 Or technology kill jobs and aggravate inequality or bring in more significant work in healthier societies? This question has worried humankind ever since technological investment took over certain manual jobs. Digital cameras and mobile phones change photography and the way we click photos. To say, resourceful photographers had no option but to embrace the new technology. At one point, nobody could have thought that some interesting jobs would not make it to a list of top future jobs and would be redundant in the future. The future of work is our main focus on the show this week. Welcome to Business Insights on Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. Now the last has not been heard about the 5.01 trillion narrow loan to finance the 2022 budget. Plus, food security, high cost of trade among others rounded up Business Nigeria this week. Here is a highlight. The Senate on Wednesday summoned the accounting officers of seven federal ministries, departments and agencies over their failure to defend their imputes in the 5.01 trillion narrow loans proposed to form the 2022 budget deficit. President of Senate Ahmed Lawan, the Christ the known appearance of affected MDAs before the Senate Committee on loan and foreign debts. While issuing the summons at the close of plenary, Lawal said if the MDAs fail to appear, the Senate would take appropriate and prompt actions against them. The Director General of the World Trade Organization, Dr. Ngoziokonjoy Wala, has said that Nigeria's trade costs are too high and therefore cannot attract investment. Ngoziokonjoy Wala said these two president, Mohamed Dabuhari, ministers and all the top government officials on Tuesday at a two-day mid-term ministerial performance review retreat organized by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation at the presidential villa, Abuja. Ngoziokonjoy Wala, former minister of finance and coordinating minister of economy, stated these via virtual arduous. The central bank of Nigeria, CBN, has directed banks to apply the Indicative Exchange Rate in the Investors and Exporters window for outbound payment through the Pan-African payment and settlement system, PAPS. PAPS is the first centralized payment market infrastructure for processing, clearing and settling of intra-African trade and commerce payment. It was set up by the Afraxim Bank and Patnershipwood West African Money Institute. The Nigerian Commodity Exchange, NCX, has engaged various stakeholders in the nation's agro-comodities sector with a view to crushing the soaring price of food items across the country. NCS spokesman Chris Ichiichuku said that the move to synergize with relevant agencies to bring down the prices of food items in the country was in line with the directives of President Mohammad Abu-Hari. I'm now being joined by the CEO of Crystal Hills Tech Hub and the business development strategist, Song-Woo Timilay. He is an alumnus of the Lagos Business Coal. Timilay has designed and implemented smart systems to enhance efficiency at work and life generally. Many thanks for joining us on Business Insight and Class TV Africa to look at the future of work for today. Timilay, we do appreciate you joining us. Hi, Justin. It's nice to be here. Yeah, it is our pleasure. Let's just dive into the show if we may. Looking at the future of work in Nigeria, a whole lot has changed. In my intro, I said most people will never believe that some jobs would become redundant. So much so after the 2020 pandemic and all of that, most people lost their jobs and a lot of people were actually working from home. But precisely, if we're talking about the future of work in Nigeria, what should we be looking at right now? So Justin, thank you so much for that question. So when we talk about the future of work, a lot of times when people hear future of work, what comes to mind is always collaboration, interaction, working from the cloud. I mean, a lot of businesses know that and they are trying to adapt to it. But it is a part of it that we really talk about and really discuss about. What is the process? The process behind you being able to transit from the way you were, the old way of doing things and the new way, the future of work. And I mean, when designing that process is when we begin to face issues of compliance and a whole lot. And this is the challenge that a lot of SMEs are facing in terms of being able to adapt to technology and the future of work. But I mean, I feel like if we pay more attention on the process behind it and being able to, because every organization does not have the same structure. Every organization will not adapt to the, every organization will not adapt to change the same way. So that's why I feel like the process in which it involves is much more important than actually the platform that you use in being able to move on into the future of being able to work. Alright, Tbilay, let me just paint a scenario right now. Specifically, let me use photography as a case study. Back in the day, in the 80s and 90s, we had lots of, you know, we have photographic studios where people would ordinarily just go and take pictures to commemorate events, their birthdays, when they're feeling very good with themselves. They just want to take pictures. But gone at those days, Nigerians and indeed the world, you know, have everything at their fingertips. The world has gone global and almost everyone is doing everything from their personal mobile phones. So what do you really, what would you really say about jobs that may stay or may not stay, let's say in the next five years, specifically here in Nigeria? So, Justin, I'm going to use a scenario for this. It