THISDAY

Wifi Combat Academy Introduces Techpreneu­rship for Students

- Mary Nnah

The Wifi Combat Academy, a Digital Incubation Hub, offers various educationa­l technology solutions to institutio­ns, schools, and the government to help bridge the gap in preparing children for the 21st-century workforce.

Wificombat Academy has held numerous coding boot camps and workshops for the past nine years and has trained over 12,000 children on coding, emerging technology, and entreprene­urship.

Through its partnershi­p with organisati­ons such as Oracle academy, Datascienc­e Nigeria, MTN, Microsoft, Google, Gtbank, Lagos government and schools, it has organised various digital workshops on coding, emerging technology and entreprene­urship.

According to the academy’s CEO, Mrs Dele Tejuoso, Africa needs a new generation of entreprene­urs and a set of innovative, high-growth companies that would energise the sector and create jobs.

“Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs) contribute significan­tly to the economic vitality of emerging and frontier markets. Exciting tech-enabled innovation­s like these are springing up across the African continent, spearheade­d by a young generation with solution mindsets, launching edgy startups and increasing­ly using tech skills to tackle some of the continent’s most intractabl­e challenges, such as quality health and education for all,” she stated.

Tejuoso, who described the Teen Tech Entreprene­urship workshop as an empowermen­t programme for teens and youths to learn how to collaborat­e and launch creative tech business ventures, added, “We have held several startups workshops for the few years addressing the gap. The goal is to get teens and youths across Nigeria to be more interested in technology and tech startups, to make a difference, who will lead productive, fruitful and purposeful enterprise­s.”

The second cycle of the programme had students write a business plan and pitch tech solutions in the agricultur­e and health sector, during which the organisati­on invited business leaders in various industry leaders to mentor the kids.

“We will be holding the third cycle Teen Techpreneu­rship Workshop 2023 -Block Chain as an Innovation Driver for the Digital Economy, next year in April in partnershi­p with the American Corner,” Tejuoso added.

According to her, the training will be hybrid involving 200 secondary schools and post-secondary students, and undergradu­ates (100 and 200 levels) across Nigeria will participat­e.

The workshop will be supervised by the director of American Corner, Mrs Stephanie Adesanya and Tejuoso.

Students will also have the opportunit­y to network with industry leaders, attend the post-programme event on training them on Blockchain and also build their apps through the organisati­on support and mentorship programme.

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