Hi IH,
I started a free no-code academy a few months back for kids in Africa.
We have been lucky enough to partner with the national library, the gave us a computer lab for the classes.
I'd like to find more partners/sponsors going forward.
I noticed that girls don't sign-up for the classes, it's a 30%-70% split. I wish we could change that over time.
Does anyone have any creative ideas on how to get in front of a larger audience?
I know some companies have a CSR policy and this might fit right in but how do you identify them?
I reached out to Telco's, banks but it's almost impossible to talk to the decision makers.
I welcome all suggestions, ideas.
Thank you 😊
Hey Nadia! I write for Inside.com's Inside NoCode and Inside Dev newsletters. This sounds like such an amazing initiative I'd love to learn more about. I'd be happy to help promote your work in front of my audience of tech/business leaders and work with you in other ways as well! Shoot me an email at sheenavasani1[at]gmail.com, or feel free to tell me how I can message you!
https://inside.com/nocode
Hi Sheena,
I love your newsletter, I read it religiously :)
And I actually follow you on Twitter too.
I'd love to connect and give you more details about the project.
Sending you an email :)
This is mine Nadiamutoni at gmail.com
Would be happy to try and help, I work organizing developer communities, have experience organizing bootcamp, and now work at a big tech company that might be interested in sponsoring. Feel free to send a DM.
Hi Ruski,
Sounds pretty cool.
Would love to chat.
Sending you a DM now:)
Thanks a bunch
Hi Nadia,
Are you doing it in Rwanda? Because Africa is pretty big and diverse so the strategy might change according to where you are going to be involved.
Regarding how you can make it more atractive to girls I belive it comes down to which project you give them to build.
No-code allows you to build almost anything without having to know how to code so girls and boys need to be oriented based on their interests.
Right now I am working on an Interactive Online Translation Dictionnary for kids. It showes a French or English word with its translation in an African language. You also have an image and an audio for the translation.
It is almost done and I did it using No-Code tools.
Now when it comes to finding sponsors again it comes down to project. Let's say you want UNESCO to support you. Make a project that's going to involve girls like an interactive book that shows African women involved in science fields in order to raise awarness among young girls and show them they can be as capable as boys in everything science related. If you can do such a thing with no-code (you sure can), if you can teach girls to do the same I am pretty sure UNESCO would be interested.
If you want sponsors you must show them what they have to gain through their support.
I hope it helps.
Rodney
Hi Irodman,
Thank you for the detailed reply.
Would love to try your interactive dictionary.
Which tools did you use?
Cheers,
Nadia
I will share the link with you as soon as I am done with it.
I used Wordpress for the website. I used the Divi Theme from Elegant Theme, it's a site builder, really flexible and powerful. For the dictionnary part I used Airtable. I basically have a database of words with their different translations. It is so easy to do it with Airtable, I embended that table into my site and voilà the whole thing works perfectly.
I'll probably use other tools to build the games and bring a more festive vibe to it since it's supposed to be a dictionnary for children.
Let me know if you need any help.