Meet the Ambassadors: Abayomi Ogundipe, Moldova

Publication date: September 24, 2014

Over 70 EU Code Week Ambassadors from 34 countries are helping us spread the word about #codeEU throughout Europe. Who are they and why did they get involved in Code Week? We’ll be running a series of interviews and get to know them better. Our previous interviewee, Antonis Hadjiantonis from Cyprus, interviewed Abayomi Ogundipe from Moldova.

Abayomi, who are you?

I’m a Nigerian, a social entrepreneur, I play djembe and dundun drums in my leisure time. I co-founded TEKEDU (Tech Education), a non-profit aim to empower institutionalized children for inclusive ICT education and development in Moldova.

How does your country deal with this idea of code learning?

Though I am not Moldovan but I can see great changes in the educational sector. There has been a lot of progress in the reform of informatics curricula from the Ministry of Education in Moldova. One of the reforms is revising the National Curricula on informatics, enabling e-school system and kick-starting Robotics classes which were initiated by USAID in Moldova.

This summer, TEKEDU and a group of young Moldova in Diaspora network from Harvard, Cambridge and Rotterdam school of management implemented a computer science class TINCO for orphan children for five (5) weeks, we thought children how to solve complex problems by thinking algorithmically, learn programming using Scratch and Python. One of our core team member, Alex Railean, a lecturer at the Technical University designed the curricula in a way that it is easy to adapt in general classes and possibly propose to the Ministry of Education to include Python Programming as syllabus in the National Curricula on Informatics.

Our plans after the summer computer class are to further in implementing computer science, set up a laboratory for less-privileged children and generally, open for society and whoever feels the need to learn to program.

It is also worth saying that private IT companies such as Drupal Moldova Association, IP Group Moldova are adapting plans to include lessons on programming as part of their activities in enabling a tech-entrepreneurs among young people. These companies are taking corporate social initiatives to support society and develop the IT sector.

Why are you involved as an EU Code Week ambassador? What do you expect from it?

I was searching for code events in European countries on Twitter just to see what are the events happening around and see if I can adapt it into our programs in Moldova. I found EU Code Week and I decided to register, Gabriella Fumagalli, EU Code Week Ambassador for Switzerland contacted me right away that my web-link wasn’t working and the event I listed was linked to Switzerland, I wrote her immediately that I couldn’t find Moldova as listed in the countries of participants and I would like if she can kindly help with listing Moldova has part of the member country participating in the event. Gabriella sent me the guide of becoming an Ambassador for Moldova and got me in contact with the organizing committee member of EU Code Week Event, Alja Isaković.

My expectation is to connect with other Ambassadors, to share resources and strengthen our activities within EU Code Week and also bring best case practices to Moldova.

Do you have a hero or someone that inspires you (can be a hacker or not)?

I get inspirations from people who go out of their comfort zone to help others. I always believe it’s a rare quality you can find in people.