With an anticipated annual labour market entry of about 11million youths in the next 10years, it’s crucial for Nigeria and Africa to become introspective about preparing the future workforce.
This is more imperative as Innovation Entreprise predicts that automation will power 85 per cent of customer service by 2020 and cut business costs by $8 billion by 2022.
But how globally competitive Nigerian youths are, will determine if this prediction will spell boom or doom for them. How prepared the youths can be, can also be determined by how the available high schools and tertiary institutions are using instructional materials that are future complaint. Emergence of sophisticated technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Blockchain, among others, have made it imperative that the quality of education and skills Nigerian youths should have, must be tilted towards solving future to make them ready for the future of work.
To entrench these into the fabrics of the Nigerian society formed the basis for #TheWorkplan2019 powered by RiseNetworks. The programme which happened in Lagos recently, provides workable recommendations that are needed to salvage Nigeria’s economy.
It aims at drawing up a practical blueprint for developing the formal and informal skills of young people that are pivotal to job creation and the sustainable growth of Africa’s various sectors and industries ahead of the 4th industrial revolution.
The participants had series of plenary sessions as invited keynote speakers from the banking industry among others enlightened the audience on the theme of the programme: “The Future of Work and the 4th Industrial Revolution Powered by Local Content”.
While addressing the audience at the event, the founder and CEO of Rise Networks Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji, said any country that does not invest in human capital is constantly going to experience increase in poverty, adding that the country cannot continue to use the solutions of yesterday to solve today’s problems.
Patron of the event, the President of Africa Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina while addressing the participants via a recorded video, said: “I welcome you all to this live changing programme and expect you get the best out of it as the day rolls by. I believe with the inclusion of smart brains in our work plan, the future of Nigeria will be well secured. As I often said, I don’t believe in some of these youth empowerment programmes because of the initiators employ these as a way of enriching themselves while the beneficiaries getting poorer. The youth don’t need handouts but investment that cut across all sectors. I want to see a future of African youth that will control the world economy through creativity.”
Adding to the above, the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II who was represented by Alh. Shehu Muhammad urged the Nigerian government to focus more on the grassroots in bid to uplifting the teeming Nigerian youth out of poverty.
In his words, the leading pastor of the Elevation church while delivering his lecture: “The Role of Religious Leaders & Institutions in advancing Human Capital Development & National Growth with Digital Skills”, noted: “The church has to make a shift from the routine of charitable giving to a more impactful philanthropic giving so as to avoid a case of raising people who are heavenly conscious but earthly useless.”
