Impact of Digital Skills in Africa

In spite of the giant stride in the evolution on innovations of web-based businesses, etc., in the technology ecosystem in Africa, the impact of digital skills is still very low due to many extraneous factors.

Last year, Google, therefore, took it upon itself to train one million youths in Africa in digital skills. How has this impacted on the youths of the continent and lots more, was the thrust of the discussion I had with Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, the Country Manager of Google Nigeria recently.

Juliet has been involved in the development of youths on digital skills in Africa in the past one year.

On how the digital skill initiative of Google has been achieved in the past one year, Juliet said it has been very exciting. She stressed that Google committed to this in April 2016, although, it knew it was a daunting task because of its target which was the training of one million youths in one year, it was amazing to note that it achieved this in ten months.

As at today, she noted, about a year after, Google has trained over one million youths in digital skills across various countries in Africa.

Reacting to the impact of the progress for an emerging continent like Africa, Juliet stated that since technology has affected the way we everything these days, such as how we live, socialize, communicate, work, the emerging digital economy on the continent as well as having about 29% of the African population online, which is growing at a fast rate, this creates opportunities in the digital world.

The above, she stressed that the above reasons, therefore, makes it important or young Africans to acquire the right skills to enable them participate in the emerging digital economy to be able to build businesses, create new opportunities for themselves and become digital entrepreneurs.

Juliet further stressed the importance of this against the background that unemployment is a problem on the continent, where we have about 60% of the unemployed being youths, who must be taught how to fend for themselves and acquire skills which they can put in to generate income opportunities, etc.

Juliet stated that measuring the impact of the program has been a priority for it as they have stayed in touch with participants and have recorded a number of success stories of people who have been able to get jobs as well as those who have been able to start their own businesses through attending the training, such as Vanessa Morris and Segun Abodunrin respectively. Google, she said, has, therefore, seen the impact of the program in terms of people creating opportunities, expanding existing businesses, etc.

While reacting to a question as to the number of female participants in the program, Juliet said, among other things, that female to male participation in the program so far is about 47% to 53%. The idea, she said, is to maintain gender balance.

On  what the reception was by the female gender to technology, which is erstwhile  seen by them as a challenge, Juliet is of the view that the female gender are seriously taking to technology now as most success stories are from them.

Projecting on the next step to be taken by Google, Juliet said it will continue to train the youths because of the impact it is generating, but it is deliberately not announcing a new target for now because, although, digital skills will still be taught, the focus is being shifted to impact, thus, re-engaging with people that it has trained, supporting them along the way as well as to grow, looking at opportunities of matching people to jobs, etc.

Speaking on the number of Nigerians accessing the training through online or offline means, Juliet said that about 97% of attendees accessed the training offline while about 3% accessed from online.

She, however, stressed that many of those who were trained offline are quick to go online to acquire more training to deepen their experience.

As access is a bit of a challenge for online users in this clime, Juliet was asked if this sort of training can be accessed without the use of the internet, she responded by saying that Google is conscious of this, hence, it has ensured that it optimizes the portal so it can perform well a low bandwidth environment and also ensured that the courses are light online so they can be viewed on mobile phones.

Some of the videos, she said, are also transcribed to make access easy. Offline packs are also being produced that people can use, she stressed.

Stating what those who want to benefit from the training now should do, Juliet said they should visit the portal, g,co/digitalskills and choose from the available modules. It is completely free and if they successfully complete the training, they will receive a certificate which they can use to update their CV’s and use in obtaining jobs. Information on the classroom training are also available on the portal, she added.

Juliet encouraged everyone to take advantage of this free initiative by Google, because, in today’s world, one cannot really go far without having digital skills. “Digital literacy today, is what basic literacy was to the society, centuries ago”, Juliet concluded.

CFA is the Founder, www.CFAtech.ng & Co-producer/Presenter,Tech Trends on Channels Television