Kalu Joseph Ude’s ‘Learn About Tech with Kalu’ initiative is quietly closing the gap between classroom learning and Africa’s digital economy; one student at a time.
In July 2024, over 200 students at the University of Abuja gathered for something rarely offered in Nigerian academia; a sitting tech founder who had nothing to sell and everything to share.
Kalu Joseph Ude, founder of fintech platform Fintag and ride-hailing service Flashride, conducted a hands-on mentorship and training session under his initiative ‘Learn About Tech with Kalu’, entirely free of charge. The programme walked students through real-world technology knowledge, entrepreneurial thinking, and the practical realities of building and scaling a tech product in Africa.
Rather than speaking in abstractions, Ude used his own platforms as live case studies walking participants through the decisions, mistakes, structures and operational logic behind both Fintag and Flashride. Students left with not just inspiration, but a grounded understanding of what building African technology actually looks like from the inside.
The University of Abuja session, however, is not an isolated event. Ude has extended the ‘Learn About Tech with Kalu’ initiative beyond Abuja, reaching students across other parts of the country in a continuing effort to democratise access to practical tech education for Nigerian youth.
The need is well established. Africa faces a significant digital skills deficit, with the International Finance Corporation projecting a requirement for over 230 million digitally skilled workers across the continent by 2030. Yet for many Nigerian students, the bridge between academic study and the lived experience of the technology industry remains largely unbuilt.
Programmes driven by active practitioners rather than institutions or government policy are increasingly stepping into that space. What sets Ude’s initiative apart is its consistency, its reach, and the deliberate decision to make it free and accessible to students who would otherwise have no direct exposure to founders operating at his level.