Africa-Press – Eritrea. Young and expanding working age population will drive Africa’s progressive growth if harnessed.
The Chinese Multinational construction firm AVIC International said this after announcing top three students from each country competing in Season 7 of the Africa Tech Challenge (ATC).
The top 18 will advance to the next round of competition and travel to Nairobi for thegrand finale.
Among winners are Kenyan students from Meru National Polytechnic and Gatundu South TVC.
This year’s competition targeted youth in Technical Training Institutions in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Egypt, Zambia, and Zimbabwe will see the top six teams walking away with numerous prizes.
The seventh edition of the Africa Tech Challenge will be returning to Nairobi after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid- 19 pandemic.
In general, it saw at least 256 youth in six African countries trained on vital construction-related technical skills over the last three months. The competition commenced in all countries in July.
The construction firm said that Africa’s most valuable asset is its youth.
The World Bank reports the continent’s 1.2 billion population is expected to more than quadruple by 2050 where Africa will have one-fourth of the world’s population.
Africa will continue to be the world’s youngest region, with a median age of 25.
To unlock the potential of these energetic population, the firm says technological advancement is vital, adding that it is the solution to financial insecurity, insufficient skills and general poverty.
“To therefore remain competitive in the employment market, it is vital to gain new technology skills as well as continuously capacitate. Certainly, technology advancements allow us to work, earn, and grow,”Avic says in a statement.
Initially, the competition ran in Kenya for the past six years, but this year AVIC expanded the programme to five other African countries, providing 256 youth with self-sufficiency skills.
In Kenya, the firm is partnering with the Ministry of Education in a bid to emphasizes harnessing technology to push the boundaries of creativity.
Participants have learnt critical skills in drafting and reading construction designs by using CAD technology.
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