African girls gain new access to coding opportunities - Punch Newspapers
SPARK Tech Africa, a technology education initiative founded by student Camille Ananyi, has opened applications for its second annual cohort, expanding access to coding, mentorship and technology opportunities for African girls aged 11 to 16. The free five-month programme is open to girls across Africa, including those with no previous programming experience, and will introduce participants to Python programming before they develop independent technology projects with support from mentors. In a statement on Sunday, the organisation said the 2027 programme would run from January to May, with participants completing online, self-paced lessons from January through March before moving into project development from April to mid-May. The programme will conclude with final project presentations in mid-May, giving participants an opportunity to demonstrate what they built and explain the problems their projects were designed to address. Participants are expected to commit about two to three hours a week and must have basic computer skills, access to a laptop and reliable internet service. Previous coding experience is not required.See more Punch stories on Google.Add Punch on Google “For our first year, the most important thing was proving that we could take girls who were curious about technology, including girls with no previous programming experience, and give them a structured path to actually build something of their own,” Ananyi said. TS Academy’s TS Connect Expands to Port Harcourt, Attracts Over 1,000 Attendees Zoho adds AI tools to Catalyst cloud platform Kwara unveils coding, digital literacy programme for schools “Now we want to build on what we learned from that first cohort and give even more girls the confidence to see themselves not just as users of technology, but as people who can create it.” She founded SPARK Tech Africa in 2025 after her own experiences with technology education and mentorship. She began learning technology through Scratch at Co-Creation Hub’s Summer of Code in Lagos and later participated in programmes at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. She also participated in MAGIC, a Silicon Valley mentorship programme for girls interested in computing, and recently took part in the Abridge-Anthropic Hackathon, where she built an agent with Claude Code. SPARK, which stands for Support Passionate Africans through Relationships, Knowledge, and Tech, was established to give young African girls greater access to technical skills, mentorship and opportunities in the global technology ecosystem. Applications for the 2027 cohort will close on October 17, with places limited. Students interested in the programme can apply through SPARK Tech Africa’s website. “Talent is everywhere, but access to opportunity isn’t,” Ananyi said. “A girl shouldn’t have to already know how to code, attend a particular school, or live near a technology hub before she gets the chance to discover that she may be great at it.” Justice Okamgba Justice has over three years experience spanning digital and print media. At The PUNCH, he currently covers the automobile sector with special interest in features and industry analysis.
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