is, you'll rather get on the train than stay in front of the train. It is known, we all know that the future work is coming. We all know that machine and technology is taking over a lot of jobs. But the truth about it is that there are some jobs that, there are some jobs that machines can never take. And those are jobs that require, you know, we can, when it comes to feelings, when it comes to anything that has to do with emotions, that's to do with empathy, machine can never take those jobs. And anything that has to do with creativity, creativity, creativity will never go out of work. And machine can never take away our creativity. So the thing is that we need to accept, I mean, these technologies that have come are not against us. We need to accept it. We need to know that, we need to accept that it has come to stay. And we now begin to unlearn something that we've learned and now relearn them in a way that we will also be a head of the technology and we'll own these technologies so that we'll be able to control it. But if we continue trying to do the all things that we were trying to, that we used to do before, we probably might still have issues. Alright, looking at all of the technology, talking about artificial intelligence and all of them, the techy word stuff that people use these days now. So how does one position himself or herself for the future so that one does not really get all trapped in the old ways of doing things? For instance, right now, do you need to do some sort of upgrading? What exactly can you do to be relevant in the future so as to be sure that even if event changing and technologies are improving, advancing by the day, you will still be relevant in your sphere? Yes, like I said earlier, it has to be a lot of unlearning and relearning. And aside from that also, we need to also understand that times have changed, trends are changing, and technologies are different from what they used to be before. And also we need to, I mean, a lot of businesses need to be encouraged to start thinking about how to operate globally or operate in the global perspective and that has to be cloud. Like for instance now, there's still a lot of businesses that still pay employees for 2009-50,000. I mean, they've been paying that home before the pandemic. And you know what is affecting, you know what is happening with our economy currently? Yes, it is a bit difficult because businesses are struggling and all. But, you know, we can, if we don't change the way we used to do things, I mean, we will not, we don't decide to change the way we used to do things. We will not see the need, we will not see the advantages in trying to adapt technologies that require you being able to work remotely and all. Okay, now what would your advice be for the employer? We have looked at the employee aspect. Let's talk about the employer's enough verbatim. Right now, most people are faced with, of course, all the bottlenecks of the COVID-19 pandemic and as much as possible, they have tried to reduce on personal cost and more people are working, you know, from home business. Now, so how can you, what can you say now to the employer to be ensured that in as much as most people are working offline and remotely that the job gets to be done? So, the job is easier when there are processes in place. The job is easier when the organization has already done the due diligence that they need to do when they have systems and procedures in place. Now, for a small business that don't have high capital to, I mean, hire an HR, hire a business development manager, hire, you know, there are lots of small businesses that are still struggling with their finance and trying to do things smaller. You know, what I recommend is the use of softwares. There are lots of softwares that make up easier business. I mean, you have softwares that are, now we have softwares that will take up the whole entire task from embodying of a customer to operations, task management, project management within the organization, HR processes, payroll and all those things. There are lots of softwares that are coming up now that are able to take care of that. I mean, what organization needs to focus on is compliance. Getting a software that works and being able to get the employees to comply with the use of those systems and follow up with it. I mean, you will surprise the kind of reports that you need and you will be able to get easily with less amount of employees in your system. So if I should just speak generally right now, how would you say, speaking of preparedness right now, how would you say Nigeria is doing when it comes to really living with the future of work as it were? Come 2030, most people would have embraced artificial intelligence completely. But where are we right now as a country? I mean, a lot of small businesses in Nigeria are still struggling with accepting the fact that the change and work has actually changed in general. A lot of businesses are still struggling with the fact that employees can actually work from home. Rather than we focusing on time, we should focus on efficiency and performance of our employees. And I mean, that is very, very important. And I feel like it is something that would gradually happen. But the earlier the organizations that decide to emulate this are growing faster. Let's look at the global perspective and look at companies like Uber. Uber is completely automated even from the process and the way they actually work. And I mean, you see companies like Domino's now that are actually now coming up from the delivery system that has to do with drones. These innovations are coming up. These innovations are coming