Emerging Talent is a new effort by the Jameel World Education Lab to enable onramps to educational, professional and entrepreneurial opportunities for talented individuals from vulnerable, underrepresented or historically marginalized communities worldwide
Emerging Talent brings together Refugee Action Hub (ReACT)’s proven track record of building global education-to-employment pathways for refugee and migrant communities and the Jameel World Education Lab’s wide-ranging efforts to bring MIT ideas and know-how to collaborations with educational innovators around the world.
“We see the Emerging Talent program as a further expansion of ReACT’s proven model for agile education-to-employment pathways. We are excited about the opportunity for refugee learners to study and work alongside peers from around the world. As ReACT celebrates its 5th anniversary, we are more committed than ever to addressing systemic challenges that hamper access to education, and advancing the livelihoods and rights of those impacted by displacement.”
- Admir Masic, Faculty Director and Founder of ReACT
Emerging Talent Certificate in Computer and Data Science
The MIT Emerging Talent Certificate in Computer and Data Science leverages MIT content and resources along with local connections in key sites to enable high-quality online and hybrid learning experiences for talented learners including refugees, migrants, and first-generation low-income students from historically marginalized backgrounds.
The certificate’s 9-month online program combines MITx courses in programming and data science, personal and professional development workshops, and structured opportunities for practical experience. Piloted through ReACT over the past five years, the program has served more than 200 learners from refugee and displaced communities. Alumni have entered rewarding careers as software engineers, data analysts, and business analysts. Others have pursued graduate studies in related fields.
“It has really been very transformational to me,” says Jerry Anguzu, who completed his certificate in 2021 as part of a cohort of learners from Uganda, and is now a business intelligence analyst with Nairobi-based company M-KOPA. “It has helped give me a purpose.”
By providing novel agile education-to-employment pathways, Emerging Talent aims to increase the diversity of talent in the tech field by opening up education opportunities to low-income and historically marginalized learners, including women, refugees, migrants, and other underrepresented groups in STEM, across the globe. The need is urgent: According to the International Labour Organization, young people (ages 15–24) suffered disproportionately higher employment loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the global count of unemployed youth in 2022 to an estimated 73 million.
“At MIT Open Learning we are committed to providing people access to education so that they can develop their full potential and make a positive impact on the world. With Emerging Talent, we’ll continue investing and developing in programs that remove barriers and offer a learning environment for talented and committed learners from marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds.”
- Eric Grimson, Vice President for Open Learning
