 This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. The participation and the impact of youths in economic development in Kenya is at another level. In today's program, we have Philip Pandey, a man wearing many hats. Let's hear more. Philip, welcome to the program. How did you step into this leadership space? Many thanks for having me, Granice. It's always a pleasure speaking about the youth and especially what we do in adding our voices to this social economic development in this country, political participation and overall innovation ecosystem. My name is Philip Pandey, born and bred in this very good county of Kisumu, the most strategic city in the East African community. Where it all started, I think leadership for me is in it, in born. I started doing this at an early age in preschool and in my entire primary school, I was in leadership roles. It took a better shape in high school and more meaning in the university where before being elected into the university council as a member of the student council, initially I held a number of roles in the Catholic association, being a class representative, being a secretary of many other clubs and the project manager of the most popular club in the university there, which was the environmental club. So, that's the beginning, that's the rooting and of course, a bit of nitrance and mentorship here and there. I'm interested to understand what motivated you to pursue leadership as a career partner. I think I discovered at an early age that leadership was part and parcel of my life and so it was rather important for me to embrace than denying the fact that I needed to stand in and give more of my time and skills to my colleagues, my peers, my community. And so after my first degree in the university which was economics and sociology, also touching on lives of the people, socioeconomic issues, analyzing the context in which we lived, I decided to undertake a master's in governance and leadership because still going on pretty much at the latter stages. But yes, that I think reinforces what I do and what I practice on a daily basis. You talk more about the people, what critical area did you focus on or are you focusing on about the people you're talking about? Firstly, when I talk about the people, I talk about the society as it is and humanity as it were. But of course, with a great emphasis and focus on the young people and the forgotten bottom millions for that matter, people living with disability, women in under-resourced and under-privileged backgrounds, people living in hardships and asshole counties, for example. And those who have for many years not been included in the mainstream governance in our workings as a country, and of course in participation in economic and social activities in our country. So my people in this aspect really revolves around young people, revolves around people with disability, revolves around women and revolves around the aspect of inclusion. We're talking about gender equality, social inclusion in this time and era in the day. And how has the community received your agenda to bring social change in these different aspects? Over time, we've realized that people are conscious of the environment. People are aware that there is some sort of exclusion. People are aware that resources for young people are not as it should be. You look at our budgeting framework, you look at the amount of resources that are located. For example, in gender responsive budgets, if you look at with a critical eye, county budgets and national government budgets on spending on young people or people living with disability for that matter, you don't see it with the seriousness it should be taking. And so every day we get people embracing us, we get communities embracing our work. We've been to at least 37 of the 47 counties in this country. Oh, that's impressive. Yeah. Thank you. Trying to mentor young people, trying to build capacities of grassroots women. And we say, for example, that you don't need an education to be included. You need to be a Kenyan. You need to be a citizen of this country to share in the development of this country, to innovate, to be creative, to be hard and to be considered in terms of development and inclusion in overall governance framework. And let me take you back a bit. You've talked about Chuka University and you awarded a rare European Union champion title when serving as the youngest Chuka University Senate member. How did all this become possible? So at that time, this way back in 2014, when I was an elected student leader in the academic stockings, so direct academic affairs. And my role was to take care of the affairs that touched academic, touched discipline, touched extension and stakeholder management in that regard. And so the EU office in Nairobi was working with a number of universities. I think it could be six to eight in Kenya to mainstream certain opportunities that were there in terms of scholarships, in terms of furthering the education, post the first degree and linkages with the EU space and community as it is. So in organizing the event at Chuka University and the overall collaboration with the eight universities, I think it's in my university that they got the highest turnover and attendance of about 6,000 students participating in one day. And other than that, there were other aspects I think that they considered that led to that award. So dedication to service and just ensuring that ultimate numbers and maximum beneficiaries who are part of this program then led to that consideration, I think. Speaking of dedication to service, you have an experience in mainstreaming youth inclusion through entrepreneurship, innovation, mentoring, policy and advocacy. Why did you decide to take this part, these specific factors in youth inclusion? Well, the main exclusion factor revolves around politics and economics. Economics in the sense that even in terms of accessing political platforms, political parties and winning or running successful election campaigns, you need economic