Cyberiad Labs and Nguvu-TEACH to give young refugees and young Turkana people in Kalobeyei free places in Cyberiad Labs' AI course
Nguvu-TEACH is Cyberiad Labs' first partner working with refugees. Its learners start Cyberiad Labs' course on 2 November, and Nguvu-TEACH will get free places in future classes too.
RALEIGH, N.C., and KALOBEYEI, Kenya, 16 October 2026. Cyberiad Labs and Nguvu-TEACH today announced a partnership that gives Nguvu-TEACH's learners free places in Cyberiad Labs' classes. It starts with 100 places in the class that opens on Monday 2 November 2026, with more in future classes. The course, Introduction to AI and LLMs, is online, part-time and four weeks long.
Nguvu-TEACH's places come on top of the public ones, which are full for every class until the end of 2026. This is Cyberiad Labs' fourth education partnership, after the Mandela AI Hub Foundation, 2APA and Hyver Organization.
Alfred Balazire Lurhakongola founded Nguvu-TEACH in 2024 in Kalobeyei, in Kenya's Turkana County. He speaks English, French, Kiswahili, Arabic and Mashi, a language of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He also co-founded the Kalobeyei Initiative for Better Life (KI4BLI), a community-based organisation. He is a Power Learn Project alumnus, and he is in the final year of a Bachelor of Science in computer science at Victoria University in Kampala, Uganda. Nguvu-TEACH, short for Strengthening Technology and Education Across African Continent for Humanity, is a non-profit that works with refugees and the Turkana host community. Nguvu means strength in Kiswahili. It teaches computer and digital skills and trains people for remote work, with a focus on youth, women and girls. It runs a digital skills programme with Power Learn Project, funded by ILO PROSPECTS and Microsoft, and works with the Turkana County Government to help its learners find job opportunities.
AI skills already pay in remote work. Upwork, one of the largest freelance platforms, reported that in the first quarter of 2025, freelancers doing AI-related work earned more than 40% more per hour than the others. Nguvu-TEACH's learners can also put AI to work for themselves, to find more openings, research employers and prepare for interviews.
“Alfred learned software engineering on one of my programmes at ALX. Today he runs his own organisation in Kalobeyei, teaching young refugees and young Turkana people in Kalobeyei the skills to find work,” said Julien Barbier, co-founder of Cyberiad Labs. “Nguvu-TEACH is our first partner working with refugees, and I am very happy to support Alfred and his team. Remote work means competing with candidates from everywhere, and recruiters now say they would rather hire the person who can work with AI. We want Alfred's learners to be that person, and to keep their jobs once they have them.”
“Our learners already know that a computer can change their lives. Now the people who hire remotely expect them to know AI too,” said Alfred Balazire Lurhakongola, founder of Nguvu-TEACH. “With Cyberiad Labs, our learners will use AI in their search for work, and in the work itself. They will study in the same classes as all of Cyberiad Labs’ other learners, and meet people from many other countries.”
A learner only needs a phone or a computer to join. The course is in English, written in plain words for people whose first language is not English. Every chapter also has a player that reads it out loud, for learners who prefer to listen. On the first day every learner installs a small free AI model that runs on their own device, so they keep access to AI, even when the internet drops. From the first week they see that the thing answering so confidently is a program predicting text, one piece at a time, and that it can be wrong. Cyberiad Labs' first class opened on 14 September with 1,005 learners from 51 countries, 95% of them in Africa. Kenyans are its second-largest group after Nigerians, with more than 150 learners, and the class has rated its sessions 4.8 out of 5 on average.
“Anyone can type ‘AI’ in the skills on their CV, and no recruiter can check it,” said Youssef Charif Hamidi, co-founder of Cyberiad Labs. “Our certificate can be checked. Learners earn it by passing the four weekly quizzes and can add it to their LinkedIn profile. One click shows a recruiter that it is real, who earned it and when. When you apply for remote work, the employer has never met you, so proof they can check counts.”
Nguvu-TEACH's learners register through a link Cyberiad Labs sends them. They can follow the course at Nguvu-TEACH's hub in Kalobeyei, which gives them access to computers, power and an internet connection, or anywhere else they have a device and the internet. Other non-profits and foundations that don't charge their learners can ask for free places of their own at julien@cyberiadlabs.com.
About Cyberiad Labs
Cyberiad Labs teaches people to work with AI without handing it their thinking. Those skills help people keep a job or find one, and help organisations keep up as AI changes their work. It teaches learners directly, and works with schools, universities, companies, NGOs and governments.
Julien Barbier co-founded Holberton School, a software engineering school with no teachers, no lectures and no upfront tuition. It grew from one campus in San Francisco to 32 worldwide before it was acquired. He then led product and growth at ALX across its software engineering and applied AI programmes, where the number of learners went from a few thousand to more than 1.6 million. Before Holberton, he was the first head of marketing, growth and community at Docker.
Youssef Charif Hamidi is a full-stack engineer. He learned to code on Julien's 12-month ALX software engineering programme. He finished it on an Android tablet, because cerebral palsy limits him to about two words a minute on a computer keyboard. Previously, he built MathVellum, a maths editor for people who cannot hold a pen.
Home: https://www.cyberiadlabs.com
About Nguvu-TEACH
Nguvu-TEACH EduTech empowers refugees and marginalized communities, especially youth, women, and girls, through digital skills training, technology education, and entrepreneurship. Our mission is to bridge the digital divide and promote innovation, self-reliance, and sustainable livelihoods. https://www.linkedin.com/company/nguvu-teach/
Contact information
Julien Barbier, co-founder, Cyberiad Labs, julien@cyberiadlabs.com
Alfred Balazire Lurhakongola, founder, Nguvu-TEACH, nguvuteach@gmail.com
Sources
- Upwork, “Upwork Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial Results”, 5 May 2025.