The Digital Skills Gap in African Youth

The Digital Skills Gap In African Youth: How does Africa catch up to the rest of the world?

The digital economy is intangible and constantly changing, just like smoke. In order to discern its benefits you need to be familiar with its building blocks and this means you need to focus on the ‘digital’ part the phrase digital economy. Technology has helped solve so many problems around human interaction, and since human interaction is a key feature in business, tech has ended up creating value and generating incredible amounts of wealth. As a result of disruptive technology that connects people companies in silicon-valley have achieved billion dollar valuations in a space of 2 to 3 years. Prior to the tech boom, this was unheard of. The world woke up to the potential that tech companies had.

However like the rest of the world enjoys the benefits of the booming tech industry, Africa’s start-up scene can’t seem to keep up. There a lot of factors contributing to the gap between first world start-ups and local African start-ups but I believe the issue starts at the beginning with the creators of African tech companies. A lot of the founders in local African start-ups are expatriates who understand business and the utility of the product their creating but not the African business ecosystem. Despite this disconnect at first, they are able to adapt their businesses for the local climate.

However imagine if local African talent had the ability to create software solution to problems that they have known intimately for a long time. It would be a perfect fit for the local business climate. Before I go on, this is not to say that foreigners can’t adapt projects for the African business climate, but to say locals can too and when they rival even Silicon Valley giants. Case in point, it was a young Kenyan with a strong tech background that developed a moneytransfer model which grew to become the World famous Mpesa and as a result Safaricom, the parent company, is currently at the $ 10 Billion valuation mark.

If a lot more African locals had similar tech and business backgrounds as the founders of these silicon-valley giants, I believe they could find relevant and creative ways of solving problems however there is a huge skills gap in Africa when it comes to tech. So what is the right way to give more African youth the skills that they would need to compete globally or at least create solutions to their own problems?

The first step required to enhance the skills of African youth

for the digital economy is and will always be education. TheAfrican youth need to know the building blocks of moderntechnology, then understand how they works and in turngrasp how value can be created from them. There areorganizations throughout America that focus of teaching children from the age of 7 years old and upwards, about software and how to code. They are inspiring the next generation of coders. For African youth to have a fighting chance, the same head-start should be offered locally to African children. They should have a working knowledge of both hardware and software.

African youth above the age of 18 years old should also be given a chance to learn the fundamentals of software, hardware and business. Looking at the current education system it is difficult to gather these skills at the same time. However, classic education is being disrupted by newer models that have sprung up online which offer Microcredentialing, or the certification of specific skills or competencies, has the potential to focus training offerings, reduce time spent in training, and respond to market demand so that young people can attain skills required by employers, transition to work more quickly, and develop additional skills over time. This cuts the training time from years to a matter of months and delivers the exact combination of skills needed to pursue given objectives. This method of learning is common in even in Silicon Valley and Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates has stated openly that despite him not completing college, he has taken multiple mini-courses that have helped him understand how to manage his company better with respect to the quick changing pace of tech.

to still be at a bit of a disadvantage because the average African youth still lacks proper digital infrastructure. A consistent supply of electricity and a strong connection to the internet can be difficult to come by and when available can be fairly expensive. We haven’t even mentioned the high cost of cutting edge devices that are essential for creating software.

If local African talent had the ability to create software solution to problems that they have known intimately for a long time. It would be a perfect fit for the local business climate.

One way to go about solving a majority of the problems facing the African youth, with respect to the digital economy, is by creating ‘hubs’ where they can have access to world class hardware, learn new skills and practice them until they are good enough for the industry. These hubs can then transition their best into formal employment, think-tanks and accelerators where the skilled young people can innovate and contribute to the digital economy.