Briefs · Education and Upskilling
A Pop Star, a Search Giant and the UN Walk Into a Classroom
A pop star, a search giant and the United Nations walk into a classroom. The punchline is 20,000 African schoolchildren learning to build robots.
The ITU, Google and will.i.am have launched an AI and robotics training programme for students aged 10 to 18 across Africa, starting in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Google.org put in $1 million; will.i.am, the ITU AI Skills Coalition’s goodwill ambassador, lends his i.am Angel Foundation and his name.
The programme is deliberately unglamorous. Teacher training first — 1,000 teachers, 200 per country — then robotics kits, localised AI curricula and after-school AI clubs, all delivered through schools the ITU–UNICEF Giga initiative is connecting to the internet. Around 60% of Africa’s young people are still offline; the training is the point of the wiring, not an afterthought.
Conclusion: this is not charity with a robot attached, but rather infrastructure with a curriculum — and the continent’s youngest coders are the first beneficiaries.
Read the original at ITU AI for Good
Summary in our own words. The original belongs to its publisher.