August was a month of excitement, creativity, and discovery at the Oracle office in Lagos, Nigeria, as 60 young innovators between the ages of 6 and 17 gathered for the inaugural Future Minds Summer AI Bootcamp. Held August 4–16, 2025, under the theme ‘Discovering the Future: An AI Summer School for Africa’s Young Innovators’, Digital Equity Africa partnered with Oracle Academy, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and other notable organizations to deliver a groundbreaking two-week learning experience for youth eager to explore the world of artificial intelligence.
Led by Oracle Academy Program Manager Bekere Amassoma, Oracle’s involvement was central to making AI accessible and engaging. The camp’s curriculum, meticulously crafted to balance technical skills and creativity, covered everything from AI fundamentals and digital ethics to prompt engineering, generative AI, and the thrilling possibilities of creating music and art with cutting-edge technology.
A highlight of the camp was the introduction of Alice, an innovative educational Java platform developed by Carnegie Mellon. Alice is a free, block-based, object-oriented platform for creating 3D animations, interactive stories, and games. Oracle Academy provides the Alice platform to students and educators, bridging computer science concepts to the Java programming language and fostering digital literacy. On ‘Animation with AI using Alice’ day, participants used storytelling and animation as a fun and intuitive entry point to programming logic and computational thinking. This session allowed participants to see immediate, tangible results from their work, boosting their confidence and fueling curiosity for further exploration.
Throughout the bootcamp, the youth engaged in teamwork challenges, collaborative project building, and mentor check-ins, all guided by a team of industry experts and innovators.
The demo day provided an encouraging stage for every participant to showcase their AI-powered art, apps, websites, and more before an enthusiastic audience of parents, educators, and government officials.
The results spoke for themselves: 98% of participants built their first AI or coding project, and 80% reported improved problem-solving and collaboration skills.
Oracle Academy is proud to help shape Africa’s future innovators and problem-solvers, one summer at a time, by making AI literacy, creativity, and confidence accessible to every child.
Interested in learning more about Oracle Academy’s initiatives or getting involved in future camps? Contact us or visit our website for resource materials and collaboration opportunities.
Links to publications: https://www.instagram.com/p/DNBavrPC02M/