up for summer camps helps us know to know we are on the right path and helps us to be able to gather feedback on ways to improve on our solutions within the community.

We want to be able to perfect our model in Ijebu Imusin, doing this means, we can replicate this model in other selected rural towns, one hub at a time. We want to change the narrative where hubs can only thrive in big cities, we want the local population to be impacted upon seeing how ICT can be leveraged upon to improve creativity, boost economic growth and empower individuals, build localized solutions, without the need to migrate to a big city to get access to opportunities in the tech industry.

Our approach once successful and sustainable will spur other individuals and private organizations, and maybe the government to invest in rural towns. While I understand that population and acceptance from a community are important for the creation of hubs, we have to start from somewhere, one hub at a time, this would always help reduce the migration of individuals to big cities in search of dreams that may be hard to attain.

We are working on what we are calling; Uwani Hub Vision 2030 Goals which are: 

1. To train 5000 teenagers and females in the use of WordPress software & digital skills by the year 2030
2. To build a community of 500 active contributors to the WordPress software, particularly among our teenagers within our hub community by the year 2030
3. To train linguists in our community on translating WordPress to our major local language(s), build a community of Polyglots, ready to teach others what they have learned

In line with one of the targets of SDGs Goal No 5, 8 & 11, our mission is to promote and support the use of information and communication technologies to empower women and teenagers.

We are measuring our progress by:

• The number of teenagers who finish a program or more at our hub, this would translate to decent work and economic growth for our community
• The number of women who partake in our programs - this would help achieve gender equality in our community

Our solution would help in this order to:

• Provide a safe space for women and teenagers to do tech
• Provide a space for learning about new and existing technologies via our workshops and events
• Provide a community of support and guidance for future learning and support

This technology for us would be WordPress, we have deeply invested in its use and there are over 20 ways this software can be used to empower our audience.

Everyone who wants to partake in our programs is always welcome, there is no room for discrimination on our way to achieving our goals.

I have mentioned this in past answers on how we are providing our solution, this can be seen here on our website.

We are working on plans for this, though none is solidified as we want to be able to focus on one goal at a time. We can share our rough plan if needed at a latter stage.

So far, we have raised over $21k from donors, we however would prefer in the near future not to depend only on grants and donations from external parties.