Why I4Opportunities (Internet For Opportunities)?
According to Rwanda’s National Digital Talent Policy (2016), the country’s strong ambition is to become an ICT Hub of the region with the final goal to turn itself from an importer to exporter of ICT skilled manpower. This calls for production of excess capacity of ICT professionals with market-oriented, specialized skills.
However, the reality especially in the countryside looks very different from this intended situation. Currently, Kigali is more and more becoming a tech hub with many young startups and coworking spaces yet, the Rwandan youth in the villages often do not even know where to turn on a computer or just don’t own a computer. There is still a low level of ICT literacy in Rwanda.
Increasing Digital Literacy will also help increase demand for the above electronic services and content, improve productivity of economy due to improved workforce efficiency, increase organizational productivity provide opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship, attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) due to digitally literate and skilled citizens, facilitate youth employability and reduce social exclusion by giving opportunity to previously under-considered segments of society.
While output figures show availability in terms of skills of quantity, especially at certificate, diploma, as well as bachelor’s levels,the issue of quality of the same output has been a recurring theme. There is a mismatch between ICT skills supply and demand. Most graduates of the current do not have the technical, market-oriented expertise required by employers in government and private sector. Also, the programs taught at higher learning institutions are not customized to address the skills required for current ICT projects or programs.
Rwanda has been recognized as the most connected country in Africa. By the start of 2019, 95% of Rwandans were already covered by 4G/LTE. However, a world-class ICT infrastructure will only bear desired fruits if there is mass adoption of content and services that have been developed in the fields of e-Government, e-Business, e-Agriculture and e-Health.
RwandOpp believes in sharing knowledge and shape young people from rural area with outstanding skills to solve different problems of their surrounding as well as self-development through using the available opportunities through internet use and soft skills.
How i4opportunities (Internet For Opportunities) works?
Delivery of practical ICT training to both high school students and recent graduates as well as provision of peer mentor training.
The the I4Opportunities program aims to train both high school students as well as recent graduates in simple computer skills and increase their ICT literacy. The intended result should be that increasing digital literacy will help facilitate youth employability in the schools RwandOpp is cooperating with.
Our beneficiaries in our I4Opportunities workshop at G.S. Mukamira.
The content of the I4Opportunities program has the following focus:
- Provide digital skills through different series of workshops.
- Link youth to different organizations that are offering opportunities such as jobs, scholarships, internships, different workshops and so many more to shape them into better leaders and innovators.
- Support I4Opportunities graduates through mentorship to start new initiatives and implement them successfully.
I4Opportunities is conducted through a series of workshops which are provided weekly by software engineers from RwandOpp team. Currently we are working at one High School which is located in Western Province of Rwanda in Nyabihu District called ‘ Group Scolaire Mukamira‘ and we are planning to partner with other schools soon.
