 Welcome back from that. Let me tell you a bit about my guest. After he graduated from the University in Nigeria, he struggled to get a job for at least two years. During this time he says he thought there was more to his life. In his attempt to make a difference with his life during this period, he realized that the situation was not peculiar to him alone. Several other young people were facing a similar challenge. This inspired him to find means to help his demography of people. He began to work with universities to help young people develop project management skills. He also contacted a number of businesses to try and understand the skills and competencies they looked for from Nigerian graduates and began to develop the company's engagement and value proposition around these skills. This was the best of Utiva. Let's make welcome, my guest, the CEO of Utiva, Eyi Tayo Many thanks for joining me on Business Insights. Thank you so much. I like the way you pronounced my name. I pronounced it right, right? You did well, you did well. You go, Justin. Let's talk about this. Let's talk for me from the way I introduced you. Tell us about your story really. You graduated for two years. You didn't get a job and that you felt there was a need to actually add value. Okay. I mean, so I went to one of the best schools, you know, and I got some of the best education, you know, boss. I got to the job market and I struggled with, you know, finding the job. So when you think about it, you know, I had gone to the university to study medical physiology. I thought I was even the departmental president. So I thought, you know, I should have some soft landing, some leverage in the job market. Well, most likely to succeed. But I couldn't get a job. So I thought about it that there is, you know, almost 130 million young people, you know, about 65 million people are living in the universities, you know, graduating. What's their fate? But I got lucky, actually. I got a mentor who supported me, who helped me to learn text skills. I moved to the US in 2015, you know, as a product manager. But while I was in the US, I was so on, I couldn't find the rest that I needed because I kept thinking about where I was coming from, you know, and the fact that there are a lot of young people that really need the same opportunity that I had. So I came back to Nigeria in 2017 and started UTIVA officially in 2018, 2019, really, because it was quite very tough to understand the space and how you were going to start, you know, quite a struggle here. Okay, fine. In your introduction, you talked about text skills in person. So let's talk about ATEM, that why it is really important for young people specifically to actually have or harness these skills. So there are two ways to think about it. The first one is that the demand, you know, is quite really high. And we're not talking about the demand at a much more local level. You know, not just Nigerian based companies or African startups, but talking about the opportunity to globalize, you know, your skills and contribute to a much more larger ecosystem of the technology community. So today, almost 90% of companies really need tech talent, you know, to build some facilities, build some infrastructure, or just like you said, analyze data, build some cloud, you know, support systems. So the demand is quite very high. The second opportunity is the fact that within a very short period of time, you can learn the skill, you know, unlike some other skills that might take up about four years to learn, you can pick a data skill and learn it in four months, you know. And those are the two major opportunities and it's no longer pricy, you know, with quite very small resources. The most important thing is for you to be dedicated and got like an internet and laptop to really say you want to learn. Okay. You make it sound very easy. You talk about just get internet and laptop fired in as much as internet penetration has actually improved in the country. But when you talk about hardware, it's not really a thing that people can really get or access. So easily. But let's talk about that in Nigeria as it is right now. What would you say is the reason why Nigerians per se have not fully embraced that this skills because it's actually getting the well paid jobs, blockchain, AI and all of that. How come we are not yet or it's not yet for us here as a country? Yeah. So there are three ways to really think about, you know, that's the first is the cultural mindset. The fact that over the years, you know, as a people, we've been told that the big opportunities are in accounting, they are in medicine, they are in law. So we still have primary school teachers, secondary school teachers still saying the same thing to the kids. So people are going to the universities to invest their time, learning skills that are not really in the high demand. You know, that's the first problem. The second problem is there is still not enough and sufficient, you know, adequate education to really help people get that level of awareness that there are opportunities in the space. The third one is as much as I make it look like it's quite very easy, nothing really good comes easy. You still require a lot of discipline, hard work. I mean, I have seen over 3000 people whose life have been transformed who have gone to learn skills, build better lives, you know, people who have traveled abroad, get bigger jobs