After 16 weeks of intensive practical training on the fundamentals of website development, eHealth Africa Academy has graduated its 5th Cohort web designers and technology activists from across different parts of Nigeria and some parts of Africa.
The latest cohort of the eHA Academy kicked off in August 2023 with 69 Students. We are proud to be graduating 23 students; having built their capacities and skills in Web App design and development. The will further support some of the graduates with internship opportunities in software development, quality assurance engineering, business analysis, and UI/UX design.
The eHA Academy is going a long way to bridge the technological skills gap in young people while empowering them to thrive in the digital age. This is being achieved over the years as we continue to provide free access to world-class software development resources, knowledge required to create cutting-edge solutions that address modern day challenges.
According to Abdulhamid Yahaya, the Deputy Director for Global Health Informatics for eHealth Africa, “since the mission of ehealth is to build stronger health systems through the design and implementation of data driven solutions,it noticed the critical gap in digital or technical skills and thought of how to bridge it”.
He said, “we work in the development sector, and most of our work is implemented through one form of digital platform or another. So we thought this is a gap that we should address. “The UAE and Singapore digital rating stands at about 7.8 global digital gap in a Readiness Index and Nigeria is about 3.8 ,so you can see that the gap is very high”.
“So we thought part of our own way of helping to bridge that gap will be for us to create the Academy where we train people for free, entirely 100% free with no strings attached,” he said.
Also speaking during the Academy, Jamil Galadanci, a Senior Manager, Global Health Informatics at ehealth Africa revealed that, there are ICT graduates from higher institutions who are talented but do not have hands-on skills because all they learned was theoretically based, without much practice.
He decried that, “when some of these graduates conclude their studies, they are often not employable and they end up wasting their skills and talents so in essence, we want to enable youths to realize their full potential in ICT.
“From the skills the grandaunts have gotten from the academy they can provide digital and data-driven solutions in sectors like health, agriculture, finance, and others,” Galadanchi said.
eHA academy was launched in 2016 in Conakry, Guinea by eHealth Africa (eHA) due to the observation of inadequate software developers in Guinea then, and the need to build human capacity to maintain and upgrade the digital solutions to enhance healthcare and healthier lives. The inaugural cohort was a physical eight-week curriculum in software development and network engineers with seasoned experts as instructors. Since then, eHA has graduated 88 young people who are currently making impacts in various fields of endeavor across the world.
eHealth Africa is a non-governmental organization dedicated to building stronger health systems through the design and implementation of data-driven solutions that respond to local needs. The organization equips underserved communities with tools to lead healthier lives.
