Local partners

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CODEBUS AFRICA STUDY

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ContentsExecutive Summary 2CodeBus Africa 3Project Implementation 4

CodeBus Africa Workshops 4

Curriculum Co-development 4

Insights from CodeBus Africa Study 5Research Questions, Data Collection and Analysis 5

Main Results 6

The Value of Basic Training Bootcamps for Technology Hubs 7

Changing Technology Education 7

Learning Creative Technology 8

Achieving Gender Equality in Technology 9

Technology Hubs as Skill Builders 9

Sustainable Business Models for Technology Education 10

CodeBus Africa Take-aways 11Co-creating the Best Learning Experience 11

Students Come First 11

Technology Hubs as Changemakers 11

Prepare for Potential 11

ANNEX. 12CodeBus Africa: 100 Days of Collective Effort 12Project Background and Goals 12

Key Goals 12

A Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Approach 12

CodeBus Africa’s Local Partners 13

CodeBus by Numbers 15

Aalto Global Impact

CodeBus Africa Study, April 2018

WRITTEN AND EDITED BYIrena Bakić, Outi Puukko, Vilma Hämäläinen, Riina Subra

CONTRIBUTIONS Sarah Craig and Toni Eliasz, infoDev, World Bank Group

LAYOUTRoope Kiviranta

Aalto Global ImpactRuneberginkatu 22–24

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This report is an assessment of the relevance of the CodeBus Africa project from the perspective of local partners. CodeBus Africa, led by Aalto Global Impact, organized beginner level computer programming workshops in collaboration with 15 African partners in 10 Sub-Saharan African countries in 2017. The overall purpose of the project was to promote and inspire equal participation of girls and boys in technology education, to build local capacity for teaching student-centered begin-ner-level programming and to boost collaboration between Finnish and African innovators.

The study considers the extent to which a short-term col-laboration such as CodeBus Africa, along with its offering of basic technical bootcamps, is deemed useful and valuable by African technology hubs. The data was collected from two focus group interviews with 10 partner organizations, two surveys which cover 13 of the partner organizations, and field notes and recordings from post workshop debriefings in four countries. Altogether the data represents all 15 partner organ-isations – views from hub management, middle management, and workshop instructors and it was collected both immedi-ately and 6 months after the project implementation.

The findings suggest that the outcomes the partners mostly valued were: extension of networks, adopting a new coding education program (Sonic Pi), developing a new student-cen-tered teaching practice for technology education, public visibility, and organizational learning including tech educa-tion management and teacher training skills among the local partners’ staff.

A lack of skilled coders with creative and problem-solving abilities was considered a pressing issue for future devel-opment of hubs and more broadly, companies in Africa. The local partners view the strengthening of tech skills and tech application skills among the larger public as a central element of their activities and a strategic mission for the future of their countries. All partners considered the CodeBus bootcamps relevant and effective in introducing coding to young begin-ners. There was a genuine link between the organisation of basic tech bootcamps and the longer-term visions of the local hubs. The strategies for tech skills development differed how-ever, depending on the goals, business models and maturity of each organization. In the study, these differences were visible in the way the partner organisations envisioned to apply the Codebus program and teaching method in the future. Some preferred to work with communities and target explicitly disadvantaged groups such as girls and socially and econom-ically vulnerable children and youth to improve inclusiveness in technology, others were aiming for large scalable outreach

efforts to boost technology education across the country, and some partners saw their role as promoters of basic tech capa-bilities in an entrepreneurial, pre-incubation set-up.

The organization of basic training bootcamps was thus perceived as relevant and related to the key organisational goals of all the partners who took part in the CodeBus Africa project at the local level. Especially the value of learning and transmitting student-centered teaching methods and tools was recognised, even though in this case the collaboration was short and the local partners would need continued support to scale up the training of trainers and to continue running the educational program. The local partners also appreciated the emphasis of the project, which went beyond basic technology skills to incorporate soft, creative and problem-solving skills; as well as the project and program design, which was carefully scoped to be suitable to anyone, regardless of gender, level of abilities and background of the participants.

CodeBus Africa was a short-term project, but the enthusi-asm it generated among the local hubs and trainers as well as the young participants was palpable. The local partners pin-pointed the fun, collaborative and creative approach as a way to reach out to youth in a way that addresses serious gaps and biases in technology education, and to build creativity and ini-tiative among African youth in ways that complement formal education systems. The feedback from this project however also suggests that such one-off bootcamps could be linked to existing training programs or organized with a partner with ongoing technology training programs and the ability to continue implementing trainings independently. Short-term funding and collaborations should be clearly planned either to contribute to ongoing projects or as a stand-alone capacity development activity and learning opportunity.

After the end of the project, all CodeBus Africa partners are keen to continue applying and developing the youth training program. Some of them have continued to organise the boot-camps on their own, but the partners lack resources and busi-ness models to implement the activities on a larger scale. For designing a scalable technology training program, the study highlights the following findings and recommendations: the need to dedicate personnel to focus on the youth training pro-gram and pedagogical development, to include business model development as a core activity, to identify local and global organizations as funding partners, to develop a local partner network for implementation, and to continue collaborating with CodeBus partners - Finnish embassies, Nokia and World Bank.

Executive Summary

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Coordinated by Aalto University’s Aalto Global Impact, Code-Bus Africa ran creative coding workshops for youth, especially girls, in ten Sub-Saharan African countries over 100 days between February and May 2017. The purpose of the project was to promote grassroots level teaching of programming and support equal opportunities for girls and boys to explore tech-nology’s possibilities for their future.

The project was a joint effort between Aalto Global Impact, Mehackit, Finnish embassies and several African technology hubs, educational institutes and community-based organisa-tions. A total of 15 African organisations – mainly tech hubs – partnered with the CodeBus Africa project. The total number of partners that can be described as technology hubs was eight. In addition to these tech hubs, the project partnered with three technology organisations, two NGOs and two universities.

