Digital Opportunity Trust

Last updated

Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) is a Canadian charitable organization [1] and social enterprise that provides technology, entrepreneurship and leadership training programs for young people in East Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Canada. [2] The organization's headquarters are in Ottawa, Ontario, with local operations around the globe. Since the organization was founded in 2001, DOT has directly affected more than 6,000 young people worldwide, [3] who have gone on to reach over 1 million of their fellow community members. [4] More than 90% of alumni, reportedly secure employment or start their own businesses within six months of completing DOT programming. [5]

Contents

DOT’s stated mission is "to create a youth-led movement of daring social innovators who have the tools, knowledge and networks to create opportunities and transform their own communities". [6]

The DOT model

DOT operates under a youth-leading-youth model. Each of its economic, education and leadership programs are facilitated by recent graduates from the local area. [7] Those team members are called DOT Interns. Interns go through a month-long training process where they learn writing, collaboration, facilitation and coaching skills. [3] They then offer DOT's signature programs at partner organizations across their country. Each DOT Intern is projected to affect 200 of their peers. [8]

DOT's programs include: [9]

Leadership

DOT's president and CEO is Janet Longmore, who has been recognized as a leading social entrepreneur. In 2013, she was named a Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, [13] becoming only the second Canadian to win the award. [14] She has also been named a senior fellow with Ashoka Canada for her leadership at DOT. [15] Longmore is a member of the World Economic Forum. [16]

David Johnston, a former Governor General of Canada, was DOT's first chair of the board of directors, [17] a role he held during his time as the president of the University of Waterloo. The current[ when? ] chairman of the board is Patrick Gossage, who served as press secretary to former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. [18]

Expansion

Indigenous Canada
In fall 2014, DOT launched ReachUp! North, its first program in Canada targeted at Indigenous youth. [19] The program adapts DOT's international ReachUp! program to meet the unique needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit youth in Ottawa, and adds a cultural component to the workplace and digital skills training. [20] The program is meant to help counter higher-than-average rates of unemployment [21] among Aboriginal youth in Canada.

Ethiopia
During 2023 funding from the Government of Canada was in support of youth employment programming in urban Ethiopia. [22] The $10 million contribution aims to build the entrepreneurship and business skills of 75,000 young people in the country by 2018. The grant will also help DOT Ethiopia establish a series of business development service centers in Addis Ababa, Hawassa and Mekele. [23] [24]

Youth-Led Enterprise and Development Program
The Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada has also supported DOT through its Youth-Led Enterprise and Development Program. The current[ when? ] $6.9 million contribution is projected to help 88,000 young African women and men in Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. [25]

West Africa
In October 2014, DOT received a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation in order to determine the feasibility of its model "to address digital skills development and job placement for high potential, disadvantaged youth in Ghana". [26] The grant is part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Digital Jobs Africa Initiative. [27]

Related Research Articles

AIESEC is an international "youth-run" and led, non-governmental and not-for-profit organization that provides young people with business development internships. The organization focuses on empowering young people to make a progressive social impact. The AIESEC network includes approximately 40,000 members in 120+ countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gbenga Sesan</span>

Gbenga Sesan is a social entrepreneur who delivers Information and communications technology to underserved people. He has had a career in the application of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) – for individuals, institutions, nation-states, regional entities and the international community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social entrepreneurship</span> Approach to develop, fund and implement solutions to social or environmental issues

Social entrepreneurship is an approach by individuals, groups, start-up companies or entrepreneurs, in which they develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. This concept may be applied to a wide range of organizations, which vary in size, aims, and beliefs. For-profit entrepreneurs typically measure performance using business metrics like profit, revenues and increases in stock prices. Social entrepreneurs, however, are either non-profits, or they blend for-profit goals with generating a positive "return to society". Therefore, they use different metrics. Social entrepreneurship typically attempts to further broad social, cultural and environmental goals often associated with the voluntary sector in areas such as poverty alleviation, health care and community development.

infoDev is a World Bank Group program that supports high-growth entrepreneurs in developing economies. The program is part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit of the World Bank Group's Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophia Bekele</span> Ethiopian-American businesswoman

Sophia Bekele Eshete is an entrepreneur, corporate executive, governance and risk management specialist, policy advisor on ICT, commentator and philanthropist.

Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk, and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.

The African Leadership Academy (ALA) is an educational institution located in the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, for students between the ages of 16 and 19 years old, with current alumni coming from 46 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center</span> Youth center in Bangladesh

Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC) is the first leadership institution in Bangladesh. Originally developed at Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership in 2008, Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center was established in Bangladesh in 2009. The signature component of BYLC is the four-month-long youth leadership program, Building Bridges through Leadership Training (BBLT). Besides the BBLT program, BYLC also conducts programs and workshops for university students.

Livity Africa is a non profit organisation with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Launched in 2011, Livity Africa publishes the Live Magazine SA, a nationwide youth‐run media channel that helps springboard young people into full‐time paid employment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regina Honu</span> Ghanaian software developer

Regina Honu, is a Ghanaian social Entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and Human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. Honu has received multiple awards, including being named by CNN as one of the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji</span> Nigerian social entrepreneur

Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji is a Nigerian social entrepreneur and human development expert whose work cuts across entrepreneurship, education, youth development and public leadership. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Rise Networks, a Nigeria-based private and public sector funded Youth Interest social enterprise.

