According to the Study of Education Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean, carried out by the IDB: “The majority of children and young adults in LAC (Latin America and The Caribbean) are still not receiving a high-quality and relevant education.
As a result, too many LAC students entering the labor force lack the skills necessary to secure dignified work and participate in an increasingly competitive, technology-driven, globalized economy.
At the same time, employers say that they cannot find enough qualified people to fill open positions.
This mismatch is arguably one of the strongest forces perpetuating inequality and suppressing much-needed economic growth across LAC.”
In Latin America, some efforts are made in of technology education. We sure have to do more, but even small changes can do great things.
Today we are going to talk about the strategies that are implementing by the city of Medellin to educate children and young people in IT since this is one of the pillars of economic development of this government.
In this way, it is giving strength to more young people to become software developers, a job highly required by companies around the world and also very well paid, which is very important to reduce poverty rates in the city.
According to the Development Plan of the city of Medellin for the period from 2020 to 2023, its objective is to manage new opportunities based on education, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
To ensure that Medellin has enough people with knowledge in information technology industries, the District Administration, in conjunction with LinkedIn and the ILO, launched the Talent Industry strategy, offering 33,000 places for training, free of charge, in topics related to 4.0 technologies or traditional industries.
Seeding interest in future software developers with computers.
The Mayor's Office of Medellin is also developing an initiative called Future Computers.
According to the Secretary of Education of the Mayor's Office of Medellin: “Computadores Futuro is a strategy of school permanence, which seeks to provide a technological tool to the students of the official educational institutions of Medellin to develop in them skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Our goal: one child, one computer! “
The Mayor's Office has so far delivered 65,000 computers to low-income youth in the city.
The Computadores Futuro is an educational permanence strategy that helps each student while they are enrolled in official educational institutions. At the end of the school year, they are handed over to the IT team of the Secretary of Education, through the director, for re-powering, maintenance, and software upgrades.
This is a strategy to support school students in their daily homework, but in the end the mayor's office has the ultimate goal of sowing in each of the children and adolescents of the city the idea that technology allows them to learn, improve and reach places where they had never even considered.
Having a computer gives them the opportunity to work with the latest technology, from their own homes and neighborhoods, to support their families to get out of poverty and gradually close the economic and educational gap that exists in Colombia.
Medellin broke the Guinness record for the largest classroom software class in the world.
This week (October 19, 2022) was held in Medellin a presential software class attended by more than 3000 young people from public schools in the city.
What do these more than 3000 young people have in common?
All the attendees to this classroom software class are high school students who have specialized in information and communication technologies.
The students met for 45 minutes and programmed a website on the future computers provided by the mayor's office.
The high school students who participated are enrolled in the following programs: Software Development, Systems Technician, Database Processing, Maintenance and Visualization, Computer Systems Assistant, Internet of Things -IOT- Support and Maintenance, Data Analytics, and Systems Technical Baccalaureate.
This technical education is call by the city hall The Software Nursery
It is an initiative like all those already mentioned that wants to touch the hearts and minds of all the young people of the city. In these technical studies, emphasis is being made on information technology studies with a view to making the city a power in software development very soon.
In Medellin there is a Building called Ruta N:
According to themselves: "We are the innovation and business center of Medellin; our purpose is to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of the inhabitants of the city through Science, Technology and innovation".
Ruta N's mission is to articulate technology, science and innovation in order to turn the city into a knowledge economy.
To achieve this, Ruta N has three main strategies:
- Attract global talent to the city
- Develop an innovative entrepreneurial network in the city.
- Generate science, technology and innovation solutions to the city's challenges.
Medellin is no longer a city but a special district of science, technology, and innovation.
Thanks to a law passed in 2021, Medellin became a Special District:
- A district is a territorial entity with administrative autonomy, which can be governed by its own authorities and enjoys special powers.
- By being a Special District of Science, Technology and Innovation, companies will be able to access different benefits and incentives that seek to continue promoting this type of activities in the territory.
Conclusion:
Medellin has been a city historically affected by violence, which in turn has brought poverty and social inequality to the territory. However, a few years ago the city of Medellin is preparing to be a leader in information technology.
Medellin is seeding in its youth and children the seed of technology with important initiatives such as Computadores Futuro, secondary education focused on technology, the projects carried out by Runa N, and the recent law that designates Medellin as a special district of science, technology and innovation, giving it the ability to grow in these aspects independently of the central government of the country.
In Code Branch we believe in the immense talent of the young people of Medellin and Colombia, we approach international companies to this workforce that has as characteristics, good performance, creativity, drive and joy.