Create a Lab for 150 Students Overcoming Poverty

Thank you very much for helping us to build the ILIMI Computer Lab!

In August, the ILIMI Lab hosted our first community Coding Camp for young people seeking to discover this new language.  The course was free for the public; more than 100 students applied for 10 spots.  The course was taught by John Rytel, a brilliant young man from Poland who interned at A.D.U. this summer.  For many of the girls and boys who participated, this course was their first introduction to coding.  They found the course both challening and rewarding.  We look forward to continuing to offer these types of programs.

On October 1, A.D.U. will welcome our second class of undergraduate students.  We are also preparing to move to a new campus in the near future, and that new campus will enable us to expand our computer lab for both our students and the broader Niamey community.  In order to do so, we will need to purchase additional computers.  We look forward to building upon our partnership with IT Schools Africa as we undertake this expansion, and we will depend upon your support as well.

We are grateful to you for your trust and for helping to connect students from the Sahel with ideas, knowledge, skills, and collaborators from across the globe.

Thank you.

Warm regards,

Meredith

Links:

• Check out A.D.U.'s new website

Thank you so much to all of you for supporting the A.D.U. Computer Lab.  The doors to the lab are now open!  The lab is currently serving 41 undergraduates, 31 master's students, more than 100 professionals learning English, and dozens of secondary school students who participate in special programs at A.D.U.!  As we double our enrollment in the fall, the lab will serve an ever-growing number of young leaders.

As a result of your generosity and our partnerships with IT Schools Africa and Niger Telecoms, A.D.U. students are now far better able to connect with the world. They are already using their new access to conduct research into macroeconomic trends, to apply to international fellowships, to master touch typing, and to craft their English CVs and cover letters.

On July 2, 100% of our undergraduates will embark upon 6-month internships with top employers, including Save the Children, Niger Telecoms, the French Embassy, the American Cultural Center, Business Challenge, KMC, AirTel, Orange, atelier masomi and more!  Thanks to the skills they have developed during their first year at A.D.U., our students will be far ahead of many university graduates in their ability to use Excel to analyze data, PowerPoint to make compelling presentations, and Google tools to organize meetings and share documents.

The next big thing: This fall, A.D.U. will begin teaching Harvard's world-renowned CS50 (Introduction to Computer Science) course to all undergraduates!  They will come to understand how a computer functions and will master several coding languages as part of this course.  Thanks to the support of the team of Professor David Malan and his colleagues at Harvard, an A.D.U. professor has now participated in the intensive teacher preparation workshop for teachers of CS50 and is now armed with all the materials and modules from CS50.  We cannot wait to add CS50 to the A.D.U. student experience!

To everyone who has so kindly supported us, thank you.  We look forward to continuing to partner with you as A.D.U. realizes our dream of becoming the hub of excellence in Francophone West Africa.