A community of Ebonyians, building the "Ebonyi dream" together.

Ebonyi State has come a long way since its creation, but there is still room for improvement. The state still grapples with low literacy, poverty, unemployment and child labour. Created in 1996, the 29-year-old state still lags behind neighbouring South-Eastern states and other states in Nigeria.

The 2019 National Bureau of Statistics report listed Ebonyi as Nigeria's fourth-poorest state, with a poverty rate of 79.76%. The 2022 Nigerian Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) survey, also by the National Bureau of Statistics, showed the same grim picture: an MPI of 0.320, above the national average of 0.257, and the tenth-highest in the country. Poverty is a vicious cycle — the poor cannot fund their education, business ideas, nutrition or even their health, and this perpetuates poverty across generations.

We are aware that Ebonyi cannot wish its current economic realities away. The only way out is to make deliberate efforts to turn around the fate of our people.

This conviction inspired a group of Ebonyians to come together and make it their responsibility to achieve the "Ebonyi dream." This led to the creation of the Laureates Science, Innovation and Education Initiative (Ebonyi Laureates).

We had very humble beginnings. We were simply a Telegram group for sharing self-development opportunities with Ebonyians. When Telegram slowed down, we migrated to a Facebook page and a WhatsApp group, which grew into a community.

The 2022 Serenze Global Education Grant showed us how powerful sharing opportunities could be. One of our STEM Club members shared the application link on our WhatsApp page, and when the results arrived, out of 100 people selected from the whole world, seven were members of our STEM Club — with one more person joining us after the grant, making a total of eight out of a hundred.

The Serenze Grant gave our organisation the mentorship and competence to apply for the DataCamp Donates partnership. In 2022, we became DataCamp Donates partners, a partnership that has now been renewed for four consecutive years. We have empowered over 500 Ebonyians and Nigerians, including persons with disabilities, with free data skills training. We have seen recipients land jobs, win promotions and increase their earnings, including one scholarship recipient who won two international DataCamp competitions, taking both 1st and 3rd place.