Maxim Nyasa IT Solutions received a prize for its winning project for the 2019 FIRE Awards during last year's Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2019) in Berlin, Germany.
The project Introducing a scalable proof of concept for digital skills training in African schools creates career perspective for young Africans with information technology. Stanley Kwakye Dankyira (Director and co-founder), Diana Van Der Stelt (Secretary and co-ounder) and Andrew Nana Davidson (Operations manager) were present in Berlin to collect a trophy and the prize money of USD3,000. The awards ceremony was held at the Estrel Congress Centre in Berlin on 27 November 2019.
Olatunde Awobuluyi from AFRINIC in conversation with Diana and Stanley at the NRO booth.
Maxim Nyasa IT Solutions' learning transformation programs for Junior High Schools in West-Africa provides an integrated approach to drastically improve the quality of education in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. They have started a computer4schools Ghana campaign where individuals and businesses are encouraged to donate their slightly used computers to schools in deprived areas. With a cloud-based tracing and tracking system in place, the hardware donors, as well as auditors and government officials can follow the humanitarian goods donated to their final destinations. Because the system can create multiple collection points and school projects, it helps them to scale up their programme.
During the ceremony, the delighted duo of Andrew and Diana said the award is a demonstration of their commitment to educating young people and ensuring they have the capacity to compete in an information and globalised world."We see so many young people lacking quality education and unemployed and that is what we are exactly committed to. The project deals with the UN sustainable development program number 4 and the FIRE award will help us to scale up very quickly. It is very obvious that there is a lot of lack in basic and high schools in Ghana and having access to computers, and bridging up the digital divide becomes very important," said Stanley.
The Fund for Internet Research and Development – FIRE Africa – is one of Africa’s leading grants and awards programmes designed to encourage, support and develop innovative online solutions to Africa’s education, information, infrastructure and communication needs.
FIRE Africa provides funds in the form of grants and awards for projects, initiatives, tools and platforms that harness the power of the Internet to empower the local and regional community to solve the region’s unique online communications problems. Since its pilot phase in 2007 meant to identify innovative ICT solutions to the challenges faced by local communities, FIRE Africa has grown into a fully-fledged programme that has helped over 30 initiatives in 16 countries over the last eight years. The first full round of grants and awards took place in 2013.