Speaking ahead of the event, Olosunde argued that Nigerian youths must leverage technological innovation in order to exit unemployment populace.
He explained that the Surulere economic and job summit seeks to bring together Economist, Strategist, Investors, Development Partners (from within and outside Surulere), small and growing business owners, and job seekers, National Youth Corps members within Surulere to discuss how to stimulate the Surulere economic ecosystem and build a citizen-led Surulere economic council that will commit to leapfrogging Surulere’s economy from where it is to a global level.
He submitted that over the years, consumer appetite has changed and continues to change very rapidly, which youths must respond to in order to create a niche for themselves within the market space.
He explained: “Consumers today, which the youths represent a larger percentage, want to be serviced in a unique way. Hence the skills requirement of businesses to develop innovative product and services, optimize their operational process for efficient delivery and to reduce cost of doing business, drive sales and incremental market share, make profit and build impact, expand their business and be sustainable, are all heavily dependent on digital technology and any youth that has these skills will always escape the structural unemployment.”
He said the summit also presents a robust platform – a town hall – for the political class to articulate their plans for the community even as we move to a new democratic dispensation.
Olosunde hinted that the future of Nigeria would be shaped by her youths hence the need for Nigerian state to begin to see youth as the new ‘crude oil’.
His words: “We must move away from the government of the few, by the few and for the few. Also with the foreign remittances to Nigeria is larger than our revenue from oil, we must humble ourselves to the reality that youths, not oil, will be Nigeria’s greatest asset and move away from an oil-based future.
In practical terms, we must do the following: raise a critical mass of one million youths to become active economic agents; make and consume Nigeria; build a youth owned ‘Enterprise Nigeria’ investment portfolio where every youth above 18 with a vision for Nigeria can have a share to invest in critical sectors like power, food, education, health, housing, etc.; develop and implement an aggressive ‘Move back’ and technology transfer legislation and incentive to radically rebuild the industrial sector of Nigeria; develop a robust ‘Future is Now’ platform that clearly articulate (i) the potential of Nigeria and possible living standard for all, (ii) where we are socioeconomically and politically, (iii) what needs to be done to get us to where we need to be MindtheGap (iv) breakdown the responsibility dimensions (job), what different people can do (v) invite and manage every one to do it gradually with periodic reporting.”
The Mind the Gap boss insisted that conscious effort must be to integrate entrepreneurship into school curricular, saying, “however, in the unfolding nature and future of work and in the words of Peter Dracker, ‘we now live in the era of the 3Cs – accelerated changes, overwhelming complexities and tremendous competition’.
The truth is that discerning youths are not waiting for the government and moreover the government also cannot catch up with the demands for new knowledge and skills in the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“With technology and in a flat new world, platform like YouTube, Google Search, MOOCS, etc. are providing an avenue for learning and there are no more excuses for ignorance. Most Nigeria companies that need top talents are now looking elsewhere to foreign-trained Nigerian youths.
“So beyond the curriculum review which is important, education policies need to include making Internet access a fundamental human right or for a starter invest heavily or partner with the private sector to zerorize a ‘baseline education portal’.
This needs to happen like yesterday and it is one of the things the Surulere Economic Council will be looking at providing for Surulere youths.”
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