On 27 June 2024, a closeout event for the “Boosting digital skills through Digital Transformation Centres” (DTC) Project was held in Kumasi, Ghana. The Project was funded by the Government of Norway and ITU and started in January 2021. Financial support was provided to the DTC in Ghana, the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), to scale its capacity development interventions and provide digital skills training to women entrepreneurs, students, youth, schoolteachers, as well as persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups.
The closeout event was organised to celebrate the successful implementation of the Project and contribute to raising further awareness on the importance of digital skills development for underserved communities across Ghana. It brought together stakeholders and parties involved throughout the project implementation (the DTC, ITU, Government, private sector partners, civil society organisations and project beneficiaries) to reflect on lessons learned from the Project and share ideas for the way forward.
The event was attended by the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation and included panel discussions featuring various local stakeholders to share their approaches, experiences, successes and lessons learned in sustaining the project going forward. The event provided an opportunity to recognise the efforts and hard work of DTC trainers/centre managers and to celebrate the achievements of training beneficiaries. It also served as a platform to showcase the digital skills acquired by students of the coding clubs and robotics workshops conducted over the past three years. Several course participants were able to make their voices heard by sharing their inspiring experiences and empowerment journeys through digital skills.
Since its launch in 2021, the DTC Project has transformed the lives of over 22,000 people (68 per cent women) from underserved communities across Ghana, exceeding its initial targets. Women entrepreneurs, for example, acquired digital marketing abilities that allowed them to take their business activities online. School children were taught programming languages such as Scratch and Python, sparking an early interest in technology. Testimonials from training participants are featured in the Project video documentary, which was also showcased during the closeout event.
