Tomorrow Foundation has signed a new three-year partnership with the Thunderbird School of Global Management and Arizona State University to deliver the 100 Million Learners Initiative in Nigeria, extending the entrepreneurship-and-leadership education programme into what is one of Africa’s largest youth workforce markets.
The initiative — a Thunderbird/ASU global programme launched in early 2022 that aims to reach 100 million learners worldwide by 2030 — provides online, self-paced learning in up to 40 languages at no cost, delivered through three structured pathways. The foundational route offers two introductory courses of 10 or 30 hours in core entrepreneurship and business concepts. The intermediate pathway comprises five roughly 130-hour courses that deepen entrepreneurship and leadership skills alongside academic-grade coursework. The advanced pathway offers five graduate-level 130-hour courses aimed at learners pursuing leadership, management and strategic capabilities, with the option to earn credit toward a master’s degree.
Tomorrow Foundation is positioning the Nigeria deployment as a pillar of its wider “AI for All” initiative, which frames the curriculum’s value less around AI content — the Thunderbird course material is not AI-specific — and more around preparing learners for what the foundation describes as an increasingly AI-driven economy. As the foundation puts it, the goal is to strengthen workforce readiness and expand economic participation as AI accelerates change in industries and labor markets.
“100 Million Learners reflects Tomorrow Foundation’s mission to build future-ready societies through education, entrepreneurship, digital inclusion, and human capability development,” said Maggie Gu, founder of Tomorrow Foundation. “Together with our partners, we are ensuring that Nigeria’s youth do not just gain access to the future economy, but have the competency and confidence to help shape it.”
The demographic case Tomorrow Foundation makes for Nigeria is straightforward. About 70% of the country’s population is under 30, and roughly 3.5 million young Nigerians enter the workforce each year — a scale that positions the country as central to any workforce-preparation conversation on the continent. But persistent gaps in access to digital skills have limited opportunities for many young Nigerians, a challenge the foundation says will only sharpen as AI reshapes industries.
Under the renewed partnership, Tomorrow Foundation will lead learner recruitment and mobilization, and will build partnerships with local government agencies, universities and youth organizations to broaden reach — with a particular focus on underserved communities. Participants will also be connected to Tomorrow Foundation’s own entrepreneurship programmes for continued growth and enterprise support beyond the core coursework.
“As digital transformation reshapes the global economy, learners need entrepreneurial, leadership, and future-ready skills to thrive,” said Samantha Alvis, executive director of 100 Million Learners. “Through the 100 Million Learners Initiative, we are focused on providing access to meaningful educational opportunities that will help to strengthen communities and support Nigeria’s long-term economic growth.”
Tomorrow Foundation is not new to the programme; it has been a strategic ecosystem partner since earlier expansion and has run learner outreach across multiple African countries, including through an ongoing partnership with Nigeria’s National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).
The Nigeria push lands amid a broader wave of skills-for-the-AI-economy initiatives on the continent. ADQ and the Gates Foundation announced a $40 million four-year partnership in December to expand ethical AI and EdTech in sub-Saharan Africa, and Cassava Technologies backed the launch of the AI Skills and Compute Africa Foundation last week to target one million youth for transition into AI-related economic opportunities. Whether the wave translates into measurable workforce shifts — rather than a proliferation of well-branded programmes reaching similar cohorts — is one of the open questions the sector faces heading into 2027.