abroad through tech, you know, and the testimonials are everywhere around us. However, when you do a deeper dive and you define to the lives of these people, you would realize that it's a lot of commitments, you know, learning, midnight candles being born, you know, both the opportunities are there. The good thing with the tech spaces, it's so really impossible for you to be that good, for you to have learned that skill and stay unemployed. It's almost impossible. The ecosystem is so bold that people are placing their bets on people. They're giving you internships, apprenticeships are there, opportunities for you to take freelance jobs, side gigs. I mean, you can literally stay in your house and take a gig that pays you almost a million as a product designer. But for someone to commit a million into you and say, hey, build this for me, you need to be good. And what does it take to be good? You know, continue to practice, you know, it's like being a footballer, continue to practice, you know, build your capacity and that's all it takes. Okay. So speaking of capacity building, you know, in passing, you also talked about education. Let's look at our educational systems, specifically our ivory towers right now. Would you really say that they are equipped to would modern realities of our present times right now? Because I don't know, back when I was in school, when I did my first degree, I only showed a discount on that when the word had actually gone beyond that. So would you really say that in Nigeria, in Africa, specifically, that our schools have what they take to build young people so they can actually take the most and get the benefit of, you know, what's happening in fintech and the digital world as we speak? I mean, so the short answer to that is no. There are five different cardinals, you know, to wait the way to think about this, you know, the capacity of the educators themselves, the lecturers, you know, the tutors, the coaches in school, the institution itself becoming digitally transformed, such that everywhere you go, the narratives and the conversations in the school is really about, you know, the tech ecosystem, the technology landscape. The top one is the curriculum itself, you know, the way and the way I think about this every time is you don't really have to be a tech person. Whatever you are studying has to embrace tech. If it's medicine, you know, it has to embrace tech. And that's the way to kind of like transform the university. And the fourth one, which I think is the most important one is the incentive. You know, the incentive for these young people to say, I really want to learn software engineering. And in terms of the incentive, we need to restructure so that we have a much more private sector driven educational system where private sectors are coming to the universities, funding the universities to train those young people to become tech oriented and tech driven, and then come back to pick them and place a bet on that through internship and apprenticeship. And that's the last, and the last one is the government itself. We need to now begin to enact policies. We'll talk about the government in a moment because there's a whole lot to talk about when the government is actually brought to bear in development and how to change the narratives. It is still business insights on Plus TV Africa. My guest, Aitay Ogumala, is still here. We'll take a quick break and we'll come back. We'll be looking at the role of government in building capacity for the young people. And of course, some things they have done in their own lead to actually model young people to actually be their best in a moment when we return to join us again. All right, welcome back to business insight and Plus TV Africa. We're looking at ICT development and of course, the building capacity for young people. My guest is Aitay Ogumala. Many thanks for staying with me. Just before we took the break out, we're talking about how government can actually play a vital role in changing the narrative. Please continue. So the way to think about it, I mean, it's quite a very brover engagement that the government needs to do, but it usually starts with a lot of investment and curriculum redevelopment, making sure that we're intentional about infusing the demand into the supply. We need to ensure that we do a lot of research and understand what the employers are looking for, then go back and redesign our curriculum and whatever we are training these young people in to ensure that we cover the demand side of the equation. And then that also comes with also investing so much in the educators themselves, the lecturers and schools. I know Microsoft is doing something around that, training over 10,000 lecturers to learn tech skills and also getting them to in turn train the university students. So there's so much to do, but it usually starts with understanding the demand side. The part that I'm so much excited about is really dragging the private sector to come to the university and invest, like a probably private partnership, but investing upfront, because if you don't invest upfront, it's so difficult to get a private sector company to also want to come to the table with you. So if the government invests upfront, then get the private sector to say, hey, we've trained 100,000 software engineers, data scientists in the past four years, are you happy to provide them with internship, apprenticeship, what