Innovative Technology as a Classroom for the Digital Generation

Mohamed Kamara Peter is driving change in a community where unreliable electricity continues to hinder businesses, limit access to quality services, and threaten long-term sustainability. As a parishioner of St. John Paul II Parish in Freetown, Sierra Leone, he leads Crest Tech Innovation in one of the city’s most flood-prone and economically vulnerable areas. Through AJAN’s Jesuit Youth Social Entrepreneurship Action (JYSEA) training, he received both formation and targeted financial support to strengthen his tech hub and expand its reach.

Recognizing Mohamed’s commitment to serve his community after his graduate studies, AJAN accompanied his vision from concept to implementation. Through mentorship, business plan development, and start-up funding, AJAN helped transform Crest Tech Innovation into a structured and impactful social enterprise. Despite early challenges—marked by unstable electricity and limited ICT equipment—the hub has since undergone significant transformation. Today, it operates on a reliable solar-powered system, equipped with upgraded desktops and laptops, enabling flexible and efficient learning for more than 70 direct and indirect beneficiaries.

The hub now delivers a dynamic and inclusive training programme that responds to the realities of today’s digital economy. From foundational digital literacy to vocational digital skills, and introductory web development and AI programming, each learning track is designed to build competence and confidence. Rooted in the Ignatian tradition, the training model emphasizes accompaniment: learners progress through peer mentorship and guidance from trained facilitators, fostering both technical growth and personal development.

AJAN’s support for Crest Tech Innovation reflects its broader commitment to addressing the interconnected challenges of poverty, exclusion, and limited digital access. By promoting digital literacy as a pathway to opportunity, AJAN ensures that young people are not left behind in an increasingly digital world. The hub also serves as a strategic entry point for wider engagement, linking beneficiaries to health communication initiatives, youth empowerment programmes, and income-generating opportunities. Graduates have gone on to contribute as digital content creators and freelancers, demonstrating the tangible impact of this investment.

Through initiatives like Crest Tech Innovation, AJAN continues to promote a vision of social entrepreneurship that is both practical and transformative. It is a response that combines innovation with compassion, empowering young people like Mohamed to become agents of change within their communities.

As Mohamed powers down the last workstation at the end of the day, outside, Freetown hums with the noise of a city in perpetual motion, inside Crest Tech Innovation, something quieter and more durable is being built, one keystroke at a time. His work reflects more than technological advancement—it speaks to resilience, purpose, and the quiet but steady transformation of lives, one opportunity at a time.