Orange’s 12th Digital Centre launched in Botswana
The Centre to develop youth’s entrepreneurship acumen
Orange Botswana, one of the leading telecom giants in the country, has launched a digital centre that is aimed at capacitating and up skilling young people in digital skills as well as helping develop their entrepreneurship acumen through coaching, mentoring and financial support.
According to the company, its Orange Digital Centre offers trading in coding, digital fabrication, start up acceleration, funding of startups as well as partnerships with learning institutions; services that all come for free. In addition, the mobile phone outfit will seek partnerships with select universities to establish Orange Digital Centre Clubs and extensions of the coding school within universities in the region.
Thus, it will complement the education system to give as many people as possible access to new technologies and support them in using these technologies to their full extent with the aim of enhancing their employability and chance of being successful digital entrepreneurs.
Speaking at the launch on Friday, Vice President Slumber Tsogwane said the unveiling of the Centre comes at an opportune time as government makes rigorous efforts to provide young people with opportunities for gainful employment.
“Digital technology will enable inclusive development, support job creation and make relevant impact to the lives of everyday Batswana. I am informed that the building of the centre forms part of Orange’s Engage 2025 strategy that is the intention to build similar centres in every country that Orange has operations in,” he said.
Tsogwane added the availability and access to digital technology has been an important concern for government. He said major investments were made to update ICT policy and regulation, investing in key infrastructure and creating a favourable operational environment for the growth of technology use and the sector.
He said the government has prioritised the digital agenda on a national scale and developed a national digital transformation strategy to propel the growth in use, education and access to digital technology in the country.
“Smart Botswana, the digital transformation strategy is purposed to drive digital transformation in all areas of our economy, government and society. Additionally we intend to connect all villages to high-speed broadband internet by the year 2022-2023,” he said.
Additionally, the VP said the use and access to digital technology is no longer optional to the productivity of the society. “Digital inclusion and digital access are therefore the path to achieving the promises made to positively impact the lives of Batswana,” he noted. From Botswana’s population of 2.42 million, there are a total of 4.05 million cellular connections and 1.48 million internet users.
“The effort of Orange Botswana in this nation is certainly something to be acknowledged as a positive investment from a private sector entity contributing to what we often term as nation building.”
Orange Digital Centre Botswana will be part of a network of 32 Orange Digital Centres - 12 of them are already inaugurated on the continent in: Tunisia, Senegal, Ethiopia, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Madagascar, Morocco, Liberia and now Botswana.
In addition, he acknowledged Orange for setting up Women’s Digital Centres in six locations around Botswana that provide ICT literacy and micro-entrepreneurial skills training to women as well as the Digital school program, which has been rolled out to 55 primary schools to date, donating 2750 tablets and digitalising primary school learning material.