About · Founder's Story
Alero Thompson
Founder & CEO, Blue Sands Academy
She grew up watching the gap widen. The girl who couldn't apply for the job because she couldn't use a computer. The woman who watched opportunity pass her by because no one had ever taught her how to reach for it. Then she decided the waiting was over.
What started as a mission for girls became a mission for anyone the digital economy had left behind — students, youth, persons with disabilities, and underserved communities across Nigeria.
In Her Own Words
Photo coming soon
Digital skills training session, Lagos
I grew up in a community where the computer literacy gap is very wide. Despite having the highest growth in internet penetration across the globe, Africa remains the only continent whose digital divide has widened since 2013. Barriers contributing to the gap include unaffordable access, threats to access and use, low digital literacy and confidence, and the lack of relevant content, applications, and services.
Over 90% of jobs presently have a digital component, and 85% of underserved communities do not have the required tech skills to fill in these gaps. Another problem we are tackling is that 7 in 10 young people in Nigeria and across Africa lack computer literacy skills.
With learning disrupted, and a looming economic crisis as well as social isolation as a result of the pandemic, the threat of forced and child marriages, including teenage and unwanted pregnancies, has increased considerably.
Young people in Nigeria and across Africa lack computer literacy skills
Of underserved communities lack the tech skills required by today's jobs
Of jobs today have a significant digital component
Year Africa's digital skills gap started widening. It hasn't stopped.
"Modern technologies require infrastructure to run; without the necessary equipment, the teaching never leaves the theoretical."
Building It Anyway
I have had some challenges in training students and communities, including a lack of technological components, especially computers, cultural norms, and financial capacity to build tech solutions and run tech programmes.
In many communities, the idea of a young person spending time on a computer, rather than on domestic or family duties, is a point of contention that must be navigated with patience and proof. The financial capacity to build and sustain tech programmes in underserved areas remains a persistent and honest challenge.
But the obstacles don't change what is true: a person with digital skills is a person with options. And a community where people have options is a community that grows.
Photo coming soon
Community outreach programme, Ogun State
Vision & Mission
Our Vision
To equip students, youth, and underserved communities with access to digital technology-based, life-altering opportunities so they can achieve fulfilment in both their personal and professional lives. In essence, we are creating the "tech-preneurs" of tomorrow — innovators who will use technology to tackle the world's issues.
Our Mission
To actively empower students, youth, and underserved communities with ICT, business, and financial literacy skills in order to elevate them to be leaders and agents of change.
About Blue Sands Academy
Blue Sands Academy is a training centre for ICT skills. We focus on building the technological capacities of students and communities, starting with secondary school students, undergraduates, and working professionals. We believe that fostering young people's interest in technology starts at an early age, and that this is not only a good idea but an essential one.
By providing training, we are helping our students become more confident in their own abilities, and start thinking about what they would like to do with their lives. This can greatly improve their chances of succeeding in future careers.
Blue Sands Academy was founded by Alero Thompson, who recognised that the world of technology was changing rapidly and that training programmes in ICT were severely lacking for students and underserved communities. We set out to close that gap. We are still closing it.
Be Part of the Change
Blue Sands Academy is not a charity project. It is an investment in the most underleveraged asset in Nigerian society: the intelligence, ambition, and capability of its students, youth, and communities.