Scores of young peo­ple will be learn­ing tech­ni­cal skills to pre­pare them for fu­ture ca­reers in the tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor over the next few weeks, fol­low­ing the launch of the ‘Caribbean Code + Pro­gramme’, which is be­ing car­ried out by the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion in part­ner­ship with We CODE Caribbean.  The pro­gramme is a ma­jor part of the Foun­da­tion’s 10-year An­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions.

“The world is dig­i­tal!  As the new gen­er­a­tion pre­pares to lead, any op­por­tu­ni­ty to gar­ner skills that will as­sist in nav­i­gat­ing the tech world is im­por­tant,” the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion stat­ed in a news re­lease con­cern­ing the pro­gramme’s launch on Ju­ly 18 at the To­ba­go In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Lim­it­ed, Sig­nal Hill, Scar­bor­ough.

THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine engages with some of the pupils at the demonstration booth during the launch of Digicel Foundation Caribbean Code +. (Image courtesy Digicel Foundation)

Some 300 stu­dents in 24 rur­al pri­ma­ry schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go will be taught cod­ing and pro­gram­ming skills dur­ing the five-week pro­gramme—which has been en­dorsed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the pupils at the camp will re­ceive hands-on train­ing in cod­ing us­ing the sim­plest cod­ing lan­guage, PHYTHON, as well as the use of mi­cro­con­trollers as part of the ro­bot­ics as­pect of the pro­gram.  They al­so will get en­tre­pre­neur­ial train­ing for youth, eti­quette train­ing for con­fi­dence in so­cial set­tings, and par­tic­i­pate in a se­ries of men­tal well­ness work­shops.

In her pro­gramme overview, founder and CEO of We Code Caribbean, Safiya Olug­bala, shared why such an en­deav­our is so im­por­tant for young peo­ple to­day.

Some of the pupils pay attention to a demonstration at the launch of Digicel Foundation Caribbean Code + in Tobago on July 18. (Image courtesy Digicel Foundation)

“The world of the 21st cen­tu­ry de­mands a rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent ori­en­ta­tion where new skills are im­por­tant in or­der to com­pete and ex­cel,” Safiya Olug­bala ob­served.

“With the sup­port of our cor­po­rate part­ners like the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, We Code Caribbean is elat­ed at the op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­pact the next gen­er­a­tion by prepar­ing them to not on­ly think more crit­i­cal­ly, but to gain from an ear­ly age the nec­es­sary skills to com­pete in new and emerg­ing ca­reers in tech­nol­o­gy,” she added.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine stat­ed the THA was com­mit­ted to youth de­vel­op­ment.

“The pan­dem­ic un­der­scored the im­por­tance of ex­ploit­ing tech­nol­o­gy to ad­vance the econ­o­my, which has brought mo­men­tum to the is­land’s thrust to­wards tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments,” he said. “The goal of THA is to en­sure young peo­ple are able to in­ter­act in ways that make them dig­i­tal­ly ca­pa­ble.”

(L-R) - Digicel Foundation Board Director, Georgina Peterkin; Founder and CEO of We Code Caribbean, Safiya Olugbala; THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine; Digicel Foundation Operations Manager, Cindy Ann Currency; and Assistant Secretary of THA’s Division of Education, Research and Technology, Councillor Orlando Kerr. (Image courtesy Digicel Foundation)

Board Di­rec­tor of the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, Georgina Pe­terkin, was al­so present at the event and shared that Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion is com­mem­o­rat­ing 10 years of work­ing to im­prove the lives of peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go. 

“To­day, we seek to ex­pand this in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach through our ‘Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion Caribbean Code +’,” she not­ed, “and give cog­ni­sance to the fact that in our world where all things are dig­i­tal, it is even more im­por­tant that we give our youth the right tools to par­tic­i­pate and ex­cel at a glob­al lev­el, so that they’re not left be­hind.”