Botswana Innovation Hub has launched the IBM Digital – Nation Africa Programme, D – NA, in Botswana. This is a free comprehensive online platform aimed at empowering African youth with skills and tools to help them design and develop innovative digital solutions, as well as helping them gain skills to match those required for the available jobs in the market.

The launch event held late September 2018 at Botswana Innovation Hub attracted more than 50 entrepreneurs, start-ups, developers and officials. They were introduced to IBM’s free, self-paced learning platform that sparks innovation.

The D – NA platform offers the citizens of Botswana a free online learning and enablement platform, allowing the users to gain IBM Digital Badges to validate their knowledge and skills. To best match the needs of all, D – NA has been implemented with three enablement segments. The first, entitled Explorers, provides users with fundamental knowledge of the key technologies, which are shaping the Digital world, such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Internet of Things. The second is called “Innovators”, and as the name indicates, is designed to provide the user with inspiration, method and means to create innovative and valuable digital solutions. The final section is call “New Collar”, referencing the fact that the digital age is creating and will create many new job roles. This section leverages the power of IBM’s own Artificial Intelligence engine, Watson. It has three key features, an engagement with Watson to build the user’s own profile, a collection of online interactive technical courses, and, again using Watson, a detailed view of the current African job

IBM developed the D – NA offering to provide the youth of Africa with the means to both join the new age and help grow their future careers. IBM has been in Africa for almost 100 years and has a strong track record of aiding local skills development and supporting national skills development programmes.

The Botswana Innovation Hub’s mandate is to support innovation and entrepreneurship development within Botswana and the D – NA platform aligns with this objective

Candidates who would like to register for the free programme can do so through the following link: ibm.biz/dna4all

Botswana Innovation Hub Brand & Communications Manager said’, “we are excited to have partnered with IBM for the benefit of our innovators and entrepreneurs, enabling them to tap into IBM’s cloud platform services and drive business growth that’s founded on innovative digital solutions. We encourage more youth to heed to the call and attend the workshops or directly connect to the D – NA portal to gain the invaluable knowledge of the 21st century’’.

Following the launch of the Digital Nation Programme, the Botswana Innovation Hub will host a series training sessions and workshops to empower youth with digital knowledge and practical skills.