Zarttech Reaffirms commitment to Foster Digital Skills Among Nigerian Youths

As part of its goal of promoting digital literacy in Nigeria, Zarttech has held its yearly Zarttalent Summit aimed at empowering young people to take up and explore opportunities inherent in the Technology sector.

Group picture of participants at the Zarttalent Summit held on Thursday in Lagos.

This year’s summit themed: “How To Win With Tech” was held at the firm’s brand-new state of the art office located at Ago Palace Way, Okota, Lagos.

Mr. Nelson Ajulo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Zarttech, speaking at the event said that the aim of the summit is to help young Nigerians acquire digital skills needed to become self-reliant as well as give them the opportunity to compete favourably with their contemporaries in the global tech ecosystem.

According to him, the summit is part of Zarttech’s ongoing commitment to driving social impact and fostering innovation among Nigerian youth, with the purpose to catch them young.

He said that the programme in its fifth year is to create awareness on the future of labour force in Nigeria and globally.

“And part of the biggest problem that I have seen within the Nigerian economy, also for my PhD research is that these children or the average Nigerian, does not even know what they need to study.

“They don’t know what the economy or what the employer wants, or what the job market needs in the labour market, so they go to school to study without even knowing the end result.

“Which would be that they are able to obtain a certificate that actually says that they are an amazing employee to be hired.”

According to him, when they go and invest the time, invest the resources of their parent on an unintentional intent, and then they also learn something that was not It’s not of great value, then it is redundant, like wasted time and wasted resources.

He noted that it’s really crucial that children and youths are aware of this understanding and that the Summit has created that awareness.

During a panel session titled: “Navigating Tech Career from the Inside” experts majorly from Zarttech team stressed the need for young Nigerians, particularly secondary school students to take up digital skills irrespective of what they aim to study in school.

Oreoluwa Adesanya, Zarttalent Data Analyst Tutor, encouraged students particularly those at the summit to embrace tech as a career. She narrated how she transitioned from studying medical laboratory science in school to becoming a data analyst.

Also, Babatunde Shodeinde, Head of Design at Zarttech, who also transitioned to tech sector after graduating in a different background in school charged the students to start now, adding that their young age is a huge advantage for them to achieved whatever they set their minds to in the ecosystem.

According to him, “you are still very young and there’s no limit to what you can achieve. If there’s better time to start, it’s now. Trust me I know people younger than you people here, I know seven-year old’s learning programming, learning design, learning data and so on. The age in which you’re in right now there’s just so much information out there, so much resources for you to experiment with.”

Speaking at the summit, Mrs Sonia Fajusigbe, Policy Advisor Entrepreneurship Youth Employment and Healthcare Consulate General of the Netherlands in Lagos encouraged youths on the effective and efficient use of technology to their advantage.

Fajusigbe said that there are so many opportunities in the technology ecosystem for the youths to harness as entrepreneurs and innovators.

According to her, our climate in Nigeria is very interesting and with limited opportunities but one can make the best opportunity out of it.

“Data is gold, you have phones, install Britannica it is for student in high school and elementary schools basically for research, it will help you.

“If you do that, you will not go out of scope and remain within the scope, and I would like everyone to take this with them.

“It says self-discipline is what separates winners and the losers, when you are not disciplined, you are just among the crowd.

“It is when you are self-disciplined, you have a goal in front of you and focus on it.”

Fajusigbe said that youths should try as much as possible to ensure consistency in that discipline and when consistency is mixed with discipline one would achieve a whole lot.