Just before the football stars took to the pitch for the CAN TotalEnergies 2024, Orange Africa & Middle East was running a very different kind of match. Less media coverage, perhaps, but just as crucial: the game of digital inclusion. Two one-of-a-kind events ran alongside Africa’s flagship tournament: Orange Digital Center Champions and Goal for a Cause. Their shared target? Using the energy of sport to attract young people eager to learn, code, and help drive their countries’ digital transformation. And it worked.
Coding Champions
This is a tournament where lines of code replace goals, and coding becomes both a national pride and a passport to the future. The event: Orange Digital Center Champions. Held 9 to 11 January 2024, in partnership with CodinGame, it brought together 1,200 students from 153 universities across 15 African and Middle Eastern countries. The concept? Each nation sends its best student coding team to compete in a series of technical challenges. The prize? A brand-new, high-tech classroom for the winning school, plus a year of free training from Orange Digital Centers. In the end, MISA University from Madagascar took the crown. It was a symbolic victory for a young, dynamic continent overflowing with often-invisible digital talent.
Orange employees join the game
At the same time, the Goal for a Cause virtual soccer tournament brought Orange employees together across 14 countries. As an internal esports charity event, the rules were simple: every goal scored equals one child sponsored for a coding session at an Orange Digital Center. With 115 goals netted, 115 children are now set to explore the foundations of coding. As a fun twist, the winning team, Corporate MEA (Middle East & Africa), earned bragging rights across the company as well as tickets to attend the real Africa Cup of Nations final. Pure class!
A golden goal for digital inclusion
By tapping into the excitement and emotional pull of sports, these initiatives brought Orange’s vision to life: a digital world more accessible to young people in Africa and the Middle East. In just a few days, coding became fun, desirable, and, most importantly, useful. Digital inclusion isn’t just about technology. It’s about opportunity. As for employment, digital skills are one of Africa’s fastest-growing growth sectors. Across 17 countries, Orange Digital Centers showcase this vision. Free and open to all, they’re spaces to innovate, experiment, fail, learn, and succeed. And in terms of impact, that’s worth more than any winning goal.
