Addis Ababa City Administration Intensifies Efforts on Coders Initiative

Addis Ababa, August 13, 2025 (POA) – The Addis Ababa City Administration has announced that it is ramping up efforts to advance the Coders Initiative, aimed at equipping the city’s youth with competitive ICT skills.

Awale Mohamed, Head of the Addis Ababa Innovation and Technology Development Bureau (ITDB), told ENA that the intensified work seeks to qualify young people under the Coders Initiative to meet global standards.

Of the 338,000 youths enrolled in the program in Addis Ababa, about 200,000 have already completed their training.

This summer, ITDB has planned to train an additional 108,000 youths, with 52,400 of them receiving training in collaboration with the Addis Ababa Education Bureau. The program is also expanding through partnerships with academic institutions and Technical and Vocational Training Schools.

The initiative’s primary goal is to produce globally competent ICT professionals, as demand for skilled youth from international organizations continues to rise.

On the 18th of July 2025, Ministry of Innovation and Technology  reported that some 1.6 million Ethiopians were participating in the national 5-Million Coders' Training Program and so far, 900,000 youth have completed the program.

Awale emphasized that the training program, including artificial intelligence (AI) components, will continue to be scaled up to prepare youth for emerging opportunities.

The Coders Initiative is part of the broader vision to transform Addis Ababa into a smart city by 2030. The smart city plan is built on six pillars: smart economy, smart environment, smart governance, smart living, smart mobility, and smart people, with a strong focus on digitalization.

In related developments, ITDB leadership and staff recently held discussions with a South Korean delegation led by Eunhee Roh, Team Leader for Overseas Projects at the Seoul Urban Solutions Agency (SUSA) under the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

The talks focused on potential cooperation in ICT infrastructure development, e-government services, and establishing a cloud data center, among other areas.

On July 23, 2024, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the 5 million Ethiopian Coders Initiative in a bid to provide online coding training to 5 million young people across Ethiopia, to transform the country into a technology and economic hub.

The training covers a variety of areas, including web programming, Android app development, data science, and foundational AI skills.

 

 

 

 

Ethiopian News Agency
2023