MTNF Scholar, Mufutau Akuruyejo becomes only African to receive CERN ICT training in Switzerland

Mufutau Akuruyejo, an MTN Foundation scholar, will come next month, leave for Switzerland to participate in the nine-week CERN Openlab programme. Akuruyejo will be the first Nigerian and indeed only African to participate in the intensive programme, which has been made possible by Oracle.

This was made public during a press conference to announce a partnership between MTN Foundation and Oracle to boost ICT skills in Nigerian students.

The collaboration will see two projects come to fruition: a bursary funded by Oracle for one student to attend the CERN Openlab Summer School in Switzerland, and plans to train up to 2,000 MTNF scholars in database design and SQL and Java programming skills.

CERN Openlab is a unique public-private partnership between CERN and leading ICT companies. Its mission is to accelerate the development of cutting-edge solutions to be used by the worldwide LHC (large hadron collider) community.

According to Alberto Di Meglio, Head of CERN Openlab , over 1,500 applications were received all over the world and students of the highest calibre was selected. Mufutau Akuruyejo is the only one participant from Africa to secure a 9-week programme over the Summer, on an Oracle-sponsored bursary. 

The MTN Foundation Science and Technology Scholarship Scheme was introduced under the Education portfolio in the 2009/2010 academic session, aimed at assisting high performing science-oriented Nigerian students in pursuit of their academic education in public tertiary institutions across the county. The scholarship worth N200,000 covers tuition, book allowance and stipend. 

Since inception, the scheme has awarded over 4,900 students with the scholarship from Universities, Polytechnic and Colleges of Education. So far, scholarships awarded are valued in excess of N994m

Founded on the 11th of May, 2005, the Foundation is funded by up to one percent profit after tax (PAT) from MTN Nigeria and has become the leading driver of social investments through the expenditure of over 11 billion naira in 341 project sites across the six geopolitical zones of the country.

Mufutau, a 500 level UNILAG undergraduate leaves for Switzerland in June.