How to train young minds to become creative, innovative

As the creative industry in Nigeria is  becoming increasingly relevant to the economic well being of the nation even as recent trends have shown that industries of the 21st century will rely on the generation of knowledge through creativity, innovation and exploitation of a nation’s resources.

In realisation of this fact, Audux Solutions Ltd has launched the Audux code school, targeting the young children in Nigeria who are the future of the nation. It creates an atmosphere of fun for them where they can showcase their creativity, explore their skills and learn in the process.

The club seeks to empower young Nigerians in technology in order to be more creative and competitive globally, the Audax Solutions Limited in Lagos has graduated 93 students from its just concluded Code School Computer programme training for primary and secondary school students during holidays.

Since its inception, Code School has been a coding program that usually runs in every year. It was launched two years ago, with the aim of offering an in-depth knowledge for children between the ages of 5 and18 to learn various skills in computer programming. And since its launch, it has received numerous accolades and positive recognition from both local and international communities; most notably being the Google Rise Award for Computer Science Education in Nigeria in 2014.

The company commenced this year’s Summer Code School earlier in August and ended 3 weeks after vigorous training and engagements. The 93 trained children were successfully drawn from orphanage homes and public schools. And it was sponsored by Iroko TV, Google Rise Africa, Konga, and Dura site.

  Speaking at its corporate office in Lekki after the closing graduation ceremony, Emeka Onyenwe Managing Director, Audux Solutions Ltd said that they believe in teaching children programming is the essential to developing their problem-solving, creative and communication skills.

He stressed that the skills will assist them in future to foster an interest in technology, specifically by learning how to build websites, games and apps by the end of the programme. Since the world is living in digital age, emerging realities has proved that learning to code is an important skill for every child now as it will keep their pace of knowledge broad and to also help them to assimilate things easily.

He further explained that it will boost their morale and input skills in them and to place them side by side with their counterparts outside the world. It will also make them think fast to give solutions to emerging problems.

In order to serve Nigerians better, Onyenwe also stated that their company is beginning to do online and offline training for more advance training apart from the Code School program and that its company is set to organise Code School Club where both primary and secondary school students will engage in computer programming projects every Saturdays with a promise to be filled with exciting training, projects, excursions, unlimited access to computer science materials as well as mentorship and empowerment for children so that technology companies can employ their service.

He added that by October, they are poised to host Africa Code week for students in various scales and by December, they will be having another Christmas Code Week programme which will feature many packages drawn from international standards.

“Audax is currently seeking for more partnership on this programme and has resolved to encourage and empower young Nigerians, especially the underserved and underprivileged via computer science. Their commitment towards capacity development and national building is resolute as they are determined to identify and train Nigeria’s Bill Gates of our time” Onyenwe disclosed.

He however assured that with the level of training the children have undergone, the vacuum he thinks that needs to be filled in searching for programme developer in Nigeria can now be solved. “We have trained developers who can now manage and expertise in their domains. They can now analyse and create things on their own with computer minds,” he added.

Esiekwena One of the participant’s mothers who enrolled her two children for the program testified that the program has really transformed her children and has taught them to infuse creativity; imaginary skills and mental alertness in all they do.

According to her: “It’s high time parent start teaching their children how to be the producers and not the consumers. We are in a computer age. It is not all about fun but also about gaining knowledge. It is important to start teaching our children on how to love their work and create money and wealth for themselves in future.”

Samuel Otekere, one of the participants said he enrolled for the program because he wanted to learn and do things in computer practically and not from the theoretical background aspect he has been used to.

He disclosed that he has learnt much within the space of one month of the program and that he can now create his a website, game designs, music sounds and different meaning of words.

Also speaking on the code school, Vivian Ubochi, Project Coordinator noted that there is a huge gap that country needs to fill and that is why Audax is taking a leap by teaching the children to be computer literate and to be able to bridge that gap.

“The children can create their own Nigeria App that people can download from and that will earn them income. A techy person knows what it takes to be involved in computer training. So we still have a lot to do in this country. By teaching these younger minds, we need to break it down for them to understand it better.”

Commenting on challenges, Ubochi stated that the training is more tasking due to increase in numbers of participant in this year’s program. There are challenges of setting up of computers, packing up and resetting in a place where there is no securities to protect the equipment. She also explained that training students in the public schools who are not used to computer are more discouraging at first unlike the private schools who already have it in their curriculum.

“In the public schools where we started, some of them were afraid to go close to computers since so many have not seen or touched computers in their lives. But immediately we engaged them in vigorous training and lot of explanations, they feel better and see every need to embrace technology. Some of them now build that confidence and create things on their own. I can categorically tell you that the students are better off now than when we engaged them in training” she explained.

Ubochi however appealed to the government to look into computer science training in schools and invest in technology so children can familiarize themselves with it.

She assured that Audax is ready to work with the government and other private organisations in order to make the country achieve it aims in technology.

During the closing ceremony, the participants presented various projects which they built during the course of the training and thereafter, certificates of participation were issued to them by the company.

IFEOMA OKEKE