The project ran a total of 45 workshops, introducing 1,867 local youths to programming. The participants were aged 12 to 20, with a special focus on girls and marginalized youth. The workshops were organised in close partnership with local technology hubs. In the course of the project, CodeBus offered a training of trainers to 50 local coding instructors. The aim was to increase the capacity of local technology hubs to pro-vide similar bootcamps as a part of their own value offering. The participating countries were Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mo-zambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

The initiative was jointly funded by infoDev, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Prime Minister’s Office, Nokia, Supercell, and Aalto University.

CodeBus AfricaCodeBus Africa brought together Finnish and African innovators for a celebration of technology, learning and youth empowerment, as an official initiative of the Finland 100 centenary programme in 2017.

1,867 participants Gender balance of participating youth: 60.7% female, 39.3% male

45 workshopsTypically 4 per country, with an average of 40 students per workshop 50 local instructors 10 Training of Trainers workshops. Gender balance of participating instructors: 55% female, 45% male

15 local partnersOf which 8 technology hubs, 3 technology organisations, 2 NGOs and 2 universities 12 Finnish partners 8 local embassies, Aalto University/Aalto Global Impact, Mehackit, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and Nokia

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Project ImplementationThe CodeBus Africa’s activities were implemented in the course of 100 days, with one to two weeks allocated for each programme country. The engagement in each country fol-lowed the same scheme: a preparation phase followed by the training of trainers and organisation of approximately four 1-day workshops with daily debriefings after each workshop. The structure of the workshops followed a standardised format. Although the project was characterised by fast im-plementation, it emphasised inclusiveness and co-creation, rapidly creating a feeling of ownership to the local and Finnish instructors alike.

The preparation of the local instructors took place over email. The guidance included an introduction to the Sonic Pi programme, links to relevant internal Facebook groups, and a draft of the workshop structure. The training of trainers was conducted by Aalto instructors and the project coordinator typically one to two days before the organisation of the work-shops themselves.

The aim of the training was mostly to familiarise the local instructors with Sonic Pi, the workshop curriculum and the characteristics of the project, as well as to set a tone of play-fulness for the collaboration. Another key goal of the training was to facilitate a rapid team building and the formation of one team of trainers.

The first two CodeBus workshops were typically led by Aal-to instructors while the local instructors were acting as sup-porting teachers in the classroom. Their main task was to help with the problems the learners were facing and communicate with the lead teachers. The two workshops gave local instruc-tors the confidence to lead the last two workshops. However, in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Mozambique, the local instructors were in charge of leading the workshops from the first work-shop onwards due to language barriers.

The low hierarchy between the instructors allowed ev-eryone to take up different responsibilities. The instructor training emphasised that everyone was going to teach during the week and that everyone’s responsibility was to help their team members. The importance of the instructors’ learning process was also highlighted. Co-creation and togetherness were underlined and practiced throughout the programme in each country.

CodeBus Africa Workshops

The original concept for the youth-friendly Sonic Pi workshop has been developed by the Finnish technology education partner Mehackit on the basis of open-source materials. The curriculum, however, was further developed by the 12 Aalto University instructors and 50 local instructors during the implementation of the project in a co-creative manner to serve learners of different age and proficiency level in each of the CodeBus countries. In the 1-day workshops, youth got familiar with the basics of coding with Ruby programming language and through an actual project – creating their own song – to-gether with their friends. A party featuring the students’ origi-nal music wrapped up each workshop.

Joyfulness, playfulness and friendliness were the key ap-

proaches to the workshops, and warmup games, dancing and music were part of every session. The warmup was intended to make the participants comfortable with the instructor team and their peers. The three rules were presented in the begin-ning of every workshop: 1) Have fun, 2) Ask questions (don’t wait more than 5 seconds to ask), and 3) Silent giraffe, a sign when to be silent and take earphones off. The flexible work-shop concept also made it possible to adapt it to each country and every student group. The instructor teams were given two goals in their teaching: everyone should have fun and all youth should leave the workshop with a sense of accomplishment. One of the most important roles was the facilitation of team-work in order to have everyone participate equally despite differences in technology skills.

All 45 workshops were highly compelling, participatory and productive, even when many of the participating youth came in with little to no prior experience in using computers. The consistent success of the workshops country after country and team after team was attributed to the high team spirit and a robust workshop format. In all of the ten countries the team formation between Aalto instructors and local instructors took place in one or two days and led to the quick establish-ment of very cohesive instructor teams.

Curriculum Co-development

The workshops found their form during the first countries where Aalto students and local instructors iterated the concept after every workshop. The workshop content was developed further in the following countries but with smaller changes. All instructors were encouraged to contribute to the curriculum development. Recurring debriefing sessions with the team gave everyone a chance to share their personal and team’s success stories and bring up concerns and ideas for im-provement. The curriculum was iterated altogether 11 times during the implementation of the project.

The main area of focus in the curriculum development was to adapt the curriculum for learners with different levels of technological skills. Hence, each new topic was broken into smaller steps. This enabled even the youth with no prior ex-perience with computers to follow the teaching and create a piece of music applying Ruby coding language.

Workshop structure1. Breakfast2. Warm-up games3. Welcoming words4. Workshops starts: 3 rules + Intro to coding5. Coding starts6. Lunch break7. Finalising songs 8. Jamming session: Everyone’s song gets

played 9. Closing words

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The analysis considers the extent to which a short-term collab-oration such as CodeBus Africa, along with its offering of basic technical bootcamps, is deemed useful by African technology hubs. It also outlines which elements of the CodeBus Africa initiative made the project valuable for the local partners.

Research Questions, Data Collection and Analysis

The aim of this study is to assess the relevance of the project at the local level, analysing the outcomes of the collaboration from the African technology hubs’ perspective. The study addresses the following research questions: How do the part-ner hubs describe the value created in this project? Does it go beyond PR and is there more substantive value to the core business development and activities of the hubs?

The research data consist of both qualitative and quantita-tive data (Table 1). Part of the first data set was collected during the implementation phase in debriefing discussions. The par-ticipants of debriefings were mainly workshop instructors but in some cases partner organisations’ representatives were also present.

In the beginning of the project, debriefs were organized

every workshop day and later less frequently. The discussions were facilitated mostly by the project coordinator. The method was inspired by facilitated feedback sessions created by Aalto University researcher Satu Rekonen (https://ilikeiwish.org). The debriefing questions were always the same: What did you like about today’s workshop? What do you wish went different-ly tomorrow?

