Isaac Damian Ezirim
“If we must solve some of tomorrow’s challenges, we must come together today to inspire young people everywhere with the promise of technology,” says Isaac Damian Ezirim.
Isaac Damian Ezirim is a social innovator, technology advocate and the founder of Teens Can Code; a non-profit providing access to computer programming classes to students in low–income communities at no cost. Teens Can Code helps young people between the ages of 11 and 22 to access technology opportunities through problem-solving and coding. The organization brings free computer programming classes, workshops, events, and summer programs/bootcamps to various schools in Nigeria. Teens Can Code also help students secure jobs and internship opportunities.
Isaac Ezirim believes that young Nigerians should be able to access opportunities in tech, regardless of their backgrounds. He is particularly interested in affecting the lives of teenagers in rural, low-income communities that may not have access to quality education.
Isaac founded this platform in 2016, primarily to provide young people with problem-solving and coding skills necessary to thrive in a competitive world of work, regardless of their career paths.
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Isaac believes that coding can transform our world and he’s working to help the next generation of Nigerians affect that change. Through the Teens Can Code project, he aims to provide livelihood opportunities for young Nigerians, especially those in marginalized communities. He also seeks to build effective and confident girls who are bold enough to take on the challenges in the tech industry, and also help to increase women’s participation in the technology space.
Issac is also the convener of Teens Code Conferences, a popular technology event that has impacted over 7,000 teenagers from various communities in Nigeria. The conference uses technology education as a tool to build young Nigerians into technology leaders who would build positive societies. The project has been featured in numerous media outlets including BBC Africa, Channels Television, Television Continental (TVC), Africa Independent Television (AIT), and more.
In 2019, Isaac was selected as a GoalKeeper for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in New York and was a member and delegate at the Global Engagement Summit in Chicago, USA. In 2018 he received the Queens Young Leaders Award, an honour by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, UK, in recognition of his creative solution to addressing issues in the Commonwealth. He is also a 2018 Fellow of LEAP Africa Social Innovators Programme, an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth, an Outstanding Young Nigerians by JCI International, and a Fellow of the Global Youth ActionNet.
Isaac is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge and WebThinkers Institute.
Learn more about his works on Teens Can Code