Popular Nigerian Chess Master, Tunde Onakoya, together with Akintunde Sultan, Co-founder of AltSchool Africa, and Samuel Otigba of Jobs 59, has announced the launch of a ₦250 million scholars
Popular Nigerian Chess Master, Tunde Onakoya, together with Akintunde Sultan, Co-founder of AltSchool Africa, and Samuel Otigba of Jobs 59, has announced the launch of a ₦250 million scholarship initiative aimed at bridging the digital skills gap among recent graduates and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members.
The initiative, announced via an X (formerly Twitter) post on Thursday, aimed to help young Nigerians acquire job-ready technical skills during their mandatory service year and transition to the job market or post-graduate exploration.
When announcing the initiative, Sam Otigba explained that the scholarship is a direct intervention against graduate underemployment in Nigeria. He also stressed the goal of transforming the service year into a launchpad for sustainable tech careers.
“We’re solving the Olodo uprising pandemic, one NYSC at a time. That’s our contribution to society,” he said in the post.
Scholarship for graduates The development comes at a time when digital skills learning becomes complementary with laptop acquisition to aid learning for Nigerian youths and graduates. For most skills, the absence of a laptop as a tool creates an entry barrier that makes skills’ retention almost difficult.
“We also know that learning without a laptop is a major barrier, so we’ll be providing laptops to a select number of scholarship recipients through an additional application process,” part of the statement reads.
The initiative will help qualified beneficiaries focus on practical career resilience. At the same time, AltSchool Africa will host the academic session that covers high-demand skills such as AI-powered full-stack engineering, cybersecurity, cloud engineering, data analysis, technical product management, digital marketing automation and so on.
This isn’t the first such project by the trio. In July 2025, they launched a SIWES-connect programme, an initiative designed to link students and graduates in need of internship opportunities with companies in demand.
The project was a movement aimed at bridging the gap between internship needs and opportunities, leveraging the founders’ social networks
Nigerian Youths What the fund entailsAccording to the official announcement, the initiative is only open to recent graduates and NYSC members.
The program is expected to cover a total of ₦160,000 per beneficiary. Each approved applicant receives ₦10,000 to cover application costs and ₦150,000 towards tuition fees for any 9-to-12-month AltSchool Africa diploma program.
In Recognition that hardware access remains a significant barrier to technical education, the organisers are providing free laptops to a select number of qualified beneficiaries through an additional evaluation process.
Aside from the technical training, beneficiaries will gain access to mentorship, guidance, and direct internship or job opportunities via the Jobs59 platform starting from their sixth month of study.
Qualified applicants are expected to visit https://altschoolafrica.com/nysc for application to the program. Details about when the application would end were not provided by the organisers.
