SAP Africa Code Week returns150,000 targets young Africans through free coding workshops

This year, with the participation of UNESCO’s YouthMobile initiative and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development as strategic partners, the nine-day event aimed at introducing coding to 150,000 young Africans aged 8 to 24 through free coding workshops and online courses ranging from Scratch all the way to Web programming.

The second edition of this award-winning digital literacy initiative officially kicked off on October 15 in Kigali, Rwanda, with officials from SAP, the Rwandan Ministry of Education, UNESCO and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Founded and orchestrated by SAP in partnership with the Cape Town Science Centre and the Galway Education Centre, Africa Code Week relies on a growing network of nonprofits, government bodies, educational organizations, NGOs and corporations across the continent.

For the second year in a row, Google Inc. supported Africa Code Week 2016 by empowering organizations across Africa with micro-grants so they could multiply computational thinking and coding activities all over Africa using Google CS First enrichment materials.

“Beyond coding as the 21st century language, we are imparting the right skills and attitudes and a culture of innovation and creativity among young Africans”, says Claire Gillissen-Duval, Director or EMEA Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP and Africa Code Week Global Lead. “Africa Code Week sheds light on how public-private partnerships can be renewed in the digital age for greater scale and impact: if young Africans see that governments, nonprofits and the private sector are working as one voice to deliver on joint education priorities, trust is seeded and they feel encouraged to start owning and living their dreams,” she concludes.

In preparation for Africa Code Week 2016, SAP has deployed its own IT experts as skilled volunteers to train 6,000+ teachers, parents and local volunteers throughout the year, all over Africa. These live Train-the-Trainer sessions, combined with access to online courses on the openSAP platform beyond the actual event time, enable Africa Code Week and partners to scale the impact continent-wide and in the long-run. “Africa Code Week is all about mobilizing the collective expertise and resources at the local level; Train-the-Trainer sessions provide a sound, scalable structure for inter-group knowledge sharing, unlocking people’s potential and desire to serve as resources for each other,” says Gillissen-Duval.

SAP – Africa Code Week received a C4F (Communication for Future) award in the category ‘Education of the Future’ from the World Communications Forum in Davos in March 2016, as well as the Judges’ Choice Award in the Corporate Initiative Category from the MIT Inclusive Innovation Competition in September 2016.