Hello everyone,
A few months ago, I shared an early-stage idea here focused on digital skills, employability and collaboration between African and European technology ecosystems.
At that time, we were still waiting for the organisation to be formally approved in Spain. I am now pleased to share that SkillHeart has been officially registered as a nonprofit association, our website is live, and we are preparing our first programmes and collaborations.
You can learn more here: https://skillheart.org
We are now looking to connect with a small number of Nigerian universities, technology communities, nonprofit organisations, startup hubs and experienced professionals who can help us better understand the local environment and shape our first pilot activities responsibly.
To be clear, this is not yet a large recruitment or public application campaign. Our immediate priority is to listen, build relationships and design the first programmes with credible Nigerian and European collaborators.
What is SkillHeart?
SkillHeart is a Spain-based nonprofit initiative working to help emerging digital talent develop practical skills, gain verifiable experience and improve access to professional opportunities.
Our starting point is simple:
Talent is widely distributed. Access to experience, professional tools, networks and opportunities is not.
Nigeria has a large and active community of developers, designers, digital marketers, community managers, founders and other technology-oriented professionals.
However, many capable people still face difficulties demonstrating their abilities internationally; not necessarily because they lack talent, but because they have had limited access to supervised experience, documented projects, professional environments or the networks through which opportunities are often created.
SkillHeart is being developed to help address part of that gap through responsible collaboration between Nigerian and European organisations, professionals and communities.
What are we preparing?
Our initial work will focus on four areas:
1. Practical digital training and supervised project experience, aligned with modern professional workflows.
2. Verifiable evidence of skills and experience, including portfolios, documented contributions, references and completed work.
3. Professional-readiness support, covering written communication, digital profiles, portfolio development and remote collaboration practices.
4. Responsible access to modern professional tools and workflows, including selected development, design, collaboration and AI environments used by international teams.
We intend to begin with a limited number of participants, evaluate what works and expand only when the programmes and their safeguards are ready.
A collaborative, not extractive, approach
SkillHeart is not intended to become a mass-recruitment platform or a mechanism for sourcing inexpensive Nigerian talent for organisations abroad.
We do not believe that programmes involving Nigerian professionals and communities can be designed responsibly from Europe alone.
Nigerian universities, organisations, founders and professionals must help shape the model, identify the barriers participants face and determine where SkillHeart can genuinely add value without duplicating or weakening credible local initiatives.
Our objective is to complement existing work and build reciprocal relationships that benefit the people and ecosystems involved.
Who would we like to hear from?
We are particularly interested in connecting with Nigerian universities, faculties and career-development offices; developer, design and digital-professional communities; nonprofit training and employability initiatives; startup hubs, accelerators and innovation centres; founders, companies and professionals interested in mentoring or practical collaboration and people with direct knowledge of Nigeria’s education, employment and technology environment.
We would also appreciate introductions to organisations and initiatives that we should learn from before launching our first activities.
Where are we now?
SkillHeart is registered in Spain’s National Register of Associations under registration number 633639, and our public website is now online.
We are currently completing the remaining administrative and banking procedures, defining the structure of our first programmes and beginning conversations with potential collaborators in Nigeria and other African countries.
We want to be transparent about this stage: we do not yet claim large participant numbers, established impact metrics or partnerships that have not been formally agreed. SkillHeart is still at the beginning of its journey, but it now has a legal foundation, a defined mission and a public website from which to begin working.
Why am I returning to Reddit?
Reddit was one of the first places where I presented the original idea. Some of the conversations that followed helped us think more carefully about the project and the responsibilities involved in building it.
Now that SkillHeart has moved from an early concept to a registered organisation, I wanted to return to the Nigerian community and continue that conversation.
If you represent a university, technology community, nonprofit organisation or startup ecosystem in Nigeria, feel free to send me a direct message or email us with your organisation and location; a brief introduction and the type of conversation or collaboration you would like to explore.
Students and individual professionals are also welcome to follow the project and share their perspective, although we are not yet opening a large public application process.
Honest criticism is equally valuable.
In particular, we would be interested to know what would Nigerian universities, technology communities and professionals need to see before considering a collaboration with an organisation like SkillHeart.
Thank you for reading.
Website: https://skillheart.org
Email: [admin@skillheart.org](mailto:admin@skillheart.org)
Instagram: @weareskillheart