Microsoft Nigeria to empower 6000 public school students in FCT

Microsoft Nigeria, in partnership with the Future Project and The Zariah Elizabeth Foundation (TZE Foundation), is set to empower 6000 public school students in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, with basic skills in Kodu, Minecraft, HTML and CSS.

The initiative, which is part of a larger campaign to get 1 million Fingers Coding, has been dubbed Code2Create and intends to train, 600 students in 10 schools across the FCT.

According to the TZE Foundation, training of the students will last for 10 days, and further training will be provided for teachers of each school at the foundation’s HUB and through the Microsoft  Youthworks portal Aiki Nigeria.

Through its partnership with Microsoft, the foundation plans to introduce students to the world of ‘coding’ at an early stage and
starts a code club in the schools with support from partners.

“We believe that learning programming skills will benefit children in other ways, whatever their ultimate career – almost akin to the reasoning for giving children the chance to learn a musical instrument or foreign language,” Akindayo Akindolani, TZE Foundation executive director, said.

Akindayo added, “One of our major objective is towards building the next set of developers that will eventually emerged as the next Bill Gate, Mark Zuckerberg that Nigeria and Africa will be proud of.”

In his words, Olusola Amusan, citizenship manager, Microsoft Nigeria, said, “At Microsoft, we believe if we can inspire, enable and provide a conducive environment through digital literacy and coding skills, we are securing the nation’s future. “

Amusan said “the ‘Code2Create’ initiative is part of the #1millionFingersCoding campaign of Microsoft and will empower 6000
youths in the FCT among which there might be the leaders of tomorrow’s technology empires, adding to GDP and providing limitless opportunities.”

The initiative, which is in line with the Federal Government’s need for diversification of Nigeria’s economy, intends to introduce young students to the IT world at an early age to enable them positively boost the country’s image in the ICT sector.