up and are taking over whether we like it or not. We can't be against it. We have to accept it and we have to retrain ourselves to actually be the ones in the forefront of these technologies. And that is the trend for businesses that should go. Maybe they actually want to see the relevance in the years to come. All right then, Timilay, just before we let you go, I just want to get to your final words for people who are really starting out and that they are really worried that things are not really what they assume they would be and that they're trying to grapple with how the future or what the future holds for them. What would your advice be for the man who just has about 100,000 Naira and he needs to start some sort of a business and he's wondering what the future holds in terms of the way work has been done right now. Okay. Businesses for people, I mean, we understand how the country is and a lot of people are trying to start businesses and all. What I recommend is trying to start something, focus on what is important, focus on efficiency, focus on things that will actually give you value and focus less on things that you don't have control over. Focus on those things that you can control and, I mean, the kind of business to venture into should actually be something that you actually know a lot about. And you see, what is very important for us to do is actually learn. We need to actually learn, keep learning and, you know, keep on learning a lot of things that we've learned in the past that we think is supposed to be the trend and keep learning new things and new trends. All right. Thank you so much, Timilane, for sharing your thoughts and, of course, all that we need to know concerning the future of work and how prepared we are as a country and what the employers and the employee alike need to do to ensure that they stay relevant and their jobs and, of course, their businesses are secure. We do appreciate your time. Thank you so much. All right. Welcome. I think the idea of talent is fought over so fiercely that the most skilful worker's higher personal agent to manage their careers isn't hard to imagine. The idea is to stay prepared for that future. There's two talking about future. Just what are the prospects for event planners? How can they weather this term? Would leave you with that details on business 101 plus what the Lagos State Government is doing concerning housing for residents. Are you sure for this week? Let's do it again next time. I am Justin. Thank you so much for watching. Rising from the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the event industry is now relenting in positioning its brand to provide solutions to some of the industry needs. Addressing newsmen in Lagos ahead of the fifth edition of the annual BZB event summit, organisers say over 1,000 travelling entrepreneurs have passed through its training. The entrepreneurial workshop seeks to address the challenges of event professionals bringing on board seasoned experts to share experiences and prefer solutions. First, bringing on board business consultants, seasoned event experts to come share their wealth of experience and also prefer solutions to burning issues at hand. Make you aware that there is challenges. There is crisis. How do you navigate? By the time you are at it, I am a product of the event industry. By God's grace, by the time I speak in public service, I can also share my story to say this is where I started from. The event industry contributes if I am not mistaken about 3 million in Lagos State entrepreneurs, always party. Even now, there is no money. There is no money. We are buying shares. And it is this week when professionals that they patronize. So what it just means is that number one, the event industry contributes to the growth of the economy. We are giving out jobs. We are paying us shares. We are getting wages. We are cooking food. The other day, they put up that baking items have gone high. But we are still buying. My son's birthday is this week. And I have paid the baker. You understand? So we are still spending the money. The Bayview Estate Ikati Elegushi Leki brings a number of housing estates commissioned so far by Governor Sawun Luto 11. The project consists of 100 units of 68 terraces of four bedrooms with a maids room H, and 32 flats of three bedrooms with a maids room. It has also come looking at the entire family ecosystem. And so you have a swimming pool. You have a gym. You have a small hall. You have everything that can indeed meet the needs of the families of today. According to Sawun Luto, another set of housing estates will be commissioned before the end of the year and first quarter of next year. Shogutedo is over 1,000 flats. But the phase one of it, over 744 flats, we want to ensure before the end of the year that we also hand over phase one of Shogutedo, which will be about 744 units. We'll also have houses that we're trying to complete at Udonosa in Aboa. That also we're pushing all our contractors to ensure that we complete. And of course, the Undubusikano housing estate in Bagada. Commission for Housing Muruf Akin De Rufotai said the Sawun Luto administration is committed to resolving the housing deficit in the state. This noted was aimed at boosting the state's economy and increase its internally generated revenue. While appreciating Sawun Luto for the support, the managing director of LSDPC, Dakrile Ha Yusuf, assured that no effort will be spent at ensuring that no housing scheme is left uncompleted. The project was initiated four years ago while Sawun Luto was the MD-CEO of the organization. From Lagos, Love Ikuku Uyiduku, reporting for PLASTV, Africa.