Rinchi
TechInAfrica – DreamOval Foundation is a Ghanaian social enterprise that supports digital literacy in the country as the tools to embrace the digital economy. The African continent as a whole has a pool of youth talents who have the potentials to drive economic growth. In addition, there is also the need for public and private sectors collaboration to solve challenging problems facing Africa.
“Our continent is a wealth of innovation and youthful talent, but there is some work to be done to ensure our youth are equipped with access to the knowledge and tools they’ll need to chart their own course in the 21st-century digital economy,” said Frances Ahene-Affoh, SVP at DreamOval Foundation.
Ahene-Affoh added, “Recognising the role of public and private sector collaboration and the potential for greater impact when everyone works together to solve key societal challenges, we established the DreamOval Foundation in 2013 to support the spread of digital literacy in Ghana.”
Digital literacy and coding skills are the right tools to equip Africa’s growing youth population who want to venture and succeed in the digital economy. Around 60% of Africa’s population age between 25 and under, making the continent emerges as the fastest-growing youth population in the world with 15 – 20 million of youth added to its workforce every year for the next thirty years.
The DreamOval Foundation specializes in driving digital literacy in Ghana. It manages all the corporate social responsibility initiatives of DreamOval Limited – one of the largest and most successful fintech companies in Ghana.
Being founded in 2013, the foundation has its ultimate goal to eliminate the knowledge gap in Ghana by creating, sharing, and utilizing knowledge in the education and technology sectors.
Speaking about the challenges in Ghana’s education sector, Ahene-Affoh said, “One of the biggest challenges we face as a country is equipping our teachers with the skills and tools they need to inspire our youth to pursue careers in technology-related fields. Often, teachers will not have been exposed to even basic technology – not to mention coding and robotics, which we see as key to the success of our country’s youth, and classrooms have little to no technology.”
The Females in Tech Initiative (FemITI) is one of DreamOval Foundation’s flagship programs aiming at giving training for young girls in coding and robotics to solve problems as well as create tech solutions to some of the social issues facing Ghana and the African continent.
“Three-quarters of young girls in Ghana attend primary school, but there is a significant drop in enrolment in secondary and university education. We introduced FemITI with the aim of training 50 000 girls across the country over the next few years, in line with our commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially Goals 4 (Quality Education) and 5 (Gender Equality),” Ahene-Affoh explained.
There are many other programs DreamOval Foundation working on to help in improving youth digital literacy in Ghana in line with the government efforts. In order to run these programs effectively, the Foundation has worked with the public and private sectors.
Speaking on DreamOval Foundation’s future plans, Ahene Affoh said, “Knowledge-sharing is core to our purpose and mission, and core to what we believe is necessary for us to solve some of the more pressing challenges in our country and across our continent. Often, our most successful collaborations do not revolve around donations or financial support: instead, it is when people volunteer their time, knowledge and expertise in the service of addressing key challenges that we see the greatest positive impact.”
Source: africabusinesscommunities.com
