Youth unemployment is one of the biggest issues facing young people today, with rates as high as 13% in 2016. In Southern Asia, there were approximately 13.9 million youth who were unemployed in 2017. Recognizing that 25% of Bangladeshi youth do not complete their education for a variety of reasons such as limited financial resources, and being one of these individuals, Sumon Molla Selim took it upon himself to learn how to code. With this new skill, he was able to find work to support himself and finish his education. Through his experience, he wanted to ensure that other youth had opportunities to succeed and founded the organization Lets Learn Coding to tackle youth unemployment in his country.
The mission:
Lets Learn Coding is an educational platform which aims to empower youth by providing quality skills development training and mentorship, mostly on coding and programming to battle the youth’s biggest problems – unemployment and lack of skills. They provide courses and trainings on various technology skills – web development, mobile app development, graphic design, digital marketing and so on. They also mentor and guide their students after the training and help them identify employment and internship opportunities.
Since founding his organization, Sumon has reached more than 4,000 young people between 16 to 25 years old in high schools, colleges, and universities through over 50 capacity-building workshops on coding. Lets Learn Coding has also helped 25 dropout students learn web development by providing 7 months of free training in 2017, and many of them are now employed in the workforce. Furthermore, through their free courses and classes, more than 18,000 people have been reached.
In the next year, Sumon and his organization aim to distribute their courses and training to at least 50,000 youth in their country, and help at least 50 youth directly to receive internship and job opportunities after they finish their coursework.
A Healthy Blueprint 