April 20, 2016 – The pioneering class of Tech Era, a community engagement initiative, held an exhibition in Ashesi's Norton Motulsky hall to showcase projects they worked on as part of their six-month IT-training program. Tech Era, led by Derick Omari ‘18, aims at equipping underprivileged children with IT skills. The initiative also seeks to raise IT professionals, from Berekuso, who will find innovative and effective solutions to problems in Africa.
“Our goal is to expand the IT professional base of Berekuso,” said Derick Omari’ 18. “This way, we can have more IT experts to solve problems in Berekuso and Ghana at large. We are in an era where IT has taken over, and everyone should have the opportunity to be part of this. If we teach the pupils and give them these skills while they are young, they will be able to create technology that will impact their communities.”
While Information Computer Technology is a required course for students in Ghana, some high schools, including the Berekuso Junior High School, have limited resources and so are unable to give their students the required training, even at the basic level. Tech Era’s goal is to not only fill this gap, but also deepen the interactions between the Ashesi and Berekuso communities and lead a movement to position Berekuso as a leading center of excellence in the country.
Over the past six months, the students who took part in the class acquired basic computing skills in typing, using Microsoft Office tools and using the internet. As part of the exhibition, some of the students presented brochures, poems and write-ups they created using computers, to the audience made up students, faculty and staff from both Ashesi and the Berekuso Junior High School.
Following the presentations, awards and certificates were presented to the pupils to mark their completion of the course. Moving forward Tech Era seeks to expand its curriculum and explore higher level computer training for the pupils through the introduction of a robotics program. “The robotics program is for those who showed passion and great potential during the class,” added Derick. “While this batch will form the first Berekuso robotics team, our goal is that they will participate in the national robotics competition, organized by the Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation."
Derick Omari’18 was recently selected as the 2016/2017 Dalai Lama Fellow at Ashesi. As part of his nomination, Derick receives $6,000 to expand Tech Era and will also attend the Ethical Leadership Assembly in San Francisco in June to receive coaching and fine-tuning, and network with new and old fellows from around the world.