MAPUBI in partnership with Paradigm Initiative (PI) and ‘Save a Child Save a Nation’ organized a Summer School week at Paradigm Initiative in Lagos, Nigeria. The event was held from the 26th of April to the 28th April 2017 with sponsorship from the CIM (Centre for International Migration). Prior the summer school, a workshop targeted at lecturers was held on the 25th of April. Twenty-five students registered and attended the summer school.

The theme of the summer school was ‘MyFutureNow: Building My Smart City’ with the goal to inspire students of the Paradigm Initiative in Ajegunle and to raise awareness of the opportunities available to them in the field of IT. During the summer school students were also involved in a community project and tasked to conceive and develop a mobile application to warn local authorities in case of an emergency or disaster: The U-emergency (former SOSAPP).

The students received a series of presentations and practical exercises on following topics:

• Fundamentals of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
• Importance of ICT in Africa
•  Fundamentals of Open Source Technology (OS)?
•  Fundamentals of a Smart City (SC)?
•  Fundamentals of the Java Programming Language and JEE Platform
•  Fundamentals of Database Systems (DB)
•  Fundamentals of Services and XML
• Source Code Management Systems (GiT)
•  Integrated Development Environment IDE
•  Creating a good specification
•  Setting up a Development Environment
• Providing Data for your application
•  Career Orientation

The presentations were held by Mrs. Olivia DAVIS-MBOU, Mr. Daniel MFEYET and Mrs. Funmilayo OLAORE in collaboration with Mr. Tosin ABOLAJI and Mr. Gabreal ODUNSI.

Young students of the Paradigm Initiative between the ages of 18 and 20 years attended the summer school. They presented very good skills and an willingness to learn about ICT. The students were Alumni from the L.I.F.E (Life Skills, ICTs, Financial Literacy, and Entrepreneurship) program. The L.I.F.E program is a capacity building initiative designed to improve the lives of under-served youth in host communities. A baseline study usually precedes the setting up of each L.I.F.E. Training Centre. The program focuses on youth who do not have the financial capacity to acquire relevant ICT, Entrepreneurial and Life skills that can make them compete in the workplace (Please visit https://pinigeria.org/life/ for more informaton).

At the beginning of the project most pupils wanted to work in following areas:

• Retail
• Entertainment
•  Art and Design
•  Agriculture.

Parallel to the presentations and practical exercises’, the students also had the opportunity to interact with their mentors through daily interviews via Skype coordinated by Mrs. Lydie YABEKO. During these eMentoring sessions, the mentors spoke about their educational background, career path and gave students practical advice on how to navigate potential challenges they might face when they leave the security of their family setting at home and a university or job. The following mentors interacted with the students during the summer school at the Paradigm Initiative in Ajegunle: Mrs. Olivia MBOU, Dr. Mojisola ERDT, Mr. Paul Emmanuel NDJENG, Mrs. Funmilayo OLAORE, Mrs. Susana OGUNTOYE, Mrs. Ajoke OMOWARE, Mr. Biodun OLAORE, Mrs. Folaju OYEBOLA and Mr. Chike OBIMMA. Mentors are still communicating with the students via the MAPUBI platform.

On the last day of the summer school week, three field trips were organized for the students. The purpose was to give students an overview of potential companies that would support them in their ICT career. The field trips were held at the headquarters of Paradigm Initiative in Yaba and the headquarters of `Co Creation Hub` (www.switch.ng). All companies gave access their sites and the students could learn about ICT training opportunities and career paths in ICT. The students also had the opportunity to visit the library (American room) prior official opening.

A mentor networking event was held at the Ibis Hotel IKEJA to officially close the summer school week. The aim of the event was to offer a networking platform to all mentor’s and project facilitators. The proceedings of the event included an overall presentation of the summer school week in Ajegunle, the U-emergency App and our local partners ‘Paradigm Initiative’ and ‘SACSAN’.

The event ended with a podium discussion about the challenges of building smart cities in the African context. The panelists were Mr. Chike OBIMMA (Legal Expert), Mrs. Olivia MBOU (Founder MAPUBI), Mrs. Funmilayo OLAORE(Director SACSAN) and Mr. Tosin ABOLAJI (PI – Program Manager of L.I.F.E program). The panelists highlighted that education was a key issue in preparing our cities to become ‘smart’. Some issues such as lack of sufficient energy (e.g. Nigeria) should not hold Africa back. The civil society should work hand in hand with the government to solve the issues and prepare our cities for this great trend.

We would like to use this opportunity to thank all project helpers, facilitators and sponsors. We would like to thank the CIM for financing this project. Special thanks to our local partners and in particular:

•  Mr. Gbenga SESAN, Executive Director of PI for providing the venue in Lagos to host the summer school and achieve this huge impact
• Mrs. Funmilayo OLAORE, Director SACSAN, for organizing all events. We are deeply thankful for the hard work and dedication
• Mr. Tosin ABOLAJI, for supporting us throughout our stay in Lagos and following up on the project after the end of the summer school
• Mr. Gabreal ODUNSI and Ms. Angela ONYEGBUNA for their support during the summer school activities
• The entire staff of PI in Ajegunle

We would like to thank CcHub and SWITCH for allowing us to discover their great companies and observing them at work.

We are also grateful to all the mentors who contributed to making a difference to the lives of the students. We would like to thank Mrs. Lydie YABEKO and Mr. Babatunde ADENIYI for their hard work in respectively moderating all events and realizing and developing all media material. Finally, we would love to thank Ms. Tanya WHANDE for enhancing the quality of all written materials.