Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Learnings on your challenge
What are the top key insights you generated about your learning challenge during this Action Learning Plan? (Please list a maximum of 5 key insights)
1- She codes too with Baghdad Business School: She Codes Too with Baghdad Business School: Implementing a 6-month coding and career coaching program for young women in the tech industry. The effectiveness of the women's programming bootcamp in bridging the gap between education and career opportunities in the tech industry. A significant achievement was seen in job placement success, with 82% of the participants (14 out of 17) securing job interviews with tech companies. This indicates a strong alignment between the skills taught and the industry's needs. Furthermore, the transition from academic learning to real-world application was evident, as 12% of the participants (2 out of 17) obtained internships as front-end developers. Equally noteworthy, the same percentage (12%, 2 out of 17 participants) achieved full-time employment in the tech sector, underscoring the bootcamp's role in preparing participants for job readiness and successful careers in technology.
2- Startup bus with Mosul Space Organization: Development of 'Startups Bus' to improve access to data on Iraq's economic landscape and employment trends. The Startups Bus project reveals key insights centered around growth, revenue generation, and self-sufficiency. The plan emphasizes aggressive marketing and user engagement to boost website views and app installations. It also introduces varied revenue streams through free and premium accounts, a data portal, and partnerships. The ultimate goal is operational independence, with strategies to diversify revenue, expand markets, optimize operations, and maintain customer engagement, ensuring long-term growth and sustainability for the Startups Bus initiative.
Online mentorship Platform.
3- Youth Employment Portfolio Design: Creation of a unique portfolio with 20 interventions targeting youth unemployment in Iraq. It emphasizes a systems thinking approach, understanding the interrelations affecting economic development. The strategy combines top-down policy advocacy with bottom-up technical support, focusing on transformational shifts in creating youth-centric environments and addressing educational misalignments. The portifolio details a dynamic portfolio design for youth economic empowerment and highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement and validation in refining and implementing these strategies.
4- Blended learning with MoHESR: The ToT Blended learning workshop found insightful findings about blended learning approaches. The diverse academic backgrounds in the writing committee is enhancing systemic learning approaches. The importance of creating a safe and open learning environment, facilitated by strong relationships among participants. Furthermore, the participants' advanced facilitation skills, emphasizing a shift towards experiential learning methods. A significant need is identified for more knowledge in blended learning models and modern teaching techniques, along with enhancing participants' proficiency in educational technologies, such as Learning Management Systems and digital assessment tools.
5- In Iraq, a developing country, the lack of accurate, interactive data impedes ecosystem development, affecting government, private sector, and youth understanding of needs and solution innovation. Limited government data accessibility, data efficiency in new sectors, and a widening skill-market gap are key challenges. The UNDP Accelerator Lab aims to bolster Iraq's digitalization by supporting data-driven platforms, enhancing innovation ecosystem connectivity. This involves scaling up a digital platform "idata pltform" for interactive dashboards in entrepreneurship and education sectors, focusing on data-driven decisions, data source research, accuracy, categorization, visualization, and social media promotion to address these issues.
Considering the outcomes of this learning challenge, which of the following best describe the handover process? (Please select all that apply)
Our work has led to significant changes in our UNDP Country Office programming, Our work has led to a significant change in public policy at a national or local level, Our work has not yet scaled
Can you provide more detail on your handover process?
it's still not handover it ( under Designing and planning process)
Please paste any link(s) to blog(s) or publication(s) that articulate the learnings on your frontier challenge.
Data and Methods
Relating to your types of data, why did you chose these? What gaps in available data were these addressing?
Why was it necessary to apply the above innovation method on your frontier challenge? How did these help you to unpack the system?
Partners
Please indicate what partners you have actually worked with for this learning challenge.
Please state the name of the partner:
Baghdad Business School
What sector does your partner belong to?
Academia
Please provide a brief description of the partnership.
The UNDP- Accelerator Lab in Iraq worked with Baghdad Business Schools, She Codes too, and Meta for implementing Women Bootcamp for programming initiative. This initiative aims to support women in joining the digitalization movement in Iraq and open spaces for employment opportunities in this space. The hiring Baghdad Business School aligned efforts with an international company, is called Meta, as well as cooperate with a coding institute, is called She Codes Too, to jointly localize a well-recognized coding course and produce free-of-charge women's boot camp for six months, incorporating both offline and online learning modality, that aim to improve programming skills necessary for women to excel in the digital space.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Please indicate what partners you have actually worked with for this learning challenge.
Please state the name of the partner:
Mosul Space Organization
What sector does your partner belong to?
Civil Society
Please provide a brief description of the partnership.
The UNDP Accelerator Lab Iraq completed the second phase of work with the Mosul Space Organization to support boosting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the newly liberated areas through testing and scaling up an online platform “Startups Bus” to gather all the entrepreneurship ecosystem activities in one place and visualize a database of service providers in Mosul. Hence, supporting bringing different technical and business communities together in one place. Throughout the process, a collection of data from various sources was achieved and visualized on the platform.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Please indicate what partners you have actually worked with for this learning challenge.
Please state the name of the partner:
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
What sector does your partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the partnership.
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Please indicate what partners you have actually worked with for this learning challenge.
Please state the name of the partner:
KAPITA
What sector does your partner belong to?
Private Sector
Please provide a brief description of the partnership.
KAPITA is a private sector development company that aims toempower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and largecorporations through investment, research, incubation/acceleration,and market development programs.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
End
Bonus question: How did the interplay of innovation methods, new forms of data and unusual partners enable you to learn & generate insights, that otherwise you would have not been able to achieve?
Please upload any further supporting evidence / documents / data you have produced on your frontier challenge that showcase your learnings.
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4Quality education
5Gender equality
8Decent work and economic growth
9Industry, innovation and infrastructure
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