INJAZ Al-Arab is a non-profit organization for education and training in workforce readiness, financial literacy and entrepreneurship across the Arab World. INJAZ Al-Arab is the Regional Operating Center of JA Worldwide (JAW), one of the largest global non-governmental organizations dedicated to addressing fundamental social and economic challenges faced by young people. INJAZ Al-Arab is also an active participant in the United Nations Global Compact. Over 5 million students have participated in a broad base of entrepreneurship training opportunities aimed at developing basic business skills to start and run their own businesses while obtaining soft skills increasingly demanded by the private sector. Since its inception, INJAZ Al-Arab has built a network of over 100,000 classroom volunteers, who are leaders from the corporate world. INJAZ Al-Arab has a Regional Board of Directors, which comprises 24 executives that manage some companies and institutions, as well as a team of staff, led by Akef Aqrabawi, President and CEO of the Middle East/North Africa for JA Worldwide.

Jumpstart Academy Africa is a for impact social venture which utilizes entrepreneurial leadership and mentoring to solve Africa’ human capital problem which starts at the secondary school level. The founding mission of the Academy is to create a wave of entrepreneurial leaders by pioneering a world class Leadership and Entrepreneurship curriculum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minister of Small Business Development</span> South African ministerial position

The Minister of Small Business Development is a Minister in the Cabinet of South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uganda National Entrepreneurship Development Institute</span>

The Uganda National Entrepreneurship Development Institute (UNEDI) is a privately owned national resource development institution in Uganda whose focus area is entrepreneurship education, training and research. The institute provides training techniques, faculty support, consultancy, research as well as teaching and development of entrepreneurship training materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Njideka Harry</span> Nigerian entrepreneur and activist

Njideka Françoise Harry is a World Economic Forum Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Fellow.

Social entrepreneurship in South Asia involves business activities that have a social benefit, often for people at the bottom of the pyramid. It is an emerging area of entrepreneurship that is supported by both the public sector and the private sector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neelam Pol</span>

Neelam Pol is an entrepreneur and founder of Khel Planet Foundation. She is a Harvard University alumna and lives in Mumbai.

Mirabelle Morah is a social entrepreneur and the founder of BlankPaperz Media, a digital publishing platform. Morah was a panelist at the 2019 and 2020 Social Enterprise World Forum where she spoke on "Innovation in Youth Engagement," and "Building Youth Movements." She is also a recipient of Her Network Woman of the Future Award.

References

  1. ↑ "Digital Opportunity Trust - Quick View". Canada Revenue Agency. Retrieved 13 March 2019.[ dead link ]
  2. ↑ "Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT)". Canada Helps. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  3. 1 2 Herman, Dan (24 October 2014). "Solutions to Youth Unemployment - An Excerpt". deepcentre. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  4. ↑ Ashoka (27 October 2014). "Africa: 3 Tech Innovations that are Solving Youth Unemployment in Africa" . allAfrica. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  5. ↑ "Three More Leading Social Entrepreneurs Elected Ashoka Fellows in Canada". canada.ashoka.org. Ashoka Canada. Archived from the original on 27 January 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "About Digital Opportunity Trust". Digital Opportunity Trust. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  7. ↑ "Our Impact". Digital Opportunity Trust. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  8. ↑ "Digital Opportunity Trust 2013 Annual Report". Digital Opportunity Trust. Retrieved 27 January 2015.[ dead link ]
  9. ↑ "Program Overview". Digital Opportunity Trust. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "Corporate Service Corps". IBM. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  11. ↑ "Our Impact". Digital Opportunity Trust. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  12. ↑ "Corporate Service Corps - Icons of Progress". IBM. 7 March 2012. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  13. ↑ "Janet Longmore". Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
  14. ↑ Geddes, John (15 February 2013). "Entrepreneurs against poverty: a Canadian wins a prize". Maclean's. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  15. ↑ "Three More Leading Social Entrepreneurs Elected Ashoka Canada Fellows". Ashoka Canada.
  16. ↑ "Janet Longmore". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  17. ↑ Pleiter, Shelley (Summer 2013). "Making Waves". Smith Magazine. Queen’s University. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017.
  18. ↑ "Strategic Partners". Media Profile. Archived from the original on 25 March 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  19. ↑ Vollmershausen, Amanda (16 October 2014). "Carleton students help bring new aboriginal skills program to Canada". The Charlatan. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  20. ↑ Mabie, Elizabeth (5 November 2014). "Indigenous program reaches out to promote entrepreneurship". Algonquin Times. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  21. ↑ "3". YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN CANADA: CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS. Parliament of Canada. June 2014. Retrieved 21 September 2022.
  22. ↑ "Project profile: Entrepreneurship and Business Growth for Youth". Archived from the original on 22 March 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  23. ↑ "DOT Ethiopia launches five-year entrepreneurship and business growth initiative". Digital Opportunity Trust. Archived from the original on 17 August 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  24. ↑ Torres-Rahman, Zahid (2023-03-02). "Refugee Employment Through Remote Work: How Na'amal is Creating Change". Business Fights Poverty. Retrieved 2023-03-13.
  25. ↑ "Project profile: Youth-Led Enterprise and Development". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  26. ↑ "Digital Opportunity Trust". The Rockefeller Foundation. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  27. ↑ "Digital Jobs Africa".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.