By Ndianaabasi Matthew
At 14, Joshua Peters founded a not-for-profit on the belief that a student’s future should not depend on where they were born. Three years later, he has handed out 200 laptops to young Nigerians, including girls displaced from Chibok.
In a country where millions of young people still learn without a computer, a single laptop can mean a great deal. For 17-year-old Joshua Peters, it can be the difference between a talent that grows and one that goes undiscovered.
“Talent is everywhere, but access is not,” he told a room of students, teachers and partners in Ikoyi, Lagos. “A young person’s ability should never be measured by the opportunities they happened to be born into.”
The occasion was a Youth Empowerment Summit organised by the Society for Performing Arts in Nigeria (SPAN). At the summit, GiveBack Backpacks, the organisation Joshua founded at 14, presented 200 HP laptops to young Nigerians. Each came packed in a backpack with a water bottle, educational materials and tech aids. The donation is worth about $50,000. It is the latest step in the group’s work to bring technology-led learning to students left behind. It helps them build digital skills, explore new technologies and solve real problems in their communities.
A simple conviction
Joshua’s starting point was not technology. It was fairness. He saw that two equally gifted students could end up on very different paths. The difference was rarely ability. It was what each had to work with: a device, a connection, a quiet place to study, a chance to try things and fail. So he set out to close that gap, one backpack at a time.
“When we widen access to learning,” he said. “We give talent room to grow.”
That idea now drives everything GiveBack Backpacks does. The group does not see a laptop as a gift that ends the day it is received. It sees it as a starting point. A device can open lessons, teach skills, test ideas and give a student a voice.
“A laptop can open a lesson you could not attend, help you learn a skill, test an idea or tell a story that needs to be heard,” Joshua told the students. “With practice and persistence, a tool received today can become an opportunity created tomorrow.”
Standing with Chibok
For Joshua, one group of young people stands at the heart of the mission: the girls of Chibok. Through its partnership with the Society for Performing Arts in Nigeria, known as SPAN, GiveBack Backpacks is supporting access to digital learning for young women whose education has been disrupted. The work also extends resources to other students with limited access to technology and school supplies.
“Their education and opportunities have been disrupted through no fault of their own,” Joshua said. “We cannot give back the time they have lost. But we can stand with them, invest in what comes next, and extend that same commitment to other young people whose ambitions deserve a fair chance.”
The work is intended to focus on what comes next. Young women displaced from Chibok are not defined by the violence they experienced. They are students, learners, and future contributors with ideas and ambitions of their own.
The value lies in the use
What stood out most in Joshua’s address was not the size of the donation but how little he dwelt on it. He named the figure once, thanked those who made it possible, and moved on.
“The value of these gifts, however, will be measured by what you do with them,” he said.
That shift puts the responsibility, and the power, back with the students. It treats them not as people receiving charity but as future builders, coders, writers and problem-solvers. He spoke to them directly.
“To every student here: we believe in your ability to shape your future,” he said. “Your circumstances may have made the journey harder, but they do not set the limits of your mind or your ambition.”
Then came something closer to a charge than a speech.
“Be curious,” he urged. “Ask difficult questions. Learn how the world works, then imagine how to make it better.”
He added one more request, the one that gives the organisation its name, stating, “Use these resources to study, to create and, when you can, to help someone else find their way forward.”
The giving, in other words, is meant to keep going.
Bridging the digital divide
The digital divide remains a real barrier for students across Nigeria. Access to computers and reliable internet is uneven, particularly in rural communities and among families affected by displacement. Some students learn digital skills in theory before they can practise them on their own device.
That gap matters more each year. Coding, data, design, digital media, and online research are becoming central to how young people learn and prepare for careers. Students without access can be excluded before they have a chance to demonstrate what they can do. GiveBack Backpacks responds with a practical model. Each backpack combines a laptop with everyday learning resources, recognising that students need more than a device to participate fully in school. The goal is to give students room to experiment and build confidence before the stakes become higher. A laptop can help turn an idea into research, learning into practice, and practice into a pathway forward.
A partnership built on shared belief
Joshua was quick to share the credit. He thanked SPAN Nigeria for “helping us turn a shared belief into action”. He also thanked the teachers and supporters who, in his words, “continue to show up for these young people”. It is a fitting partnership. SPAN has long worked to develop young Nigerian talent through the arts. GiveBack Backpacks brings the tools of the digital age to the same mission. Both rest on the idea that potential, given the right support, will find its way.
Young, but not waiting
At 17, Joshua is younger than many of the students he serves. He does not treat his age as a reason to wait. He started GiveBack Backpacks at 14, when most young people are still working out what they care about. In three years, he has turned a personal conviction into an organisation that can move hundreds of laptops and tens of thousands of dollars in support to where they are needed most. He is part of a growing generation of young Africans who are not waiting to be handed solutions. They are building them, often for peers who share their age but not their opportunities. His message to the students was, in the end, a mirror of his own story: start where you are, use what you have, and help someone else along the way.
“This day is about you, your ideas and the future you will build,” he told them. “We look forward to seeing what you accomplish.”
For 200 young Nigerians, that future now has a laptop, a backpack and a reason to believe it is within reach.