The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki has said the state has entered into a partnership with Udacity Incorporated to train not less than 1,000 youths to exploit opportunities in the digital economy.
The governor said this during the formal signing of the deal between the state government and the global in-demand technological learning platform, at the Government House in Benin City, Edo State.
The partnership is being signed through the Edo State Skills Development Agency (EdoJobs) and Udacity, and will provide a platform for the development of technology talents in the state and match them to jobs in the global marketplace in three pilot digital pathways: web development, digital marketing and data analytics.
According to Obaseki, “Our emphasis for this first cohort would be 100 percent female participation for rural communities in Edo State. We need to place more resources into digitizing every local government area so as to reach as many of our people as possible.”
The event had in attendance the Senior Director, Udacity for Societal Impact, Ayah Shashaa; Program Manager, Udacity Africa, Raneem Medhat; Managing Director, Edo State Skills Development Agency, Ukinebo Dare and Edo Innovates Hub Manager, Asemota Izoduwa, among others.
Dare said the partnership is codenamed EdoWorX and is a component of EdoJobs Supertechies Project, designed to develop the next generation of digital professionals.
“The future of work is more online or remote, especially in a post-COVID-19 world. With this, we have online learning and remote work, which should be encouraged and supported,” Dare added.
She said the EdoworX program is poised to commence in mid-January 2022 with 400 participants and a second cohort with 600 participants in June 2022.
Dare noted, “A hybrid learning system with both online and offline mentorship is going to come on stream through phased learning using videos, quizzes, auto-gradable projects, and exams.”
