“Decoding” the Sustainable Development Goals: iamtheCODE and Booking.com partner to host Hackathons on Sustainable Tourism in Nigeria and Uganda.

iamtheCODE and Booking.com today announce their partnership to advance UN Global Goals 8, 14 and 9, which are linked to Sustainable Tourism, Life Below Water and Innovation. The Hackathons hosted by Booking.com in collaboration with iamtheCODE will take place in Nigeria and Uganda from the 17th to 25th of November 2017. Both Hackathons will gather together local women software developers, technologist, coder, entrepreneurs and other multi-stakeholders to use the power of technology, to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries and an important source of foreign exchange and employment for many developing countries such as Nigeria and Uganda; it is the driving forces of economic growth, and currently accounts for 1 in 11 jobs worldwide.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commits Member States, through Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.9 to “devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”. The importance of sustainable tourism, as a driver for jobs creation and the promotion of local culture and products, is also highlighted in Sustainable Development Goal target 12.b.

By giving access to decent work opportunities in the tourism sector, societyparticularly youth and women- can benefit from enhanced skills and professional development. The sector’s contribution to job creation is recognized in target 8.9 “By 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”.

iamtheCODE is the first African-led global movement to mobilise government, private sector, philanthropic organizations and Foundations to advance STEAMED (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Entrepreneurship, and Design) Education. Its Goal is to mobilize governments, Businesses, philanthropic foundations, civil society, to invest in future technologies that can drive sustainable development for marginalized women and girls in society. It aims to Enable 1 Million women and girls coders by 2030 and give them the skills that they will need in the future to enter the job markets.

A fundamental pillar of iamtheCODE’s work revolves around the empowerment of women and girls across the world, a key goal of the SDGs. Their mission is to build a generation of one million women and girl coders by 2030, measuring the indicators of the Global Goals and tracking their progress though DATA, Employability and creation of businesses in tech.

Supported by the United Nations, It is a first and unique movement of direct action for the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to improve economic outcomes for women and girls. However, a lack of data on gender issues, and inclusion of women are huge challenges that face initiatives looking to promote gender equality and improve women’s livelihoods.

The Hackathons will contain 3 tracks and challenges addressing Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), Goal 14 (Life Below Water) and Goal 9 (Innovation and Infrastructure).

The Main track will be co-created in partnership with Booking.com.

Diversity of all kinds has been core to Booking.com’s culture since the company was founded over 20 years ago. Booking.com is devoted to building and hiring a diverse generation of “tech passionate” across the world, including young women and men in Africa, and addressing challenges in girls with STEM through:

  • Equipping them with real-world STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) experience, coding skills, and 21st century challenges requiring collaboration, creativity, problem solving, and computational thinking.
  • Supporting women and girls in various African countries (Nigeria, Uganda), and offering recruitment opportunities for them to join Booking.com
  • Engaging them to participate and advance the Sustainable Development goals, by looking into the importance of Sustainable tourism and the benefit it can bring for job creation.

– Together, IamtheCODE and Booking.com aim to recruit young women and men across Africa, changing their career trajectories to enable them to join Booking.com and building STEM competencies and engagement from their communities.

Carefully selected tracks will give an opportunity to geeks, innovators, dogooders and subject matter experts, with different skill sets ranging from coding, app building and data analysis to designing solutions to challenges faced in the achievement of the SDGs. The best ideas from the women will be developed and supported through local incubation programmes such as the Hive Colab and mentoring and further co-creation of solutions.

Innovative individuals are urgently needed to turn the bold and ambitious SDGs into real action, and Booking.com will contribute its capacity for bringing together creative minds from Africa and the Netherlands to incubate solutions that opens up new paths for sustainable development.

Through initiatives such as the iamtheCODE Hackathon, Booking.com hopes to mobilize technology to play a crucial role in advancing the SDGs, driving development that realizes greater prosperity and inclusivity, through 2030 and beyond.

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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Background

The Sustainable Development Goals include 17 Goals that serve as an urgent guiding master plan to tackle the world’s greatest challenges and ensure that no one is left behind. Innovative individuals are urgently needed to join together with countries and partners to turn the bold and ambitious global plans into real action. See the 17 SDGs here.

Log in to website https://www.iamthecode.org/ to know more.

Get involved by emailing:

Main Organizers:

For iamtheCODE London: Mariéme Jamme: Marieme@iamthecode.org

For Booking.com: Adam Reid: adam.reid@booking.com

Local Partner in Nigeria: Oscar Ekponimo: oscarekponimo@gmail.com

Local Partner in Uganda: Hive Colab: Barbara Birungi: birungibarbs@gmail.com