At the 2019 UNESCO Mobile Learning Week, representatives from UNESCO YouthMobile, SAP, Camden Education Trust and the Africa Code Week (ACW) Ambassador for Kenya conducted a workshop on teaching coding and Artificial Intelligence (AI) concepts to young learners in Africa. The theme of Mobile Learning Week 2019 is Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development.
To demonstrate that teaching coding to young people facilitates further education on AI and machine learning, the ‘AI for Young Learners in Africa’ workshop brought together key partners from the Africa Code Week initiative. Answering the question “why should young people learn coding?” Bernard Kirk, CEO of The Camden Education Trust (Ireland), suggested “In today’s world, young students need to be able to read, write, count and code – as the four pillars of an education.” Coding teaches the logic and reasoning necessary for students to understand how AI works. Unless young people have the understanding of what goes on behind the screen, they will not be able to participate in the conversations on the future of AI.
The workshop also offered participants – who included educators, NGOs, and policymakers – an insight into the use of Scratch as a key online tool for simplifying education on coding. Davide Storti, YouthMobile Coordinator at UNESCO said, “Scratch lowers the complexity of the approach to coding without losing the complexity of the reasoning behind it”. Along these lines, Jean Julia, Head of the Africa Code Week delegation for francophone countries at SAP, demonstrated that Scratch can be used to illustrate basic concepts of AI and machine learning. He stated “Scratch is not just a tool it’s also a platform – you can share knowledge and leverage what’s been done by others.” Scratch is the main coding teaching tool used in Africa Code Week.
With the participation of UNESCO’s YouthMobile initiative, Africa Code Week has engaged over 4 million youth and 50,000 teachers on digital learning since 2015. Ida Nganga, the ACW Ambassador for Kenya, spoke on the benefits of engaging young students– and particularly young girls – in coding in Africa. She stressed that joining forces with ministries of education is key to the success of initiatives like ACW, as their support allows a project to grow in scale and to have continuous impact.
The success of the ACW exemplifies how teaching digital skills to students builds their confidence, develops computational thinking, gives students a competitive advantage, and enables future opportunities. Claire Gillissen-Duval, Director of EMEA Corporate Social Responsibility and Africa Code Week Lead at SAP, explained that by engaging local trainers in the 37 participating countries, ACW has built the capacity to sustain the impact on African students. Africa Code Week partners aim to train a further 2 million youth and 70,000 teachers by 2020.
The UNESCO YouthMobile initiative deploys and supports projects worldwide to promote training in digital technical skills and abilities among young women and men, the citizens of today and tomorrow.
Initiated and supported by SAP, Africa Code Week is the biggest annual coding event on the African continent, introducing young people to ICTs and promoting digital literacy for millions of participants.