Teach 100,000 Informal Traders the Digital Skills They Need This Year

The gap between the digital tools available to informal traders and their ability to use them is not primarily a connectivity problem — it is a skills problem. Traders in Alaba, Oshodi, and Sabon Gari markets have phones, but they cannot navigate payment apps, use WhatsApp Business effectively, or understand how to avoid scams. Short, one-off digital literacy sessions have not worked. What is needed is something different. Your challenge is to design a digital skills programme specifically for informal traders in Nigerian markets. It must be delivered by market-based peer trainers (not NGO staff), require no classroom or fixed venue, take under three hours per trader, and result in measurable behaviour change within 30 days. Submit a programme design document (max 10 pages) including: the curriculum (specific skills taught and how), the peer trainer selection and training model, the behaviour change metrics, a cost per trader, and a plan to reach 100,000 traders across five states in 12 months. Judging criteria: 35% curriculum design for zero-literacy learners, 30% peer trainer model credibility, 20% cost and reach plan, 15% behaviour change measurement.