WeAreBits

Leveraging digital opportunities for meaningful employment and business creation

Our solution is designed based on the challenges, needs and opportunities of undeserved, unemployed youth in Africa and beyond . With a growing unemployment rate and a growing youth population Africa is home to a plethora of socioeconomic and structural challenges, which present an opportunity for youth capacity building programs that focus on employment as a primary outcome.

Over the past two decades the Bits Schools have delivered digital design courses to over 9,000 youth linking more than 80% of them to income generating opportunities.

A major challenge is the sustainability and scale of the bits schools that we are now committed to solving.

The benefits of this project will also positively affect youth employment as well as companies looking to expand their operations in Africa & beyond, as it will provide them with skilled, qualified, young talent, which will in turn support their expansion and growth plans. This will lead to the creation of more jobs through sustaining the growth momentum of the ICT sector in Africa and beyond.

The innovation is in the use of the co-creation method that focuses on locally driven creation of solutions not only greatly contributes to the Bits Schools' sustainability, but also results in setting up innovative skills education that stem from the local contexts and respond to the required skill sets of a global digital economy.  The schools adhere to a demand driven model where youth receive technical and soft skills training that result in the opportunity to engage in the digital economy: an opportunity otherwise inaccessible.

Our intervention is all about leveraging digital opportunities for meaningful employment and business creation. Our program focuses on graduating and supporting the employment of graphic designers, web designers and UX developers.

Our main goal during the next 12 months is to develop sustainable models that will ensure the continuity of the Bits schools and accordingly scaling up our operations to link more youth to income generating opportunities. This entails developing the skills of local educators and updating them with the employment market needs as this is often overlooked by them and ensures the employability of students after finishing the program.

Since 2000, the Bits Schools have trained over 9,000 youth with more than 80% of alumni connected to income generating opportunities straight after successfully going through the program.

Our vision over the next three years is to sustain and grow our existing network of schools to benefit 5000 more youth in Africa and beyond while maintaining our 80% employment rate. Do achieve that, at least 500 more trainers' skills need to be developed.

We mainly rely on partnering with CBOs and community leaders to reach our beneficiaries. Our program has a 5% dropout rate measured through-out our one year long program. This low dropout rate is due to the experiential nature of our approach and the positive change of mind-set that our beneficiaries experience. 

Our program is currently serving 500 youth on average and linking them to income generating opportunities.

Our target number of beneficiaries in 2019 is 1000 with 50% gender equity and 10% disables youth while maintaining a minimum employment rate of 80%. Through the support of this opportunity we will be able to reach 5,000 more youth by 2022 while maintaining our employment rate.

Since 2000 we have gathered all the skills and experience necessary to implement programs. With the new addition of WeAreBits who's mandate is to fund-raise and build the capacity of the Bits schools, the network now is in a better position than ever to consolidate its efforts and experience to achieve greater impact.

We will place significant emphasis on ensuring the sustainability of the organization’s impact by selling services for a fee to both employers and citizens interested in learning digital design and development. Income generated from those services will be used to fund further programs that serve youth within the target group outlined in this project.

We believe that we are in a good position to tackle scale of our model. The  Solve application process and grant opportunities will provide us with the much needed exposure and feedback that we need to solve our scaling challenges.

Sustainability of the Bits Schools is the key barrier to scaling the already proved model.

Through the support of Solve, WeAreBits, will design and implement market driven income generating models for the six existing BitsSchools, therefore linking more youth to income generating opportunities.