22 August 2014 - Some 43 South Sudanese youth today completed a two-weeks training course in Juba, aimed at empowering them with skills to develop and promote locally relevant mobile applications.

UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) organized the training-of-trainers course in partnership with mobile and data service operator Zain, as well The Dev School of Kenya and the College of Computer Science and Information, University of Juba.

“By innovatively utilizing the potential that is in a mobile phone, young people can create business and also acquire skills that give them an edge in the information technology job industry,” said UNESCO Country Representative Salah Khaled.

Noting that the initiative was designed to take full advantage of existing and related initiatives on the ground, Mr. Khaled called on development partners to create synergy between this initiative and their ongoing interventions, with a view to supporting South Sudanese youth to find an economic bearing.

The youth mobile applications development capacity building project has a target to train 1,200 South Sudanese youth in two years on how to develop mobile applications based on the App Inventor curriculum from the globally renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, a statement from UNESCO said.

“The two weeks focused on developing thematic Android applications on literacy, peace and unemployment and will be followed by intermediate then advanced levels, said Martha Chumo, director of The Dev School.

Araba Victoria, a female participant in the course, said the training would help the youth to improve their programming skills and enable them to compete in the national and international job market.

“We have been longing for a training that exposes us young South Sudanese to what is happening in the changing world,” said Boboya Nicholas Duesuk, another participant. “This has opened a great opportunity for me to become more relevant in the job market.”

Robert West, Chief Commercial Officer of Zain, which provided 20 mobile phones for the training, informed participants that capacity building is one of the main strategic thrusts of his company.

“In a country like South Sudan, where educational and vocational institutions are still in the early stages of establishment, a program such as the YouthMobile Initiative is instrumental in helping develop the next generation of contributors to the national economy,” he said.

Dr. Lado Kenyi, Dean of the Computer Science College at the University of Juba reiterated the university’s commitment to have the training institutionalized within its training curriculum by establishing a module that will provide an opportunity for continuous mobile applications training.