In addition, a post-implementation survey (Survey 1) was conducted with partner organisation’s representatives in June 2017. Altogether, the first data set gives insight in the direct feedback on the value of the project, methods utilized and the learning experience that CodeBus Africa offered to students.

The second data set gives insight in the partners’ evalu-ations of the project six months after the implementation phase. The data includes a post-project survey (Survey 2) and two focus group interviews. The data was collected during a workshop week with representatives of partner organisations on November 26-December 1, 2017 in Helsinki. The partici-pants represented nine out of ten participating countries.

An interviewer facilitated the semi-structured focus group interviews in each group and another person was taking notes. The discussions were recorded and transcribed. The analysis method of the focus group interviews was qualitative content analysis, which also allowed comparisons between the groups.

Insights from CodeBus Africa StudyThis study focuses on the value CodeBus Africa project created for African partners, especially technology hubs. It discusses the main results of the project and thematic insights that the research data provides.

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Data collection method Participants Date and place

First data set: 15.2.-10.6.2017

Debriefing discussions Workshop instructors, partner organisations’ representatives.

Ghana (February 15, 2017) Namibia (April 16, 2017) South Africa (May 9, 2017) Mozam-bique (May 19, 2017)

Post-implementation survey (Survey 1)

13 participants from 10 partner organisationsManagement: 5Middle management: 5Employees: 3

June 2017

Second data set: 26.11.-1.12.2017 in Helsinki

Participants: FABlab / National University of Sciences and Technology, Namibia; Ventures Platform Founda-tion, Nigeria; IDEÁRIO Hub, Mozambique; Hackers Guild, Zambia; STEMbees, Ghana; C4DLab / University of Nairobi, Kenya; Iceaddis, Ethiopia; Buni Hub, Tanzania; Smart up factory/Plan International, Uganda; Tunapanda Institute, Kenya

Focus group interview Group 1: four participants representing other organisations than technology hubs. Instructors: 4

Helsinki (November 29, 2017)

Group 2: six participants represent-ing technology hubs. Hub management: 3Hub middle management: 3

Post-project survey (Survey 2) 10 project partners. Instructors: 4Hub management: 3Hub middle management: 3

Helsinki (November 28, 2017)

Main ResultsThe data shows that many CodeBus Africa’s partners have continued to work with the students and methods that were utilized in the project. Seven out of ten post-project survey participants reported that the CodeBus students have contin-ued to visit their organisation. The number of these students was estimated to be approximately between 207 and 222.

Moreover, seven out of ten respondents answered that they have continued to collaborate with the participating schools or youth organizations after CodeBus Africa workshops. For example, partners have created coding clubs and a train-ing-of-trainers programme with the schools, organised coding workshops and hackathons at the hub in which the students from the school attend, and utilized the Sonic Pi curriculum in their activities. Some partners also reported that the individ-uals who helped during the CodeBus project are interested in further engaging with the schools.

CodeBus Africa’s partners highlighted in the focus group interviews that the methodological side of the project sur-

passed their expectations. The debriefing discussions with the instructors give similar evidence. In the CodeBus workshops, technology became easily approachable even for students who had never used computers. This was seen as something new and different from traditional ways to teach technology and coding.

Furthermore, the partners analyzed that the workshop setting where kids from different schools were mixed can increase their mutual collaboration. According to partners, this might have positive societal impact in the long-term by increasing equality and social cohesion. CodeBus Africa’s goal of making technology accessible for youth and both genders was in this sense reached well.

Critical assessments of the project were related to the scope and timeframe in each country. Partners stated that on one hand, the limited timeframe was clear from the start of the project. However, all partners brought up the need for long- term work in these issues. They saw the importance in building a curriculum and a larger student base for creative

Table 1.

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technology education. Some partners expressed their concern for students - they

got to try coding through CodeBus Africa only once and would not have the opportunity to continue learning in a similar inspiring environment. For some technology hubs’ represen-tatives scalability both in terms of number of participating students and societal impact was more important in the con-text of long-term goals. In this sense, the different interests and business models of partners are also reflected in their evaluations of the CodeBus Africa project.

The Value of Basic Training Bootcamps for Technology Hubs

Generally, the partners found the short collaboration very valuable. CodeBus Africa generated awareness and visibility for the partners work both locally and internationally. It also created substantive value to the hubs’ project and business development.

Both surveys and focus group interviews highlight that CodeBus partners valued the following matters most: extend-ed networks both locally and internationally, adopting a new program (Sonic Pi) and curriculum for technology education, and organizational learning. Organizational learning refers to gaining new knowledge from organizing technology trainings, acquiring new methods and ways of working and training of trainers.

Themes directly related to PR were mentioned only in the post-implementation survey in June 2017. Two out of 13 post-implementation survey participants were discussing local media exposure, awareness and market positioning in their answers. However, notes from the on-site observations indicate that exposure in the local media was important for all hub managers.

In the post-implementation survey, three hubs reported that they had planned to start implementing technology ed-ucation programs and developed different education models prior to CodeBus Africa. Participating in the project provided them with valuable lessons to evolve and actualize their plans.

“We were designing a similar program, we saw the value in sharing this opportunity and learn how can we improve our own model.” (Participant, Survey 1)

One of the hubs used the opportunity to learn how to engage with schools in their activities in the future.

“This collaboration was special in that it has helped us further define how we might intervene with secondary school kids as we intend to build upon it”. (Participant, Survey 1)

The partner hubs who have existing technology education programs reported that by taking part in the CodeBus project they could broaden their curriculum offerings.

“We aim at training young people in computer software by encouraging them to play an active role in ICT. CodeBus Africa was a great opportunity for us to learn something new that we could teach the youth.” (Participant, Survey 1)

Networking itself was among the key perceived benefits, and the partners described new connections formed not only with Finnish partners, but also with youth, schools and local government. Both local and international relationships were

perceived as potential opportunities for future collaboration. One of the partners informed that the project had immediate impact on their school club enrollment.

