An EU-funded scheme called Digital Explorers has connected young digital professionals from countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Armenia and Iraq with technology companies and training in the Baltic states since 2019.
Digital Explorers is run by Osmos Global Partnerships with public and private sector partners, and is supported by the EU through the Migration Partnership Facility, the European Commission said in a release on Monday.
The programme links non-EU professionals with skills in areas such as software development and data analysis to European tech firms, with exchanges focused on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
In its most recent phase, Digital Explorers organised business missions and hackathons, worked with 17 Baltic companies and 31 non-EU companies, and provided advanced digital skills training to 130 participants.
It also matched 56 information and communication technology specialists with companies in the Baltics and 63 with opportunities in their home countries.
From training to placements
One participant highlighted by the programme was Jemima Abu, who started her career as a developer in Nigeria, continued through Digital Explorers in Lithuania, and is now based in the UK, according to the same statement.
Abu has spoken at more than 60 conferences worldwide and written more than 30 articles for tech platforms, it added.
A separate strand, the Digital Explorers Iraq edition, ran from 2023 to 2025 and involved a six-month data analytics programme for young Iraqi professionals, with training, mentorship and industry input from organisations including Turing College and Five One Labs.
Universities and public sector institutions from Iraq, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Lithuania were matched for knowledge exchange in data science and governance, and a top-performing participant was offered a remote internship with a Lithuanian research and development company.
Earlier editions between 2019 and 2021 selected around 30 young Nigerian professionals to work in Lithuanian tech companies on projects including automation systems and big data solutions.
