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.
In Her Own Words
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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 gender gap 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 women do not have the required tech skills to fill in these gaps. Another problem we are tackling is that 7 in 10 girls 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.
Girls in Nigeria and across Africa lack computer literacy skills
Of women lack the tech skills required by today's jobs
Of jobs today have a significant digital component
Year Africa's digital gender 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 women and girls, 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 girl spending time on a computer, rather than on domestic 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 woman with digital skills is a woman with options. And a community where women have options is a community that grows.
Photo coming soon
Community outreach programme, Ogun State
Vision & Mission
Our Vision
To give young girls and women 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 — women who will use technology to tackle the world's issues.
Our Mission
To actively empower women and girls 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 girls in ICT. We focus on building the technological capacities of females, starting with secondary school girls, female undergraduates, and female professionals. We believe that fostering young girls' 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 for women and girls in ICT were severely lacking. 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 women and girls.