Nairobi, February 1st, 2023 – In the spirit of advancing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, iamtheCODE is delighted to announced that it has become a World Economic Forum Lighthouse and will launch its first Coding Academy in a Refugee Camp in partnership with UNHCR. The iamtheCODE Hybrid Academy is an urgent call to government, private sector, and investors to enable young women and girls to gain access to Digital Skills such as coding and find jobs.
During the World Economic Forum at Davos 2023, iamtheCODE was selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s Education 4.0 Lighthouses and joined 15 other organizations pioneering the way toward Education 4.0.
“We are honored that our strategic partnership with iamtheCODE has been recognized by the World Economic Forum,” said Jeffrey R. Tarr, CEO of Skillsoft. “This partnership aligns with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and will help prepare young women and girls with the skills they need in a growing digital economy. We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with iamtheCODE to pave the way for transformational change.”
iamtheCODE has been asking world leaders to put coding at the core of their Digital Agenda and make it compulsory and to accelerate systems innovations on education, skills and learning.
In March 2022, iamtheCODE launched its first Digital Learning Platform to enable young women and girls from marginalized communities to learn how to CODE.
iamtheCODE, in partnership with Skillsoft, has developed a 12-week blended learning curriculum that includes learning resources from Codecademy, recently acquired by Skillsoft, which covers up to four programming languages that Businesses are looking for to hire young talents. The material offered by iamtheCODE is combined with Codecademy’s hands-on ‘Practice Lab’, which enables the practical application of theoretical knowledge. iamtheCODE also offers marginalized young women and girls’ certifications, digital badges, mentoring, and the possibility of accessing the platform both offline and online.
In addition to launching its first Hybrid Academy in Kakuma Refugee Camp where it has been operating for 5 years, the foundation named Baroness Lane Fox CBE as its newest Patron. Baroness Lane-Fox is renowned for her pioneering work on the United Kingdom public sector information website, created by the Government Digital Service to provide a single point of access to HM Government services. Baroness Lane Fox is an entrepreneur and Internet Activist who has done lots of work in getting the most marginalised to have Digital Access. “We are honored that our strategic partnership with iamtheCODE has been recognized by the World Economic Forum,” said Jeffrey R. Tarr, CEO of Skillsoft. “This partnership aligns with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and will help prepare young women and girls with the skills they need in a growing digital economy. We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with iamtheCODE to pave the way for transformational change”.
To help launch this first Hybrid Academy, iamtheCODE Patron Baroness Marta Lane Fox said: “I am delighted to be the new Patron of iamtheCODE and seeing young women of Kakuma refugee Camp gaining access to coding and digital skills has the potential to give them future jobs that does not yet exist. As someone who have seen lots of innovation in my lifetime, I think this is just the beginning for those extraordinary young women. Together, we will get one million women and girls coding. I look forward to working with the iamtheCODE team” Baroness Martha Lane Fox
Lady Mariéme Jamme, the founder of iamtheCODE, said: “We are truly grateful to have Baroness Martha Lane Fox as our Patron. She has been my heroine in technology. What she has done for people to have access to Digital tools is truly remarkable and pioneering. This week is a very important moment for iamtheCODE to tell young women and girls to Kakuma Refugee Camp to Dare to CODE loudly and strongly through our hybrid Academy.
iamtheCODE has built a platform to allow them to do this. This gift is for them; nothing stops them from becoming excellent Coders and contributing to the Global Economy in the Future. I believe if young women and girls dare to code, the world will see great changes in technology and innovation especially with the birth of Open AI”
iamtheCODE has two other patrons Basetsana Kumalo, businesswoman and investor from South Africa and Christopher Schaeffer Austrian born, London- based, Tech Entrepreneur and Founder of NYOUM.
To date, the iamtheCODE platform has 45, 000 learners, in 79 countries and collected 350 mentors and volunteers.
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About iamtheCODE
iamtheCODE is the first African-led global movement to mobilize governments, the private sector, philanthropic foundations, investors, and civil society to advance STEAMED (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Entrepreneurship, and Design) education. Its goal is to mobilize multistakeholder to invest in future technologies that can drive sustainable development for women, girls, and youth in marginalized communities worldwide. A fundamental pillar of iamtheCODE’s work is empowering women and girls worldwide, aligning with critical elements of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
iamtheCODE is one of the fervent UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. The Organization has been recognized by The United Nations High-Level Economic Empowerment, the World Economic Forum, UN Women, Unilever, UNHRC, and UN GLOBAL COMPACT for bringing together multi-stakeholders, including governments all over the world, to ensure that by 2030, all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and useful learning outcomes. By 2030, our mission is to get 1 million women and girls’ coders 2030.
Through iamtheCODE, youth from underprivileged backgrounds engage hands-on with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, build innovative solutions, and learn how to code. This exercise not only helps them develop the skills they need to succeed in STEAMED (Science, technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Art and Design) fields, but it also enables their creativity and understanding of world pressing problems such as Climate change, Peace and Justice, and Gender Equality.
Donate to iamtheCODE and follow our progress on www.iamthecode.org