“We have received positive feedback from the pupils and the teachers. This has also helped us to enroll more members for computer school clubs that we are currently working on.” (Participant, Survey 1)

Similar points were made in the focus group interviews six months after the implementation. The project partners were generally enthusiastic about the teaching method applied in the project, and saw the curriculum and the new technology education program Sonic Pi as a valuable approach to intro-ducing youth to programming.

“We had been wanting to find more interactive and fun tools, like we’re always trying to find a new tool. And Sonic Pi was like wow.” (Participant, Group 2)

Changing Technology Education

Technology education is at the core of most Codebus Africa’s partner organisations’ goals, eight out of ten post-project sur-vey participants work directly with the topic (Figure 1).

Yes 80%No 20%

Figure 1. Organization’s goals include coding and creative technology education

In the focus group interviews, many partners described the constraints of technology education and more broadly the STEM field in their countries. According to partners, the official education system does not provide youth with the ca-pabilities needed.

“We are 100 million people already. There is nobody who gives specifically coding courses. Universities and schools don’t think this is the right way to start.” (Participant, Group 1)

“In our country, most of the syllabuses in universities are really outdated. I was teaching the lecturers.” (Participant, Group 1)

The CodeBus partners offer alternative starting points to technology education as extracurricular activities such as school clubs and workshops aimed for different age groups. CodeBus Africa’s take on technology education was seen as a perfect fit to the core mission of partners - described as “no-brainer” by focus group participants. The Finnish project partners, especially Finnish embassies, appear to have further

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solidified the positive expected value in the beginning of the project.

“Upon understanding more about the project, what excited us was the method of teaching and creativity it would intro-duce to kids – not so much coding to kids. Our research shows that youth don’t learn creative thinking in university. This is something we thought our intervention should tackle.” (Par-ticipant, Group 2)

Material constraints such as a lack of needed equipment and financial resources were also brought up in the focus group interviews. Moreover, partners understood technology broadly - they emphasized the change in the mindset that they want to achieve in their communities. CodeBus Africa’s method of teaching creative technology was a match in this sense and appeared to have created value especially on the methodological side.

Learning Creative Technology

The African partners and instructors were generally enthu-siastic about the method applied in the project, and saw the curriculum and Sonic Pi programme as a valuable approach to introducing youth to programming. The programme is for making music, but instead of notes, the sound and rhythm is created with code using Ruby language.

The method was perceived as a creative and experimental way of teaching coding for beginners, many of whom had never used computer before. These aspects were considered to add value to basic programming skills – something that many be-ginner level courses are often missing.

“What I liked was that none of the kids were playing the same song the instructor was playing. They all made different variations of what she taught them. I thought that was really cool. It supported what we said about leaving the kids to be cre-ative and explore as much as they could.” (Instructor, Ghana)

This was also highlighted in the focus group interviews. “I thought it would take 3-4 days but just in three hours they

picked up coding. And there were language barriers. At the end they almost started fighting/pushing about who got to use the computer most. Some of them even didn’t want to go for lunch.” (Participant, Group 1)

“It exceeded our expectations because we didn’t expect kids could learn this amount in one day. Initially the content [Sonic Pi] seemed almost too simple, like we expected actually some-thing more difficult. But it worked.” (Participant, Group 2)

Self-expression was often brought up in the debriefing dis-cussions while discussing the classroom activities and the jam sessions.

“This event does something we [technology hub] talk about but we never actually do. We don’t put this kind of events more often to school which are to educate people through feelings not through mathematics and structures and so, just feelings. You give them a structure to start something but they need to put the feeling in it to actually be able to express themselves.” (Debrief participant, Mozambique)

The debriefing discussions indicated strongly that both in-structors and learners had fun during the workshops. Fun was not perceived as something that is normally related to coding.

“I am surprised. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought this will be boring, like coding is really complicated. But I was really surprised since it was actually fun and really interesting to learn about coding.” (Instructor, Mozambique)

“They had fun. And that’s the most important thing. The child might leave today and not remember a thing we did but that interest has been sparked in that child. So the next time she or he has access to computer my prayer is that she will remember a thing called Sonic Pi or coding and they would try it on their own.” (Instructor, Ghana)

Collaborative learning was perceived as one of the keys to success in the workshops. Pairing up the learners accelerated the learning process and gave the opportunity to learn soft skills as well. Approaching coding with others provided new perspectives to technology as a work that can also be collab-orative and social.

“The kids also learned team building and collaboration, things that they need to know in the future.” (Instructor, Gha-na)

The instructors were generally impressed and even proud of the participants’ collaboration skills during the workshops. In the beginning of the workshop, the participants sometimes did not want to talk each other but the warm up games started to change this behavior and in the course of the day, the pairs started to collaborate progressively.

All partners preferred pairing the youth with peers from different schools. In Ghana the public school students were paired up with private school students, which created rare interactions with youth from different socioeconomic back-grounds. The partners stated in the focus group interviews, that this type of action can have real social impact.

“It’s been about so much more than coding. It’s about in-fluencing social constructs, creativity. For public school kids the experience is an opportunity. And if you enforce that over a period time you can really have an impact.” (Participant, Group 2)

Pairing up youth with dissimilar backgrounds and comput-er skills required extra attention from the instructors. If one of the children was less confident or skilled with computers, the other one was more likely to dominate the typing. These pairs were noted within the instructor team and special facilitation was provided in order to encourage the less-experienced child to also contribute to writing code. The focused facilitation was provided as long as both learners were participating equally.

These imbalanced pairs were more common in workshops where computer skills were generally weaker. Instructors em-phasized asking for help, which seemed to have an effect: The kids were asking for help and invited the teachers to listen to their songs/code all the time.

Both partner organisations’ representatives and instructors highlighted the success of the learning experience. Within the scale of 1-7, eight post-project survey participants were very satisfied and two moderately satisfied with the workshops. The partners saw that CodeBus Africa’s creative approach may attract more youth to become interested in technology.

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Achieving Gender Equality in TechnologyOne of CodeBus Africa’s goals was to support equal opportu-nities in technology. According to UN Women, the benefits of internet and technology are accessible to men at a much higher rate than women, leaving women behind in Internet access and mobile phone ownership. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 24.6% of men use the Internet, compared to just 18.4% of women. (Source: UN Women 2018, Turning promises into action: Gender equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development).

