Digital skills for students in Lagos: Project Wins the 2026 Youth Innovation Fund!

This year, World Bank Group Treasury colleagues teamed up and rose to the challenge. Selected from 57 proposals as one of seven finalists to pitch to a panel of WBG and IFC directors, their proposal "From Play to Pathways: Beyond the Board in Lagos Public Schools" won a $25,000 grant to deliver digital skills training to public secondary school students in Lagos, Nigeria, in partnership with Chess in Slums Africa, a nonprofit organization dedicated to uplifting children in underserved communities through chess and STEM education.

Three teammates, different backgrounds (law, finance and investment), one shared belief: that the skills they build at work every day can reach far beyond their day jobs.

From left to right: Sylvia B. O. Mwangi ( Team Lead and mentor, Financial Officer, TRE Banking), Evangeline Inyang (Consultant, Pension Investments), Precious Ozegbe (Analyst, Treasury Asset Management ), and Levon Gyozalyan (Investment Analyst, Treasury Asset Management)

What inspired you to participate in YIF and how did you come together as a team?

Evangeline and Precious met in 2025 at Treasury and quickly bonded over a shared Nigerian identity. Precious is a chess player and former Chess in Slums Africa (CISA) volunteer who had seen firsthand how chess builds critical thinking and confidence in young people. Based on her experience participating in YIF in 2025, she proposed that they participate together, this time with CISA as a partner. Levon, who works alongside Precious , joined without hesitation, reflecting the open and collegial culture at Treasury.

Team: Our proposal was grounded in WBG and IFC research on digital skills in Africa. One finding stood out: over 230 million jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa will require digital skills by 2030, yet many public school students in the region graduate without even the basics. As Nigerians, this was not a statistic we could ignore. Together, we asked: what if chess could serve as a cognitive bridge to digital literacy and STEM? That question became the "From Play to Pathways" Project.

What is "From Play to Pathways" about?

From Play to Pathways delivers a 12-week after-school curriculum to 150 secondary school students across three public schools in Lagos. The program is structured around three integrated pillars: Digital Literacy, Applied STEM and Robotics, and Chess Pedagogy. By leveraging chess as a cognitive bridge, the program strengthens critical thinking, strategic reasoning, and problem-solving while building practical technical skills aligned with future workforce needs. Implementation will be carried out in close partnership with CISA, a leading Nigerian NGO that will provide access to its innovation hub, digital devices, and trained instructors, ensuring strong local engagement and sustainable impact.

How did your experience in Treasury shape the way you approached this project?

Precious: As a junior analyst, I brought a cost-and-return lens to the project, grounding the framework in how much investment was needed per student to close the digital skills gap. Mybackground as a professional chess player and firsthand understanding of how play builds cognition also helped refine the curriculum's learning approach.

Evangeline: With a legal background, I took on the research, pulling evidence from WBG and IFC publications to support the proposal. Having previously reviewed and drafted project concept notes and proposals, I took the lead in ensuring our ideas were communicated accurately and succinctly, from the written proposal to the pitch deck.

Levon: As a portfolio manager , I looked beyond the initial idea, asking whether it was practical, scalable, and accountable. The World Bank Group Treasury culture reinforces the importance of using resources carefully to generate long-term impact, and I carried that into this project, treating it as an investment in human potential.

Sylvia: As the team's mentor, I drew on my experience creating meaningful, client-focused solutions in Treasury to help shape a proposal that was credible, scalable, and ready for execution. This is the second team I supported in the YIF Pitch Competition to receive a $25,000 grant, reinforcing my belief that when good ideas meet the right structure, they translate into lasting change.

What was the experience from idea to pitch day like for your team?

The process was iterative. The hardest part was finding the right language. We knew chess, digital literacy, and STEM belonged together, but articulating why took multiple drafts. Working across Pension Investments and Treasury Asset Management, each of us brought a different lens to the table, and our mentor, Sylvia, played an invaluable role in helping us bring it to the surface. Ultimately, we landed on "chess as a cognitive bridge," which gave the whole proposal its spine. Once we had it, everything else fell into place.

The pitch competition was a confidence challenge. All seven finalists had made it that far for a reason, and we knew it. The proposals were strong, the teams were prepared, and at that point the project lived or died on our ability to deliver it in under three minutes. Our focus when presenting was to communicate what took us months to build in a way that landed. And it did!

The World Bank Group Treasury team presenting during the 2026 Youth Pitch Competition

What's next for the project, and for each of you?

The next step is to move from proposal to implementation. Winning the grant is an important milestone, but the real work begins now: developing the curriculum, training facilitators, and procuring the equipment. For the project, success means building something that proves its value and can potentially be expanded beyond the first group of students.

Levon: For me, this is an opportunity to connect my work in Treasury with a development goal I care about deeply.

Precious: This project reminds me of the unique opportunity I get to work at the World Bank Group, where my work, alongside my colleagues' contributes meaningfully to the mission of ending poverty.

Evangeline: The opportunity to work on a project in my home country is incredibly meaningful, and I am excited to contribute to what could be the beginning of real digital education reform in Lagos public schools.

For colleagues considering YIF, our advice is to start with a problem you care about. The rest will follow.