It is said that a man’s impact is measured not by his wealth or status, but by the positive difference he makes in the lives of others. 

In 2017, a young man named Ahmad Idris co-founded  a startup, Steamledge limited as the CEO and chief sales officer. He has one dream: to build a technology talent pipeline that nurtures talents to match in-demand skills in the global workspace. Steamledge Limited is an edtech company that provides tutoring, mentoring, STEM skills and Internship to young people in Nigeria to prepare them for the reality of value, impact and workplace.

It all began as a small after school program for kids with about 20 students in Kano state, 3 staff and N100,000 in revenue. Five years later in 2023, Steamledge has trained and mentored over 80,000 students, 1500 STEM teachers , 40 school partnerships, gross annual revenue in millions and 33 cross functional professional team of trainers, software developers and project managers. 

Being an A+ student through primary and secondary school in Nigeria, Ahmad believed he would easily make the dean’s list and graduate summa cum laude when he got an admission to study engineering in the UK. The reality was different.  He could barely keep up with practical applications and computer programming unlike his other international colleagues. 

Why? The Nigeria education system made little or no provision for practical skill based   learning. Once he came back to Nigeria together with his co-founder Latinwo Olubenga, they started on the journey to elevate the education system, introducing technology as a subject and preparing young Nigerians for the real world with the right skill.

As the impact became indubitable, steamledge expanded. Today, the company has spearheaded various life changing interventions and award winning projects that are set to elevate the education system of the whole country.  

Ahmad led his team to design one of the first hybrid technology learning platforms in Nigeria (techxplorer) formerly known as creative computing. It was designed to implement coding and AI as a subject to schools giving early and affordable access to relevant curriculum for learners ages 6 years and above.

Another key impactful program by Idris is the Allon Fasaha. It is an online and offline learning mobile classroom learning for out- of- school children in northern Nigeria to help them bridge the gap in their learning journey, re-engage them through accelerated literacy, numeracy and basic science education and integrate them back into the formal education system. With Allon Fasaha children can return to mainstream primary school education (primary 4). This solution is integrated with Arabic and islamic education (Islamiyya) to enable access to the core of the grass roots that need this intervention. This innovation went ahead to win the empowering communities award by microsoft in 2022 for the build for 2030 hackathon.

Despite the challenges of operating in a country and region with high levels of poverty and inequality, Ahmad and the steamlege team remain committed to their vision of a Nigeria where all young people have early access to quality education and in-demand skillset, as a passport to access local and global job opportunities.