“Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life.” – Brigham Young

24th January marks the International Day of Education. The International Day of Education is an event set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to highlight the importance of Education and spotlight its necessity

Education is so essential that in most countries, one of the rights of citizens is education. It is the focus of one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), SDG 4. This SDG promotes inclusive and equitable quality education that promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all. The SDGs are a list of 17 goals drawn up by the United Nations as a guide to achieving a better and more sustainable future for all

According to Wikipedia, The right to education is recognized as a human right in several international conventions, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which recognizes a right to free, compulsory primary education for all, an obligation to develop secondary education accessible to all, in particular by the progressive introduction of free secondary education, as well as an obligation to develop equitable access to higher education, ideally by the progressive introduction of free higher education

In simple terms, one can define education as the act of learning or acquiring knowledge. However, the definition of education is constantly evolving. Years ago, education meant passing down basic survival skills because that was what the world required at that time. Then, the world developed into one that gave allowance for professional occupations. So, education evolved with it, and its interpretation became going to school, studying languages, subjects, and courses that can pave a career path in the nearest future.

Now, the world is becoming a digital village. This development places a different demand on education, which means that education now includes equipping people with the digital skills needed to survive in a fully digitalized world. These skills include both deep tech skills and soft skills.

Usually, the reaction to an increase in demand is an increase in supply according to the basic economic rule of demand and supply. This means that as demand for education in digital skills increases, so is the supply of institutions and bodies that supply these services expected to increase. However, the challenge is this is not the current state of education today, especially in developing countries and underserved communities.

This educational gap, in turn, affects the economy as a whole. This is because there is a direct relationship between a society's educational system and the economy. According to Investopedia, a country's economy becomes more productive as the proportion of educated workers increases since educated workers can more efficiently carry out tasks that require literacy and critical thinking.

As an organization, we recognize education as a tool for economic development, and so, we are committed to bridging this education gap even as a Non-profit organization. We intend to achieve this through our various partnerships and programs like the #Digitalforallchallenge, Emerging Market Model Initiative (EMMI), Digital Skills for Employability (DSFE), Women Techsters Initiative, etc.

The #Digitalforallchallenge is a program designed to equip people with digital skills while providing them with incentives as they learn. The #Digitalforallchallenge had a learning phase, after which we launched the competition stage. We have completed the State, Regional, and National stage of the competition and are currently working toward the grand finale. In addition to this, we organized weekly challenges to encourage people to learn.

The Emerging Market Model Initiative (EMMI) is a multi-year, multi-stakeholder, private-public, non-profit partnership designed by Microsoft to build the capacity of key government MDAs to offer sustainable, scalable, reskilling, and employment services aligned to the local labor markets. EMMI provides digital skills training from digital literacy to advanced training for young people in Nigeria between 16-35 years

Digital Skills for Employability is designed by Tech4Dev in partnership with Microsoft to build the capacity of youth to compete favorably in the labor markets. The program focuses on providing access to digital skills training for young people in Nigeria between the ages of 16-35 years in one of these five learning tracks Cybersecurity, Data Science and Visualisation, Product Design, Product Management, and Software Development.

The Women Techsters Initiative specializes in bridging the gender gap in the tech industry by empowering young African women with digital and deep tech skills and opportunities to pursue careers and interests in technology while spotlighting and celebrating women who are already in tech.

We carefully design our programs to equip people with the digital skills required to thrive in a constantly evolving world and create access to decent work and entrepreneurship opportunities and platforms through digital skills empowerment and advocacy cutting across various age groups, genders, and ethnicity.

We may not be able to change the whole world at a time, but we can attempt to change it one day at a time. Actual change begins with us, Happy International Day of Education

Visit www.tech4dev.com to fully understand what we are about and for partnerships, collaborations, and inquiries.