GCT Delivers Mobile Apps Training for Antigua Youth

ST JOHNS, ANTIGUA  -  On Sunday 19 December 2011, after four days of intense training, fifty Antigua & Barbuda youth, celebrated the launch of their first mobile app. The achievement is even more remarkable considering that most of them had no prior programming experience.

The youngsters ranging in age from 12 to 21, many fresh out of their end of term school exams, took part in the special training hosted conducted by BrightPath Foundation (an initiative of Congress WBN’s Global Communications & Technology (GCT). Bevil Wooding, Chief Knowledge Officer of Congress WBN and Stephen Lee, a senior GCT Team Lead facilitated the training. The training was hosted by the Antigua-based non-profit, Precise Development Foundation.

Wooding shared “The sessions were highly interactive with lots of questions and feedback on how technology is impacting at the personal, corporate and global level. The workshop left everyone with new perspectives on mobile, technology, Congress WBN.”

Wingrove Spencer, Founder of Precise Development Foundation agreed, saying “The experience with the youth of our community has validated our conviction that our young people are filled with the talent, creativity and discipline to define a new future for our country. They can embrace their correct position as producers and not mere consumers in the digital age.”

Spencer added, “We were quite pleased to be able to partner with the BrightPath Foundation for this historic event. Their team did a splendid job in presenting the material to the youth in a way that was engaging and fun.”

The youth were able to identify wrong self-concept, low self-esteem and inaccurate valuing of their own ideas, interests and perspectives as factors that impeded their ability to contribute.  They uncovered wrong ways of thinking that had to be discarded before they could take their rightful place as content producers in their local community, in Antigua and Barbuda and for the wider Congress.

At the end of the workshop some of the comments from participants were:

“This was fantastic! At first I thought it was going to be hard, but the facilitators really made it easy. I can’t wait to get together with my friends to start making our own apps.” Tara

“It was about collaboration and agreement, about how we become one.” Mark

“The sessions really helped us to understand that even though we are youths we have something of value to share with others.” Onecia

BrightPath Foundation is an initiative of Congress WBN, with a mandate to deliver values-based technology and digital content training to youth, communities and governments around the world.