The focus on gender was integrated into all CodeBus ac-tivities. In nine out of ten countries the CodeBus workshops had 50% or more women than men as workshop instructors, and the readiness of tech hubs to provide female instructors to the project indicated their commitment to promote such new role models and opportunities for girls. 1,134 of the total 1,867 participants were female, bringing the number of female attendees to 60,7%.

In the post-project survey, all participants stated that “equal opportunities for girls and boys to develop technology skills” are very important (9) or important (1) to their organ-isation. When assessing the impact of CodeBus, partners re-garded the creative and collaborative side of technology as an effective approach especially when trying to make technology more approachable for girls.

“It filled a bit of the gender gap we have. Girls can be afraid of computers, thinking it’s not for me because they see only men using technology around them. So it helped in getting the power to girls: I can do this, I’m on the same level with boys. The boys started to respect the girls as well, asking them “How did you do that?” because the girls really excelled at Sonic Pi during the workshops.” (Participant, Group 2)

In the focus Group 1, participants discussed critically the trend to emphasize girls’ role in technology. They saw that while many projects and policies now focus on encouraging girls to use technology, there are also boys who need to be included as active change agents in order to achieve equality.

“I think we should stop differentiating. Give equal opportu-nities for the genders. Now guys feel like they need to compete too much. Now everything is directly focused on the girls. We were really open minded. People have already changed.“ (Par-ticipant, Group 1)

Technology Hubs as Skill Builders

Based on the post-project survey, eight out of ten participants identify their organizations as skill developers, one as busi-ness co-creation hub and one as startup generator (Figure 2).

Eight out of ten organizations express that teaching young people creative technology and coding is part of their organi-zation’s goals. More broadly, the partner’s initial objectives are tightly affiliated to social impact, developing the home country and to the mentality of “giving back to the community”.

Two project partner organizations already offer a full path of technology training that provides not just software develop-ment skills, but problem-solving, design thinking and project management skills. Most tech hubs have worked their way or are currently working towards offering technology education

programs for youth. Many partners also have also women-only technology groups for mentorship and peer support.

Technology hubs representatives frequently discussed how youth coming from the formal education and moving into the tech and innovation space are often lacking technology skills and more commonly crucial 21st century capabilities: creative and critical thinking, soft skills and problem-solving abilities. As a consequence, technology hubs representatives stated that hubs and startups are lacking skilled people with an entrepre-neurial mindset. As the partners do not believe their respective education systems are to include the above-mentioned skills in the national education curriculums, they have started to invest in youth skill building. Moreover, the project partners believe that these skills would also serve societal and industry needs.

Funding Models

The project partner organizations are very dissimilar from each other. On the extreme ends of the scale are NGO’s like Plan International, and on the other end technology hubs and accelerators such as Ventures Platform.

In general, NGO’s are more dependent on donations than commercial income generation. Plan International is a chil-dren’s rights organization that is mostly funded by individual sponsors, donors and national ministries such as Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. Hubs on the other end are mostly self-sustaining and reliant on commercial income generation activities such as service and product development, leasing co-working and office spaces and equity from startups.

The focus group interviews suggest that the partners have well-thought out operation models that leverage flat organi-sational and team design, agile ways of working, and multiple funding sources. Different funding sources are presented in Figure 3 and the number of funding sources per organization is displayed in Figure 4.

As presented in Figure 5, all partners except Plan Interna-tional have worked their way towards a hybrid-model of profit and non-profit (external donor/grant funding) elements. Key profit solutions include technology trainings, consultancy, re-

Skill Developer 80%Start-up Generator 10%Network Builder 0%Business Co-Creation Hub 10%

Figure 2. Category of the organization

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search and own product development. Many of the technology training programs are subsidised and funded from grants from international NGO’s, national development organizations or from the organization’s profits.

Sustainable Business Models for Technology Education

Although many of the project countries are planning to bring technology education into public schools, adding technology education in the national curriculum is considered as a slow and rigid process. Therefore, the partners are not considering public schools as potential customers. One of the project part-ners has monetized technology trainings for private schools but the number of solvent schools is limited, hence scalability remains a challenge.

However, public schools are considered as the best way to access large numbers of youth. When discussing appropriate models for engaging more students through public schools, after school programmes and clubs were considered as po-tential way to access the schools. Organizing the after school programmes would not require changes in national education policies and curriculums.

Figure 4. Funding sources

25%

12,5%12,5% 12,5%12,5%

62,5%

87.5%

50%

0

20

40

60

80

100

International NGO

National development cooperation programs *

Local university

Foreign university

Foundations/donors

Local NGO

Local ministry

Profit**

United Nations

*National development organizations: eg. GIZ, MFA Finland.**Services and products: job placement ads, research projects, product development, service model development, courses. Tan-gible assets: leasing coworking and office spaces.

2 sources: 37,5%3 sources: 37,5%4 sources: 25%

Figure 3. Number of funding sources per organization

NGO Technology HubNon-profit Profit

Purpose: empowerment of marginalized youth and

skill buildingIncome: funding is reliant on external donors and

grants

Purpose: youth skills building and employment

Income: hybrid-model of profit and non-profit

Purpose: economic development and entrepreneurship

Income: Mainly profits

As majority of the potential students for technology educa-tion programmes are economically unable to pay for the train-ing, the partners are facing challenges in scaling up existing or developing scalable technology education programmes. Cur-rently the hybrid-model of profit and non-profit seems as the most functional model for providing technology education for both insolvent and solvent students in limited scale. Currently the partner organizations focusing on technology education with hybrid-model are still relatively sensitive for changes

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times during the project by the instructors. Ongoing co-creation, constant development and easy-going

communication between instructors enabled the localization of the curriculum and teaching methods to be adaptable to different countries and to serve diverse set of learners. The training of trainers was considered as an integral part of trans-ferring the teaching methods and mentality from country to country and from the Aalto University students to the local instructors.