you would find, and this has happened in legal states before, you would find the private sector getting excited about this. And that's one of the things I think the government needs to start to do. Okay, let's talk about some sort of, let's say corporate social responsibility. Over time, I know that you have worked out with Binance and Microsoft to actually build capacity of young people. Can you tell us about it and can you tell us how Nigerians can actually benefit from that? Absolutely. I mean, there are not many organizations and institutions, especially the large corporations that are invested so much at the level that some of our partners are doing. Like Binance, for example, invested to train 50,000 people and also provide 1,000 scholarships. It's quite very easy to access some of those things. One of the best things to do is to check around and see the scholarships are available for young people, not just in Nigeria across Africa. I think almost 20,000 people have actually accessed the opportunities, but we still have a space for about 30,000 people fully funded by Binance Charity. And this is one of the initiatives of Binance Charity. And just to put it out, it's not only Binance Charity that is doing social good. There's so many other organizations that are doing the same thing. HP, for example, Microsoft, like I mentioned, so young people also need to be very proactive, getting aware of this opportunity so that you can plug into that. Okay, fine. That's well said. Speaking of opportunities, now for someone who actually has a left school and he has done his compulsory national youth service call and he really wants to get into a profession in ICT and the value chain or the ecosystem. What would your advice to him be? So the first advice would be attend free sessions where you can educate yourself and get yourself familiarized with the entire space so that you don't understand the different opportunities in that space. The second thing will be speak with a learning advisor. Getting a mentor is always a very easy route to get into a new territory. Find someone who can coach you. If you can also find an expert that can help you align your or the skills with the tech skills. For example, if you've got great leadership, you are a people's person, there are opportunities for you in product management. If you love to analyze and think out of the box, data science might be your thing. If you're creative and you love visuals and design, product design might be your thing. So there's so many opportunities in that space, but the three fourth things that I mentioned would be the lowest-handed first and there are so many free sessions out there that can kind of like get you familiarized with the ecosystem. Find a mentor who can help you get the clarity that you need. And the most important thing, make sure whatever space you are getting into align with your soft skills. Because you don't want to get into a space that frustrates your creativity or your energy. And that's the way to think about coming into the tech space. Okay, fine. Still talking about the government, let's talk about baby challenges. We've talked about that in the education sector. Are you also perfect some solution about educating educators as well? But what would you say are the challenges that is actually mitigating against the growth of the ICT ecosystem here in the country? And one more can be done to adjust both Niger. So Niger can actually be like a hub. So I mean, when I look at all those other ecosystems, I've lived in almost four countries and I study some of the territories and the things they've done, we need to lower the barrier to entry. And one of the best ways to do that is to provide study loans. Learning the tech skill can be very, very expensive. Because then you need to bomb data, to have a laptop. You need to attend classes, you need to attend sessions. But if we provide study loans and then we spread the loan, people are able to learn and pay for quality. The second thing we need to do is we need to really provide opportunities for people to practice what they've learned. I saw lots of young people who are graduating from different boot camps, but do not have the platform to express their capacities. So we need to start to foster relationships with institutions and organizations that can provide them with three months, four months internship, just to practice what they've learned. I think the most important thing is incentivize success. I like what you're doing. We need to also bring other smarter young people who have gone through these things and have gone through the toughness of these things to tell their stories, so that other people can see from the reality and the lenses of people who have done it before. I think these are the three ways to really supercharge the ecosystem. All right, it was a very big thank you to you Ita for all of the useful insights that you have brought on the show today. We do appreciate them. Thank you so much. All right, my guest has been a Yi Taiyo. Ogumo Lahi is the CEO and founder of UTIVA, but just before we go, Ghostmode Digitization is a panacea to financial services, security, and other bottlenecks. It is an innovation by Fintech to ensure privacy as well as solve the draw challenge of protection and security. I'll leave you with details of that report and I'll see you again next time. I am Justin Akadoni. Many thanks for watching.