In 2018, the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) equipped 4,500 students across the country with coding skills through its coding for kids programme.

It provided skills boost to over 500 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) teachers across the country to enhance their capacities in effectively teaching the subject in basic schools.

This was disclosed by the Administrator of GIFEC, Kofi Asante on Monday, November 19, at the opening of the orientation session for the NaBCo trainees under the ‘Digitise Ghana’ module in Accra.

In a keynote address, Asante further noted that the organization is ambitiously seeking to expand its capacity building activities into the informal sector, where over 100,000 members of beneficiary communities will be equipped with skills to enable them to “navigate effectively in today’s highly technological world.”

“These novel target groups will include market men and women, mechanics, carpenters, drivers, tailors, and other artisans,” he said.

GIFEC continued that Asante has 226 community ICT centres across the country currently being renovated to enable them to serve the community hubs for a myriad ICT and e-government services.

Touching on GIFEC’s expectation of the NaBCo trainees under the ‘Digitise Ghana’ module, Asante said the organisation required the services of astute graduates to deliver its mandate of “bridging the digital divide between the served and the un-served communities.”

“Undoubtedly, in this information age, most nations have achieved greatness through the application of technology to ease business, improve efficiency, cut costs, improve earnings and increase productivity.”

“Ghana cannot be left behind and therefore the President’s digitisation and transformation agenda will have to be pursued relentlessly from a multi-sectoral perspective to ensure the creation of a robust digital economy.”

“The ‘Digitise Ghana’ module is a cross-cutting module that provides a one-stop solution to most of the active and latent government programmes and initiatives.”

The ‘Digitise Ghana’ module, for which GIFEC is the lead implementer, provided employment to over 16,000 graduates who were previously unemployed at a cost of over GH¢14million.