Prepared by Lucia Valente

On Saturday February 17, 2018 we visited with Damilola Fasoranti (Fash) and his team at Prikkle Academy.

Fash shared with me that the word ‘Prikkle‘ means to inspire and encourage, and really, that is all we can do for others. Hopefully we trigger a spark that does inspire and encourage them to see their own potential.

I love that Fash introduces himself by stating …’I disrupt — this is now my public hobby.’ How exciting for me to note that the LoG team and Damilola (Fash) share a similar ethos – we both identify ourselves with disruption.

What he and a small group of talented people in rural Nigeria are doing is impressive. Fash and the team validate my view that to change the lives of people – to give them opportunities on which to build a successful future – you don’t need to spend huge amounts of money. With effort, focus, creativity, talent and specific competencies a small group can change lives. And that is exactly what Prikkle Academy is doing with students from a local high school – Crownford Model College. My Nigeria trip had many highlights and the afternoon we spent with Fash and several of the students was one of the most powerful highlights of my visit to Nigeria.

Prikkle Academy – a small NGO in rural Nigeria – shares the core values of both LoG and CCN. Wonderful NGOs in Nigeria and organizations in Ireland discovered each other and through harmonization already have projects underway.

By time of publication, the LoG team has hosted two sessions with a teacher at the school, Kuranga Abiodun (Abbey), and more than a dozen students from Crownford Model College using our educational modules. These young high school students, connecting from rural Nigeria are online with the LoG team in Ireland, the US and Canada, using our modules to learn mathematics. All of this occurs virtually and in real time.

Phase two of our collaboration involves facilitating an Introductory Wolfram Programming Course with a core group of students. Again, our model and ethos are to provide to students in rural Nigeria the same educational opportunities as students in Europe and North America. Advanced, high quality education without barriers!