Technology Hubs as Changemakers

The CodeBus Africa partner hubs have a strong commitment to social responsibility. The hubs consider their role as a contributor to the development of the society in the realm of youth technology skills’ development, employment and gender equality in technology. Contributing to the society is considered as a part of the core function of the hubs instead of corporate social responsibility.

Investing in talent creation can be considered also as an in-vestment into tech hub’s own future. In the long run, the young students can become startup founders, technology makers and new business creators. Although the project partners are devoted to serving the community, the general opinion was that current funding models and operating environment do not cater for scaling up the technology education programs. Hence, development of more sustainable and scalable models for quality technology education are needed.

Prepare for Potential

The original objective of CodeBus Africa was a one-off initia-tive. The project concept was well understood by all partners, but the full potential of the project and ambition of the local partners were poorly predicted especially by the Finnish part-ners. The short intensive collaboration, joint activities, shared learning experience and intercultural interaction between the project partners sparked many new ideas and inspiration to continue the work beyond the short project implementation. As a result, a great potential and a pool of ideas for follow-ups was left without a channel for fulfillment. Although many local partners were able to incorporate the learnings and new cur-riculum into their existing projects, more time and resources should have been allocated for creating a process that would support the development and implementation of follow-ups.

with donor funding.“We want to avoid donor fatigue, so we’re working on a

revenue model right now which UNICEF is helping.” (Partic-ipant, Group 2)

When building scalable technology education programs, good partners are considered fundamental for creating the programmes and for attracting new funding partners.

“When seeking for donor funding partnerships with cred-ible partners is valuable for getting more partnerships.” (Par-ticipant, Group 2)

In order to create scalable and sustainable education pro-grammes, the development of more advanced funding models is required. In the focus groups, few participants expressed that they are seeking new ways for monetizing more of their services and products for more income generation activities in order to build more resilience for changes in donor funding.

CodeBus Africa Take-aways Co-creating the Best Learning Experience

Energetic spirit, youth driven mentality and the culture of collaboration were fundamental key elements of the CodeBus Africa workshops’ success. The student-centered teaching approach, co-creating great learning experiences and excitement towards technology were foremost important from the hubs perspective.

Incorporating creativity and playfulness in teaching were considered as effective methods to deliver technology educa-tion compared to teaching purely technology. Informal edu-cation was considered as the only available channel to deliver such technology education. The hubs consider themselves as relevant players in the realm of informal education and see themselves in a natural role to continue educating more youth with student-centered methods.

Students Come First

The top priority in each CodeBus Africa workshop was to make sure that every student leaves the workshop with a sense of accomplishment, joyful spirit and proudness of their work. The curriculum and teaching methods were iterated eleven

Hybrid: 87,5% Non-hybrid: 12,5%

Figure 5. Funding models

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CodeBus Africa: 100 Days of Collective EffortProject Background and GoalsCodeBus Africa can be described as a stand-alone special initiative undertaken by a variety of partners under a theme of technology, education, creativity, youth empowerment and equality in technology. The project was initiated in discus-sions between the eight Finnish embassies in Sub-Saharan Africa and Aalto Global Impact. The idea of a festive project celebrating Finland’s 100 years of independence evolved into an initiative aiming to allow Finnish and African youth to en-gage with each other around positive, motivating themes.Early discussions for the project took place between the Finnish embassies of South Africa, Zambia and Kenya. The embassies invited Finnish partners including Aalto Universi-ty’s Global Impact and other Sub-Saharan embassies into the discussion during spring 2016. Aalto and a Finnish technology education company Mehackit agreed to take up the initiative with Aalto Global Impact taking the overall lead to coordinate the project and to apply for funding from the Prime Minister’s Office’s ‘Finland 100 Years’ project fund.

Active project planning started in September 2016 after the project secured this initial seed funding and was able to recruit a project coordinator. A small core team at Aalto Glob-al Impact was responsible for the overall coordination of the initiative. Project preparations in 2016 were mainly focused on concept development and resource mobilisation, followed by the recruitment of students from Aalto University to serve as volunteer instructors and trainers for the project.

Nokia and Supercell confirmed their sponsorship in late December 2016, less than two months prior to the start of the implementation phase, paving the way to a hectic planning and coordination phase. Between December 2016 and February 2017 the core team reached out to local partners with the sup-port of Finnish embassies and negotiated agreements, travel arrangements, security measures and customs clearances for the equipment carried by the project team.

A Multi-Stakeholder Partnership ApproachThe engagement with the partners was planned by the Aalto University team in collaboration with the local Finnish em-bassies. As the project preparation phase was brief, the col-laboration was typically initiated with African partners that had already some level of engagement with either the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs or university units and technolo-gy communities linked to Aalto University. In addition to the project implementation partners in Africa, Aalto University engaged the World Bank Group as the knowledge partner in order to conduct the CodeBus Africa Study.

The main criteria for collaboration with the project im-plementation partners in Africa were an aspiration to run technology projects with youth, a proven record of interna-tional collaboration, a proactive mindset and ties to the local community.

In many cases, the relationship of the project team to the partner hubs was thin at the onset of the collaboration, and in most cases the existing contacts of the Finnish embassies were key in getting the conversation started. The Finnish embassies had for instance previously supported Ventures Platform, Iceddis, Buni Hub, KiotaHUB, IDEÁRIO and mLab, inviting them to participate in entrepreneurship events and trainings in Finland, including the Slush conference and the Slush Global Impact Accelerator programme. The visit of Ven-tures Platform, ICEaddis, Buni Hub, IDEÁRIO and mLab to SLUSH in November 2016 provided an early occasion to meet the CodeBus team and to get acquainted with the Sonic Pi workshop format in a session led by the newly recruited Aalto University’s volunteer instructors.

Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) from Ghana had no prior history of collaboration with the CodeBus partners, and was approached by the Finnish Em-bassy in Abuja. C4dLab, one of the Kenyan partners based in the University of Nairobi was approached in conjunction with another project collaboration with Aalto Global Impact. The workshops with C4dLab were organised as side events of the Nairobi Innovation Week, which was also supported by the Finnish Embassy in Kenya.

ANNEX.

