 Welcome to CBS 2018 here in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where I'm very pleased to be joined in our studio here by Stella Izochiku Dennis, who is the founder of the Odyssey Educational Foundation from Nigeria. Stella, thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much. I'm really glad to be here. I must say, it's been a warm and enjoyable atmosphere, I must say. Wonderful. Let's talk a little bit about this symposium. What brings you here? Why do you think it's important to attend this symposium? Well, it's really important to attend this symposium because I feel the voices of the kids should be heard in this kind of symposium. It shouldn't just be the people in the university. It shouldn't just be the workers who are undergoing the continuous learning. The kids have to be involved. And that's where I work. I work with the kids. I work with the women. I work with the children from the underserved area. And so I feel that we should be inclusive here. So I'm grateful that CBS thought it wise to be able to include us this time around. So tell us a little bit about the Odyssey Educational Foundation. What exactly do you do? The Odyssey Educational Foundation is an organization that was born out of the need to ensure that the Nigerian child becomes the African child in particular to become digitally inclusive. We have found that technology has made the world a smaller place. And we can't say we are not involved. We have to be involved. And so that has actually made us to understand that there's a need for the Nigerian child to be inclusive. I actually write electrical electronics, but I had to leave that to be able to work with the children because there's a need for us to bring up the kids in a way that they would understand that they are digital natives and there's no need for them to be excluded. They should be included and then that's what Odyssey Educational Foundation is actually doing in Nigeria to make sure that the African child is not left out. And what age groups are you looking at here? We work with kids as little as six years old and then we work through 105 or 107. Because we're working presently, we have a project where we've picked up market women who can not do anything who has this big phone and don't know what to do with it. So we're teaching them digital marketing where they're able to extend their business beyond their immediate community. So we're working with kids though, but we are still touching the adults because we don't want them to be left out too. Absolutely. And in terms of developing skills for this inclusive digital society, what do you think are the main challenges? Well, we have a lot of challenges. If you watch what I talked about or what I will talk about this afternoon, we have one, is funding. And then two, I don't want to bother on that because it's like that everywhere. But the second one is a lot of our organization, especially the government, is not ready to embrace the change. They want to remain in the dark age. And we, the youth, have said no to this. So that's why it's a challenge because for my government, it's not yet included in the curriculum. I'm doing it as an after-school, so it's just an add-on. It's not yet included in the curriculum. And so that's one of it. And typically in Nigeria we have what is called the Boko Haram, where they believe that Western education is an abomination. So we're fighting with a lot of people because so many families don't want to get included in this digital era. They feel it's not for us, but it's not true. And so it's one of the challenges we're actually having. And then we have the early marriages. We still have a lot of people in Nigeria wanting to give away their children early. I had a program last year during the International Day of the Girl Child where I went to some of the villages and I spoke with the women. And the women are like, oh yeah, we're okay with our children getting married early, especially the young girls. And I have a flair for the young girls. I'm working with a lot of young girls, more than the boys. Not that I'm leaving the boys out, but I'm ensuring that more girls are involved in this program I'm working with. So religion, early marriage has become one of the problems we're actually facing in ensuring infrastructure too is one of the basic. Like if you get to my center you will see that I have on one system we have over 10 kids trying to work on it. So we have infrastructure problem. And I had during this symposium too a lot of people talking about the IPv6 and all that. We don't even have IPv1, talk of IPv6. So infrastructure and then I had about the cables and like, yeah, I mean the city we have about 4G, but almost all the rural we still have 2G, we're still battling with 2G and all that and it's not even in every area. I must say it's not everywhere, so we're still battling with infrastructure and government bureaucracy. So that basically are the problems we're facing trying to ensure that the Nigerian child is up there with their mates in the digital era. Very, very valuable insights there and obviously a very, very worthy cause. I just wanted to ask you in terms of the conversations that you've been hearing here, you've alluded to some of those essentially. How useful do you think it'll be to, will you be taking back some of the information that you've been exchanging here? What do you think your presence here basically will be most valuable to you? Yeah, I will be taking a lot back to Nigeria. This morning during the section I had about what ITU can partner with you and all that, I'll be exploring more of that. I'll be wanting to ask a lot of questions and then there's this young man too who came from MIT. I know MIT too has, we've been using a lot of their curriculum, like we use scratch, scratch is an MIT, App Inventor is an MIT product so I would also want to leverage on that. I got his email and I'll be emailing him right after now to be able to ensure that we get more things to be able to offer the children in Nigeria. What about in terms of personal stories? You must have come across lots of different stories that have inspired you, that have moved you. Has there been anyone in specifically that you could perhaps share with us that might just give us a little bit of an insight into the situations that you have encountered? Yeah, there's a lot of personal stories I had. There's this lady, I can't remember her name now, she was on the panel this morning and she was telling us how when the kids go to the internet they have a lot of resources available to them and she will just help channel these resources and ensure that it becomes on point for them. So that is one of the stories that really has been battling with because the kids to come around and say, oh we saw this, we saw this, can we do this, can we, because a lot of resources are on the internet for the kids so it helps me to be able to work with them. I heard how she has been able to work with her own kids and so I'll be able to hold onto that and work. And what about your own stories? What about sharing perhaps something that you've experienced in the time of the foundation? Oh yes, I have a lot of stories to tell. Like I said, I actually started as an engineer in Nigeria. I worked with a telecom firm, funny enough, but when I got to India to do my masters, I found out that kids were doing so well when it comes to after school and that's where I got it from. So I picked up that and when I came back to Nigeria I ensured that I had an after school club where the kids come in and then have all this. And then I also have a very personal story to tell too because at first when we started we thought we would just have everything done in Nigeria but funny enough some of our girls and kids have engaged in a lot of competition and they have won. We have a lot of plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. We just even got one last month and we're hoping an announcement too will be made today and we're expecting that team to will be up there. So it's a lot of things, a lot of inspiration for me and then a lot of things that we have started at the Educational Foundation and we're moving forward. And also it's also it's lost that CBS too found me as a resource person to be able to speak in this program this year. Well Stella, thank you very much indeed for joining us in the studio. Thanks for being here at the symposium. We wish you the very best of luck with your foundation and hope to catch up with you again next week.