eHealth Africa Academy Graduates 5th Cohort of Web Designers, Tech Activist
After 16 weeks of intensive practical training on the fundamentals of website development, eHealth Africa Academy graduates its 5th Cohort of 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. We are proud to have graduated 23 students; after acquiring skills in Web App design and development. The academy will further support graduates with internship opportunities in software development, quality assurance engineering, business analysis, and UI/UX design.
The eHA Academy works to bridge the skills gap that exists in the use of technology amongst young people, empowering them to thrive in the digital age. This is the goal of the academy, as it continues to provide free access to world-class software development resources and knowledge required to create cutting-edge solutions that address challenges in public health and other areas.
According to Abdulhamid Yahaya, the Deputy Director for Global Health Informatics for eHealth Africa, “ the academy was set up to bridge the gap in digital or technical skills uptake and to live up to our mission of building stronger health systems through the design and implementation of data driven solutions”.
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 for100% free,” he said.
Also speaking during the Academy, Jamil Galadanci, a Senior Manager, Global Health Informatics at eHealth Africa revealed that, there are Information Communications Technology graduates from higher institutions who are talented but do not have hands-on skills because all they learned was theoretically based, with little practice.
He decried the state of young graduates saying, “when some of these graduates conclude their studies, they are often not employable and they end up wasting their skills and talents so we want to enable them realize their full potential in ICT.
“From the skills the graduates 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.