THE University of Guyana, in collaboration with the Caribbean School of Data (CSOD), recently hosted a simple graduation ceremony for the first cohort of 65 young people from nine regions in Guyana who participated in a 12-week programme in Digital Literacy and Data Skills Training Programme.
The programme run by staff and former students of UG’s Department of Computer Sciences sought to equip the 65 young Guyanese with the requisite skills in computer data management and digital efficiency to enable Guyana to compete in the growing digital marketplace.
During the ceremony, which was held virtually, the University of Guyana’s Vice-Chancellor, XI, Prof. Paloma Mohamed Martin pointed out that this is the first cohort to graduate from this programme and it is historic since it is done completely online and thus allowed for greater participation from the regions than originally envisaged when it was designed in 2019.
According to a UG release, the Vice-Chancellor took the opportunity to congratulate the graduates for staying the course and successfully completing the programme.

“You are special and you are helping us to understand how things can be done, even if we cannot at any point in the future work together on a consistent face-to-face platform. So the question of mobility, adaptability, innovation is very much on our minds and we’re happy to see you graduate despite the odds,” Prof. Mohamed Martin said.
The Vice-Chancellor added: “I have heard testimonials with words such as knowledgeable, adaptable, I have learned to work as a team with new skills and things that could improve my performance on the job. This, therefore, tells me that you are very much inclined to understanding the grounding of this platform that will allow you to go on to higher and better things.”

INCREDIBLE JOB
Caribbean School of Data representative, Dr. M. McNaughton, in his remarks, noted the programme was the first in the Caribbean that was given the opportunity to test this delivery model. Dr. McNaughton said: “I think your team (Guyana) is doing an incredible job…the results are clear, generally very high performance, and based on what was presented the team had a great time working together.” He highlighted that the graduates should see themselves as part of an essential process of development that is critical to ensuring our citizens are digitally efficient, especially young people, and by extension, societies would be able to compete in what is becoming an emerging global digital economy.
The release noted that University of Guyana, Department of Computer Sciences, Head, Max Baird, admonished the graduates to, “take the graduation as an example of how anything can be possible when you truly put your minds to it, to continue forward with confidence that you can achieve your goals and that you’re equipped with the tools to tackle the challenges of the future.”
Top graduating student, Danielle Mittelholzer, in her testimonial said: “It has been such an honour and privilege to be a part of this wonderful course where I learned new digital and data skills that have really changed my professional work. I really enjoyed our meetings where we were engaged in exciting and fun games and activities, along with informative discussions. My journey would not have been completed without the support, motivation, and guidance of the facilitators as well as my teammates. I hope all of us here graduating can take this personal accomplishment as an example of how anything is truly possible when we put our minds to it.”

TOUGH
Second place graduate, Shane Sahadeo, reflected on his experience saying: “It hasn’t been an easy route considering how much work I had with my jobs, but I’m really glad I did it anyway. It came at a time that I really needed it because I deal with very large amounts of student data… so I learned about Google Sheets and cleaning data during the programme which really has boosted my efficiency and effectiveness over time.”
Another graduate, Dalia Araujo, related: “I am very thankful that I was chosen to be a part of this tremendous programme and I am also grateful for having another year of learning. My experience when completing this programme was a bit challenging but with the help of my two facilitators, I was able to complete all my tasks and I will be sure to practice all I have learned in my future endeavours.”

The top 10 graduates were: Danielle Mittelholzer, Shane Sahadeo, Leon Ross, Reon Payne, Daniel Eastman, Curtisha Kellman, Shelon Benjamin, Safoora Khan, Naomi Singh, and Shion Gullen. The ceremony was co-chaired by Faculty of Natural Sciences Lecturers; Penelope DeFreitas and Juanelle Marks who designed and ran the programme.
One of the facilitators of the course, Penelope Defreitas, during her remarks said, “I have had the esteemed pleasure of working with the first CSOD-Guyana cohort, serving in the capacity as lead coordinator and one of the facilitators. Operating in the online space has been an interesting and learning experience. Throughout the training programme, my team was challenged to be creative, inspiring, and on the ball every step of the way. Apart from utilising the core learning materials that were provided by CSOD, we also introduced educational games and team-based activities to further stimulate interest and build the soft skills of the participants. Running the first cohort was a success since we encountered few drop-outs as well as a high pass rate in the programme.” The UG release noted that the programme was sponsored by the Caribbean School of Data and Philanthropy, Alumni and Civic Engagement (PACE) in the office of the Vice-Chancellor.