Late yesterday, we spoke with the the Lead Technical Instructor (Yemi) of the MIT Students planned programme in University of Ibadan under this initiative, Africa Information Technology Initiative (AITI). As reported yesterday, these students are coming to University of Ibadan to train students on mobility computing. Fasmicro has confirmed to attend this program. It will deliver lecture topics to UI students on entrepreneurship, network with them, judge business competition and mentor them after the program concludes. As Africa’s only local Android App Store maker, we will also support in the technical aspect by making our developers available to the students.
This is part of the document they emailed to us. Notice that the date is confirmed, unlike our post yesterday.
From June 20 – July 29, three students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will travel to the University of Ibadan (UI) to teach university students courses from the Africa Information Technology Initiative (AITI) curriculum. Since its inception in 1999, AITI has sent nearly 100 MIT student instructors to teach over 1200 students how to create successful mobile services startup by combining lectures on mobile and Internet technologies, hands-on experience and entrepreneurship activities. Participating students have gone on to start ICT businesses and working for multinational corporations. Because of its successes, AITI has now become part of MIT’s primary international initiatives and is financially backed by Google.
This will be the first time that the AITI program will be in Nigeria. In order to achieve similar or greater successes in other countries, we are looking to form strategic relationships. One key component is the interaction and relationships that form between our students and firms in the mobile technology sector. We are interested in firms that would deliver interactive lectures to students on any of the following four topics: 1) Intellectual Property, 2) Public speaking and pitching ideas, 3) Marketing, 4) Business ethics in the Nigerian environment. We would also want a company representative to judge the final group business projects.
In return, company representatives will have access to our students. We consider our students to be the most valuable asset. The knowledge, training and exposure they have received from our program have made them attractive to multinational corporations. We also invite representatives to participate in our networking events and mentor the students after the program concludes.