Key Goals

Supporting equal opportunities in technology• Providing an accessible way for youth, especially girls, to try coding• Breaking stereotypes about what technology is by utilizing creativity and peer-support• Empowering girls to study STEM with the help of role modelsAccelerating progress at grassroots level• Building local capacity for teaching beginner-level programming• Increasing the technological confidence of African youth by making learning fun and rewardingBoosting cooperation between Finnish and African innovators• Updating perceptions of Africa in Finland, and vice versa• Facilitating a dialogue between Finnish and African youth

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STEMbees was recommended by both MEST and UNICEF Ghana as the local partner for the workshops in Accra, Ghana. The founders of STEMbees are also MEST alumni. The con-nection to Plan International’s Smartup Factories in Uganda and Ethiopia was built on prior collaboration with the Code-Bus team members in Finland. Geneva Global/Speed Schools were brought to the project through Supercell, a CodeBus sponsor. Namibia University of Science and Technology had collaborated with Aalto University for years and also had prior collaborations with the local Finnish Embassy.

The project arrangements were made on a tight schedule with each partner and country simultaneously. As a project aiming for a low-cost, bootstrap approach, the CodeBus im-plementation plan relied on donated materials, self-organi-sation, low hierarchy, flexibility and a supportive partnership approach.

Agreements outlining the roles of each partner were nego-tiated between the local partner(s), the local Finnish Embassy and the Aalto University team. There were some country-spe-cific differences in implementation depending on the context. For example, in the absence of a Finnish Embassy in Ghana, the agreement with MEST in Ghana included more funding and responsibility for MEST to plan project activities. For all other African partners the project covered space rental, meals, accomodation and compensation for the instructors at a rate equal to what the Aalto volunteer instructors received as daily allowance. In a few countries, a similar compensation was pro-vided to the local person coordinating the programme.

The selection of a team of 4 to 6 local workshop instructors in each ten programme countries was arranged by the hubs themselves, in coordination with Aalto University. A “call for instructors” document specified Aalto’s requirements and the terms of reference for the assignment. These included a background in programming, experience working with youth, a playful and positive attitude and at least a 50 percent repre-sentation of female instructors in each team.

The tech hubs were generally also the ones who reached out to local youth to invite them as participants to the workshops. In Uganda and Ethiopia, Plan International and Geneva Glob al/Speed Schools also invited learners from their organisa-tions to the workshops. In Abuja, the invitation was sent to the Secondary Education Board, which selected the participating schools. The criteria by the board was to involve only public schools and ones that had computers. In most countries, the schools were selected and invited based on existing connec-tions and prior collaboration with the hubs. STEMbees, Buni Hub and IDEÁRIO used the occasion to invite schools and organisations they had wished to collaborate with prior to the project.

CodeBus Africa’s Local Partners

The following sections provide short introductions of 13 partners that have operations around technology and entre-preneurship themes. In addition to these organisations, the project partnered with the National University of Sciences and Technology in Namibia and Geneva Global (Uganda/Ethiopia).

Iceaddis, EthiopiaFounded in Addis Ababa in 2011, Iceaddis is Ethiopia’s first innovation hub. Iceaddis focuses on youth-driven private sec-tor initiatives, facilitating constructive interaction between techies, entrepreneurs, investors and people from the creative industries.

Iceaddis is a community-oriented hub and provides a fee-based co-working space, which also hosts mentoring and coaching for startup teams. The space also serves as a spot for events to facilitate interaction between various stakeholders. Iceaddis is part of Icehubs and has worked in partnership with the UK-based The Foundation, VC4A and Afrilabs.

.Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, GhanaMeltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) is a technology and entrepreneurship hub in Accra, Ghana. The organisation was founded in 2008 by Jørn Lyseggen, CEO of the global media intelligence company Meltwater. Meltwater Foundation, the not-for-profit arm of the company, funds the hub.

MEST’s full-service path for aspiring technology entre-preneurs consists of two phases: the Training Program and the Incubator. The Training Program admits top graduates from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa every year for an intensive, fully-sponsored 12-month programme, in which the students receive education and mentoring in software development, product management, finance, marketing, sales and leadership.

After completion of the programme, the students have the opportunity to pitch their business idea for the opportunity to receive $50,000–$200,000 in seed funding from the Melt- water Foundation. In return, the foundation gets a minority stake in the company. The MEST Incubator then provides the winners further six months of support and access to resources, mentorship and a global network.

STEMbees, GhanaSTEMbees is an Accra-based nonprofit founded by three MEST graduates in 2015. Working closely with local primary and secondary schools, the organisation provides interactive and hands-on technology workshops, camps and after school programmes for young girls with the aim of bridging the gen-der gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

STEMbees has a staff of six and is financially supported by a number of foreign and local foundations and not-for-profits. The organisation also relies on a group of volunteers. STEM- bees is working on a revenue model. By far the organization has managed to monetize After School programs and holiday camps with private schools.• Purpose: Empower and mentor young African women in STEM.

C4DLab, KenyaC4DLab is a startup incubation and prototyping lab at the School of Computing and Informatics at University of Nairobi, Kenya. The lab was founded in 2013 as the first phase of a big-

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ger complex CC4D (Center of Computing for Development) to be built at the school.

The lab runs a startup incubator, which has coached and mentored both onsite and remote startups since 2013. The incubator offers mentorship and training, office space and access to university student interns. Students, faculty and alumni of the University of Nairobi are given a priority in the application process.

Other flagship activities of C4DLab include in-house prod-uct development and innovation capacity building in the form of courses, seminars, bootcamps and workshops for the larger stakeholder community. C4DLab also engages in advocacy for data-driven policy making, and has established several part-nerships with government, private sector and multinational private sector corporations. The lab further promotes its ac-tivities and thematic interests through public lectures, work-shops and conferences, of which Nairobi Innovation Week is the most notable one.

C4DLab’s funding is based on consultancy projects includ-ing research and technical development projects and they have monetized some of the offered courses.• Purpose: The lab aims at contributing towards building the Silicon Savannah, leveraging on the large University commu-nity.

TunaPanda, KenyaTunaPanda is an education institution based in Kibera, Kenya. Their training program offers 3-month intensive programme for tech, design, and business, apprenticeships and intern-ships for youth. The training programme is free for the partici-pants. In addition to the training programmes, TunaPanda has community projects offering technology trainings for girls and women.

