Accra, March 24, GNA - The Finatrade Foundation, on Wednesday presented GH¢25,000 to the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE), to support ICT skills development at the Senior High School (SHS) level. Under the i2CAP ( I Too Can Programme), a youth in ICT project, designed to introduce young Ghanaians to the world of ICT with focus on computer programming, Finatrade, has over the past years provided more th= an GH¢200,000 to support the project.

It is a nation-wide training and competition programme for 2010-2011=

and support Ghana's participation in the 2010 edition of the Internationa= l Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) programmes. Ms. Dorothy Gordon, Director-General of AITI-KACE, said the i2CAP sought to generate enthusiasm in the use and application of ICT through computer programming competitions among Senior High School (SHS) students= .. She said during the first round of the project, 303 teachers from 25= 7 SHSs were trained, between 2004 and 2007.

About 573 students were involved and 25 top student coders, who excelled, were to compete at the regional and national levels. Ms. Gordon explained that four best coders from the national competition were mentored and represented Ghana in the 2008 edition of th= e IOI held in Egypt and the 2009 edition held in Bulgaria.

She announced that the project was embarking on the second round nationwide training of SHS students in computer programming, language usi= ng C/C++, an excellent platform for learning computer programming. Ms. Gordon said during the second round (2010-2011), more than 10,00= 0 students from 300 SHSs were expected to acquire basic computer programmin= g skills in C/C++ with 1,200 students participating in the regional competitions. Ms. Joyce Aryee, Board Chairman of Finatrade Foundation, said the package was to show the Foundation's support for the development of ICT i= n the country, especially among young people who would be able to master IC= T in developing their own programmes.

"The real value of ICT is how to use it to meet the needs of our time= ," she stressed and encouraged students to take advantage of opportunities t= o develop themselves to fit into society. Mr. Gideon Boye Quarcoo, Deputy Minister of Communications, said government was committed to developing ICT tools to enable young people t= o explore opportunities in ICT but could not finance such tools alone therefore, the assistance by the management of Finatrade was ideal. He urged the students to take the learning of ICT serious to enable them become marketable globally.