Youth Can Do IT (YCDI) has taught over 2,500 Jamaican children since its inception in 2016.

Now it is on its way to achieving its goal of making a significant impact on the next generation by teaching them all that information technology (IT) has to offer.

According to the Chief Technology Officer Christopher Derrell, YCDI, a non-profit organisation dedicated to exposing Jamaican children to IT, launched Project Amplify in May, and it will run until August. The programme, Derrell said, is to ensure that the 25 students who have signed up will learn about ethics in the metaverse.

“Meaning, how do you use this whole virtual reality space? But then, how do they build their own spaces?” he said, noting that the project is in partnership with Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

“We came up with it through discussions with one of the representatives from Oxford University from last year, and the idea was what can we put on in Jamaica that can actually advance this conversation about virtual reality and how to use it. Ethics in the metaverse is still a new concept, so how do we get our kids ready, but also lead the conversation. The sessions will vary, but we have six sessions scheduled between May to July for phase 2 – Ethics In The Metaverse – and in August we’ll be teaching the students how to build their own spaces, Phase 3,” Derrell continued.

Darrell said that for Project Amplify, YCDI is focused on students between the ages of 10 and 17 years.

“The only way [to sign up] is that you can go on https://ycdi.online/amplify. It’s free,” he said, encouraging interested individuals to visit the website.

But Derrell was quick to point out that none of this would be possible without the forward thinking of YCDI’s founder Lianne McNaughton.

“It was because she realised there was a lot of exposure for students in Jamaica. A lot of persons don’t have a clear path on how to become an excellent person in IT,” he said.

Although there are only now three members of YCDI, Derrell explained that they have procured help from volunteers, dubbed YCDI change agents.

“We get volunteers from high school and university and persons just starting to work, and they come on board as our arms and legs. So we teach them and they will facilitate sessions, interact with the kids, and do the actual leading of the courses,” he said.

However, that is not a cheap endeavour, and Derrell stated that so far it has cost the organisation $10 million to operate.

“We are currently partly funded by Oxford, they have given us a grant that will go towards it. They are not just funding partners, but that’s their main contributions so far. We do have some persons from the university coming on board. We are seeking other grants because the programme will not be cheap. It’s over $10 million, and that’s broken down into things like virtual reality headsets, which aren’t cheap, but also funding spaces to teach the kids. For our change agents, we also give them a stipend because they are working,” Derrell said.

Speaking about another programme that the organisation initiated, Derrell said, ” We did work with Sandals Foundation in Rose Town, Kingston. [The programme] was called iRose In Tech, for women in the community, where we taught women up to the age of 29 how to do things, like a little bit of coding. But the main target group is kids between the ages of seven to adults that are 25.”

Describing how he joined the organisation in 2017, Derrell said the core of it is that he believes this is what “God has called me to do”.

“I know he’s given me the gift to teach, so I love to teach. But I also have a high passion for making people more productive with technology, and I’ve had from when I was young. They used to call me Mr Fix it because that was my goal, learning how to do things better. I enjoy the impact, I enjoy seeing when students take what you teach them, which is the fundamentals, and they do something amazing,” Derrell said.

He further stated that, among the organisers, one of their goals is to have Project Amplify, which is a pilot, become an annual event.

“But the first thing that we want out of this is when we come together and discuss ethics in the metaverse, how do you interact safely with others, knowing that you don’t know who is on the other side? We have a guideline that we prepared to be something that the private sector and Government take a read of. We think it would be beneficial for the Government to look at this document to see that this is the state of technology, and this is how we can set it up to be safely used,” Derrell stated.