President John Mahama has underscored the need for the country to embrace digital transformation which he says underpins the country’s recovery.
President Mahama who fulfilled yet another of his 2024 campaign promise by launching the One Million Coders Programme said the programme is an investment in the youth and the future of the country.
Speaking at the launch of the programme at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT on Wednesday, April 16, 2025 President Mahama urged the youth especially to embrace the initiative to as they seek to create employment avenues for themselves.
“This programme is an investment in our youth, an investment in their future as coders, as analysts, as entrepreneurs and as tech pioneers. When I asked for your mandate to serve once more as President, I made a promise that our national recovery will be people-centred, innovation-led and future-focused. And that recovery begins by breaking down the barriers that hold us back, social, economic and digital” he intimated.
He added that the barriers to Ghana’s recovery will be broken with the coming on stream of the One Million Coders Programme.
“Today, we begin breaking down those barriers. Over the next four years, the One Million Coders programme will train one million Ghanaians in essential digital skills, from coding and cybersecurity to data analytics and networking. These are not just technical abilities, they are economic passports, pathways to decent jobs, entrepreneurship and long-term social, economic inclusion” he said
President John Mahama highlighted the strides nations that embraced coding early enough have made and the need for Ghana to embrace same.
“We do not walk this path alone. Across the globe, nations that recognize the power of coding early have positioned themselves for extraordinary progress.
Take Estonia for example. In 2012, Estonia became one of the first countries in the world to introduce coding as a compulsory subject as low as primary schools. Today, Estonia is a global leader in digital governance and innovation, with one of the world’s most digitally integrated societies. In the United Kingdom, since 2014, children as young as five have been learning basic programming” he explained.
The event was attended by key stakeholders including telecommunication giants, the MTN Group, Telesel Ghana, Csquared, Google, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, the ALX, Tony Blair Institute, and several other partners who have expressed willingness to support the initiative.
