TeensCanCode, founded by Queen’s Young Leader award winner Isaac Damian Ezirim, provides training and development opportunities to young people looking to get into the technology industries and provides a plethora of programmes dedicated to advancing internet safety.
Crucial will partner with the team to run Nigeria’s first Safe Gambling Hackathon on April 17th, bolstering its emerging African strategy.
The event will also see the launch of Nigeria’s first youth gambling attitudes survey, lifting the lid on how gambling is affecting the millions of young people in the densely populated country.
Speaking on the partnership; TeensCanCode founder, Isaac Damian Ezirim said: ‘We are excited to be doing this with Crucial Compliance and Adam Bradford Agency as this falls in line with our Virtually Safe initiative to help keep young Africans safe while using the internet, in Lagos where I live there’s a betting shop on almost every street and most times young people are their major customers and users, many of these young people do this without any guidance or adequate information plus the laws that regulate this industry is not stringent enough which exposes everyone even the vulnerable and this can push many of them into depression and loss of money. This partnership can help kick start the needed conversations around gambling, its safety and addiction.’
Crucial successfully ran interactive hackathon events in January and February of this year bringing together young people, parents, industry professionals and others to explore the topic of gambling related harm and how gaming can constructively contribute to the communities in which it is doing business.
Crucial Compliance will run a second Hackathon in Kigali on 19th April, providing real investment, mentorship and support to youth-led tech initiatives and programmes which safeguard against the pitfalls of gaming and gambling and which strengthen the sector.
Crucial already powers ‘BetProtect’, a digital therapy tool accessible by phone or web, which provides an additional layer of awareness and support to people who might be at risk.
Crucial is also investing in the idea of Eric Kalisa, who will begin conducting research to look into the prevalence of gambling and the attitude of Rwandans towards it and the addiction, which his team have observed anecdotally across communities in the country.
Commenting on the development, Paul Foster, CEO of Crucial Compliance, said: “We are delighted to be working with Damian and his team on this important initiative as well as our existing partners.
We are aware of the high rates of gambling and potential for gambling addiction to affect lives in the country and through our Africa development strategy are keen to provide advice, regulatory guidance and solutions which can help. We are excited to have launched our Rwanda hub to power our African business and are impressed by the country and its development agenda.”
For more information on the Hackathons and to get involved, visit www.safegamblinghackathon.com.
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