Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN)

PIN provides five key services: Consulting, ICT Capacity Building, Research, Telecentre Support, and Youth-led Social Technopreneurship. Through these services, PIN connects individuals, groups, institutions, and communities with the socio-economic opportunities that ICTs provide.

Specifically, PIN partners with numerous organisations within and outside Nigeria to deliver bottom-up, solution-driven, and community-owned projects. PIN's objective for any project it undertakes is to improve people's livelihoods through the appropriate use of ICTs. Some of PIN's projects include:

• Ajegunle.org - a web-based effort to foster ICT opportunities, entrepreneurship training, and short-term internships for young people in Nigeria's underserved areas. PIN is working towards the replication of the idea beyond Ajegunle, and is establishing the Ajegunle Innovation Centre (AJIC), which will serve as a knowledge hub where more youth from the community can be empowered for the world of work. It will: (a) Provide a space for the Ajegunle.org training programme and a centre for the advancement of workplace preparedness for Ajegunle's youth; (b) Provide workspaces for the entrepreneurs PIN trains so they can overcome the infrastructure barrier and have a place to provide their services towards income generation and wealth creation. (c) The centre will also be a place where community members can get services such as photocopy, fax, etc, as a form of income generation strategy to sustain the centre. The centre will be served by PIN graduates so they can also benefit from immediate employment opportunities while they in turn provide the centre with low-cost manpower.
• Internet Safety, Security and Privacy Initiative for Nigeria (ISSPIN) - a social campaign to spotlight the issue of internet safety while also providing a platform for other industry players to work together. The expected outcomes for the 12-month strategy include sensitisation workshops in pre-selected schools across Nigeria, a one-day event that will draw attention to the issue of internet safety while also providing a platform for stakeholders to work together, and a follow up plan that will focus on the need to reduce the number of youth who engage in activities that threaten the safety of the internet. The follow-up project will include a 4-phase process: recruitment, training, internships, and business innovation. The recruitment process will seek to identify youth who are engaged in cyber-crime, and they will then be trained to use software development tools before being attached to various software companies for 3-month internships. The youth will then be encouraged to either seek employment within the software (or relevant) industry or work as independent software developers. The process will also include a mentorship component that allows the interns to benefit beyond technical skills.
• Non-Profit Employee Motivation Program (NEMP) - geared toward achieving overall increased productivity of staff of non-profits in Nigeria (especially those whose work primarily reaches out to youth in underserved areas) while motivating employees for better organisational productivity and toward personal development within the organisation's career space. NEMP will also encourage employees to move from local actors to glocal (think global, act local) players.
• Dare To Be BIG ("BIG" is an acronym for "Brightest ICT Guy/Girl") - project to bring learning opportunities, positive peer pressure, and excitement to Nigerian youth through a year-long series of activities that include road shows, a reality television show, and an advocacy campaign. Specifically, the road shows will be held on selected campuses across the 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria and will feature seminars and publicity for the 13-week Dare To Be BIG TV show. The show itself will showcase the potential use of ICTs in everyday life, corporations, and public institutions through a competition that features 12 young contestants who will seek to become Nigeria's Brightest ICT Guy/Girl through ICT-enabled tasks, teamwork, and guidance from mentors. The 3 winners will be trained and are expected to lead an advocacy campaign that will take them to various locations (within and outside Nigeria) where they will serve as ICT Youth Ambassadors who will serve as role models to their fellow youth.

Youth, Technology, Economic Development.