TunaPanda’s funding is based on consultancy projects. They offer market research, website, mobile application and video production services. In addition, they monetize job placement ads and offer short courses for university. Earlier TunaPanda was more dependent on donors and sponsors but the consultancy projects have provided more sustainable model to run the institution. Nonetheless, TunaPanda still gets irregular funding from donors such as the Finnish embas-sy in Kenya.• Purpose: Train the youth in technology, design and business to make them life long learners, earners and problem solvers.

IDEÁRIO, MozambiqueIDEÁRIO is a leading Mozambican innovation and entre-preneurship centre based in Maputo. The hub facilitates the initiation of micro businesses through co-creation and accel-eration services, programmes and products. Services for pri-vate sector companies and startups provide the main source of income for the hub. Additional funding comes from NGO’s and embassies.

IDEÁRIO has routinely organised coding workshops and hackathons for youth, and also girls and women, in the past three years. These events have included a consideration not just for programming, but also entrepreneurship and business development.• Purpose: Economic freedom through self-employment.

Ventures Platform, NigeriaVentures Platform is a seed stage fund and accelerator based in Abuja, Nigeria. The organisation’s 16-week accelerator takes in 10–15 companies annually with an investment of up to $20,000 in cash and $5,000 in services such as legal and accounting services, workspace, and accommodation. In exchange, Ventures Platform receives 10% equity in the com-panies.

Ventures Platform also leases coworking and office spaces as part of its business model. In addition, Ventures Platform gets funding by consultancy jobs such as research projects and irregularly from donors.

In an effort to create a feeder to its accelerator, Ventures Platform has founded Ventures Platform Foundation in order to expand its service offerings to local youth in the future.• Purpose: The social impact arm of Ventures Platform, that is focused on creating inclusive and sustainable wealth in Af-rica, through capacity building and technology.

mLab, South AfricamLab Southern Africa launched in 2012 as a mobile technol-ogy accelerator and has since grown to include several pro-grammes that support skills development in technology-based entrepreneurship.

mLab’s Accelerator programme is currently offered in Cape Town and Tshwane, consisting of a Pre-Accelerator and a further 3-month programme in which selected teams will be granted additional resources, including a hosted space and up to $38,000 in grants. mLab’s CodeTribe Academy also offers full-time, sponsored programming education for unemployed youth. mLab is supported by The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, The Department of Science & Technology of the Republic of South Africa, The Innovation Hub, The V&A Wa-terfront and the World Bank’s infoDev.

Geekulcha, South AfricaGeekulcha is a South African for-profit organisation empow-ering technology enthusiasts through short-term ICT skills development, training and industry exposure. Established in 2013 under mLab, Geekulcha now runs its own operations in several locations across South Africa while still working close-ly with mLab.

Geekulcha’s service offerings include hackathons, train-ings, community outreach and consultancy for various stake-holders including entrepreneurs, makers, scholars, university students, governmental institutions and the private sector. The organisation also provides special initiatives for women and high school youth.

Buni Hub, TanzaniaBuni Hub fosters innovation and technology entrepreneurship through capacity building, mentoring programmes and com-munity empowerment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Buni Hub was founded in 2013 as the country’s first innovation hub.

Buni’s key offerings include the Internship Programme and the Mentoring Programme. The Internship Programme allows university students to validate their theoretical skills through an intense 8-to-10-week capacity building and business de-velopment process, which entails ideation, team formation,

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product development and customer/market validation. The programme serves as a feeder to the Mentoring Programme, which runs for three months, providing students with ad-vanced ideation, product development, team formation and retention trainings, along with access to co-working spaces. Buni operates as part of Tanzania

Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), and has received funding from various initiatives and organ-isations such as TANZICT, The World Bank and Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

KiotaHUB, TanzaniaKiotaHUB operates in Iringa, Tanzania under the University of Iringa. The hub was founded in 2015 by the Centre for En-trepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) in collaboration with the TANZICT project.

KiotaHUB’s activities are organised in close collaboration with the country’s first innovation hub Buni Hub. Similarly to Buni Hub, internship and mentoring programmes make up the core elements of KiotaHUB’s service offering. Although Kiota- HUB has no boundaries in terms of ideas, it has a strong focus on ICT, agriculture and forestry sectors.

Smartup Factory, Ethiopia and UgandaSmartup Factory is a grassroots innovation hub piloted and run by Plan International in Uganda and more recently, Ethi-opia. With a focus on the personal and social prerequisites for innovation, Smartup Factory offers marginalized youth a 3-month programme that allows them to practice necessary

Number of Workshops per Country

Ethiopia 4

Ghana 4

Kenya 4

Mozambique 4

Namibia 5

Nigeria 4

South-Africa 8

Tanzania 5

Uganda 4

Zambia 3

Total 45

Number of Participating Youth

Female 1,134

Male 733

Total 1,867

Number of Aalto University Instructors

Female 8

Male 4

Total 12

Number of Local Instructors

Female 26

Male 24

Total 50

CodeBus by numbers

life skills such as teamwork, self-expression and financial planning.

The programme leans on an approach that aims to give youth agency and ownership of their own future; in the process the youth are supported in creating their own innovations, be it a new educational path or their own business. In line with the approach, Smartup Factories are also managed by the youth themselves.• Purpose: Create an enabling environment where marginal-ised young boys and girls will have space to exploit their ideas and make them reality.

Hackers Guild, ZambiaBased in Lusaka, Zambia, Hackers Guild is a technology hub with a focus on software development training. The hub runs a flagship 3-month coding bootcamp, which equips students to start a career as web developers. Hackers Guild also organises high school coding clubs, which feed into the bootcamp pro-gramme through a hackathon. The training programmes have a hybrid funding model: The school programs are non-profit and the bootcamp is for-profit.

As many other hubs, Hackers Guild sustains its operations by selling products and services, namely software, web and mobile application development, training and technical proj-ect management. The non-profit programs also gets funding from the Embassy of Finland in Lusaka and American Peace Corps.• Purpose: Introduce technology to kids, mentor and train professional developer talent and build software products.