STATUS
Finished
African youth are normally left behind in technological skills and opportunities, leading to an overreliance on external experts to solve their community challenges. This fellowship is specifically designed to break this vicious circle, change mindsets, and expose youth to opportunities that will lead to skills development and problem-solving by developing technical skills. This will not only benefit the fellows in the program but will act as living evidence of how youth technical skills support can pave the way to technological evolution and how the learning can be used to design other similar projects.
The program — Open Skies Fellows: African Tech for African Data — is implemented through a strong partnership with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) and Uhurulabs. The partners will work together to bridge this skills gap between youth and the promise of new technologies, with the conviction that all they need are resources, time to develop, and mentorship.
The project is supported by funding from the UK Department for International Development through the Tanzania Urban Resilience Programme
The primary implementers on the project are Humanitarian Openstreetmap Team with OMDTZ managing data collection and field operations
Develop the next generation of African experts on frontier technologies, emphasizing women as participants and leaders
Support innovative and practical projects in local communities for social good using technology
Cultivate existing hubs of open data, frontier technology and innovation at OMDTZ and throughout the region
Open Skies Fellows will have an opportunity to gain skills that will serve them not only in the drone industry, but in many other aspects of the modern tech economy.
Drones themselves can be powerful tools to improve lives (as well as bringing risks both ethical and practical). However, they also drive learning. To design, build, and operate a drone, and then to make use of the data and other outputs, touches on:
OSF is looking for youth with intellectual curiosity, passion for technology, first-principle thinking, a specific idea for how to help a community, focus, past portfolio/projects/experiences, and love of sharing/teaching.
Finished
Technology
Fondation Botnar
Tanzania/Rwanda