Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) officially launched the 5 million Ethiopian coders’ initiative, a national initiative implemented by the Ethiopian government in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government aiming at providing online coding training for Ethiopian citizens on 23 July 2024. The five million coders’ initiative aims to train up to five million Ethiopian citizens within three years. Minister of Innovation and Technology, Belete Molla (PhD) recently stated that Ethiopia is targeting to extend the initiative to train up to seven million Ethiopians during the coming three years.
The training provides fully-funded courses to equip trainees with essential digital skills necessary to establish a promising career in the ever-growing technology industry, the digital sector. Programing fundamentals, Data Science Fundamentals, Android Kotlin Developer Fundamentals are among the main courses provided to learners. The courses are provided six to seven weeks and following the completion of the training successfully, learners are awarded with skill-based certifications, according to Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT) of Ethiopia.
Providing the online coding training was immediately started following the launching of the program. And following the announcement of the program, Ethiopian youths started registrations and taking the online trainings. Two weeks ago, MInT Minister, Belete Molla (PhD) stated that “so far, some 157,000 Ethiopians are taking the coding training and the number is raising daily.” Everyone across the country with internet access can take the training easily, Belete said calling the youth to use this opportunity.
According to Belete, Ethiopia takes the issue seriously and the performance is evaluated weekly. Regional states and federal institutions are working closely to sensitize citizens and to evaluate the performances. The continued campaign helps to aware the youth generation to take the online training. As the opportunity is still open for everyone, regional states are calling citizens to join the online coding training to develop their digital literacy and skills in sector.
Melese Mengesha is among the youths who take the Ethio Coders training. Melese took the coding training parallel with his job. As to Melese, the training helped him to develop his skills he got from his formal education. Following the training, Melese realized that the skills he developed from the training are important skills to fulfill job tasks effectively and timely. Endris Ali, a youth from Assosa City who is taking the coding training told ENA that the training is a timely training to develop digital skills. As to Ali, the youth has to develop technological skills to go parallel with the technological developments of the time.
Dagmawi Kelbecha, from Addis Ababa also takes the online training. Dagmawi said that the training is an open opportunity for the youth generation to develop digital technology skills. These youths joins the training early immediately after they hear about the program as they believe it will be helpful to exploit the digital technology to create businesses and to find better job opportunities. The youths who joined the training are calling others to join the training as it is crucial to develop their skills and their digital literacy as the influence of digitalization is growing its impacts in the day-to-day life of the current world.
Federal institutions and regional states are continued calling the youth to use the open opportunity. In this regard, MInT is working with federal and regional institutions to create awareness for the youth and regional governments are establishing task forces to mobilize the youth generation to join the training.
This week, Harari Regional State President, Ordin Bedri calls youths of the regional state to take the opportunity to equip themselves digital skills. According to Ordin, the Ethio Coders program is a national initiative which aims empowering the youth, to promote innovations and to exploit the development capacity of digitalization shows Ethiopian government’s commitment. Ordin added that a task force is already established to coordinate the training in Harari regional state.
“In addition to equipping the youth generation to own digital skills, The Ethio-Coders initiative will help to create competitive and job creator citizens,” Ordin stated. Hence, Ordin calls youths of Harari regional state to become skilled and competitive in the digital sector by taking the Ethio-coders training.
For his part, Amhara National Regional State Skills and Training Bureau and Science and Technology Commission of the regional state jointly call youths of Amhara regional state to join the online coding training. During a joint statement by the two bureaus of the regional state stated that the national Ethio-Coders program aims to develop technological skills of the youth generation which will help youths to exploit the job opportunities of the digital sector.
Deputy Commissioner of Amhara Science and Technology Commission, Yechale Yigzaw stated that Amhara Regional State takes the initiative of training more than 760, 000 youths in the coders training in the region as part of the national 5 million Ethiopians. “The Ethio- Coders initiative is a national initiative aiming at equipping five million Ethiopian youths to make them internationally competitive in the sector,” Yechale said.
The courses being provided in the training like the Android development, data science and programing and AI are timely courses to develop digital skills of youths. According to Yechale, the regional state has already established structures in the region to achieve the initiative and the structure is stretched from regional level up to the lower government structure, at district levels. As to him, so far some 20,000 youths of the regional state are registered to take the training.
According to Yechale, the regional state is campaigning to aware the youth in the region to take the training and sets a target to register 192,000 youths of the region at the end of this fiscal year. In addition to working on awareness creation, Amhara Regional State Science and Technology Commission has prepared a center to register and train the youths, according to him.
Somali Regional State Government also calls youths of the region to join the 5 million Ethio-Coders training. During an awareness creation program organized in Jigjiga by Somali Regional State Innovation and technology Bureau, Deputy Head of the bureau Mohammed Husen calls youths to use the Ethio-coders opportunity to develop their digital skills as it helps the youth to compute at international level.
Capacity Building and Training Director at Addis Ababa City Innovation and Technology development Bureau, Amaha Sisay for his part said that Addis Ababa City sets a target to train 300 thousand youths in the 5 million Ethiopian Coders’ Program. According to Amaha the goal of the metropolis for this budget year is to help 75,000 youths of the city to take the training, calling for all youths of Addis Ababa residents to register for the training.
Benishangul Gumuz Regional State Science and Technology Information Communication Agency, Technology Transfer and Development Director, Shambel Bezabih for his part told ENA that nearly 700 youths of the regional state are already started taking the training so far. The Director stated that due to limitation access to network and technology, there is a limited number of trainees in the region adding efforts are underway to prepare training centers in collaboration with Assosa University and other institutions in the regional state. Shambel calls the youth generation to take the training by all possible means as it helps to realize Ethiopia’s digital transformation.
Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT) is calling citizens to register at https://ethiocoders.et/ to take the training and following successful completion of the training, an internationally recognized certificate will be provided for the trainees.
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
The Ethiopian Herald September 27/2024