resources. Deviant behavior among young people, for example, is motivated by the fact that they are out of work or they are unemployed. And of course, we talk about unemployment overly in our context. So we realize that we can't keep on playing the rhetoric to young people of reform, come back to these, do these, be nice in your conformity to the law and order. But we need to provide real aspects of life and ensure that everybody is able to fend for themselves, that young people are able to feed themselves, that people living with disability are able to be economically viable in terms of running enterprises and businesses. So we thought that as a substitute to the song of behavior change and such like, there was a real need to talk about the economic well-being of young people. And that's where entrepreneurship as an alternative came in because unemployment is a real thing. We are talking about Kenya being in the space where the youth bulge is really threatening our fabrics. We can't really plan our resource envelopes to take care of the interest of the wide population of young people. Averagely the median age of Kenya as a country is about 19.7. So when you have that being the majority in this country, as a country and as a continent, we may not be able to provide jobs that match the demand. So entrepreneurship is an alternative. But in mainstreaming entrepreneurship, then innovation and creativity is part and parcel of young people, of the millennials, of the generation Z that we talk about. We are more inquisitive. We are more inclined towards tech and innovation. We are more inclined towards STEM and manipulating alternatives in that space to create businesses, to prototype products and to sell and launch in the market out there. So entrepreneurship and innovation provide for us a more meaning than mainstreaming employability without facilitating job creation, without facilitating startups, without facilitating people who want to employ themselves. And how much of a gap have you been able to bridge since you started this journey of youth inclusion? Very well. That becomes a tricky subject. We may not be able to quantify or basically qualify our impact. But looking at what we've been able to do, working with the initial event, the office of the president, strategic initiatives, we've been able to one go to 37 counties, like I mentioned. And in those 37 counties, we have over 100,000 young people that we've mentored and installed as grassroots change drivers. Other than that, we've opened up innovation hubs in many counties now. Specifically, if you go to Transoia today, you'll find the Convally Hub working with young people. If you go to Wajia, you'll find the Abbasuen Hub. If you go to Kisi, you'll find Tabaka Innovation Hub. So those innovation hubs work as accelerator points and safe spaces for the youth. In terms of providing direct employment, I would say that nearly half a million people have found jobs in the mainstreaming online and digital jobs through our partners that have been able to work with us. Mainstreaming innovation and ensuring that agribusiness, for example, and green jobs, ecological protection and forestry now, taking shape and employing grassroots young people in, be it a tree nursery, be it a conservation space, be it a farm, a demo farm, and actual production of food and lifting livelihoods out of poverty in the rural areas. We've worked with a number of partners, development partners, GIZ, UK Tech Hub and many others. And we've worked with other friendly organizations like the Forgotten Bottom Millions, which is an Africa-wide network for young people seeking opportunities. So we don't only provide opportunities in entrepreneurship and innovation. We also share scholarship opportunities. We share opportunities in mainstream employment. We share opportunities in collaborating with other people in development projects and anything that engages young people and ensures that we are tooling young people to productive manpower and skilled labor that is required for the 21st century jobs. At this time, we are also mainstreaming AI as part of innovation. We know, for example, that we are talking about AI taking up space in employment, but we're also saying that more jobs will be created through innovation in the AI space, artificial intelligence, and many others. So we are training people on robotic processes, automation. We are training people on business re-engineering, for example, so that you don't just go into a business or an organization like an analyst, but you can be a business engineering expert in ensuring that you add unique value to spaces that you venture into. There's so much you're talking about opportunities, scholarships. So how does that information get to get to the public through your forums? So, for example, an organization that is filling up this space is called Forgotten Bottom Millions, which picks opportunities that are available on the Internet in social media platforms and verifies and then consolidates those information and shares on WhatsApp platforms, on our websites, on Facebook pages, and on our individual timelines. And somebody just by a click of a button, then you land onto a page that offers you a job. You could be in Nairobi or in Kisumu, but you're working for a U.K. or a U.S. farm remotely. And many other young people are doing that, digital jobs and digital transformation. You could, by a click of a button, find an opportunity that lands you in a German university or a Canadian university to study your masters or do a remote program in trying to advance your skills. And so that comes in handy by, you know, just having a tool and now we are developing a tool that through artificial intelligence that aggregates opportunities, especially startup opportunities. So internships, scholarships, pupillage programs, programs that are run around, graduate training programs, and aggregating them and ensuring that we see, verify, then share out with young people seeking opportunities. And could you mention some of this YouTube Facebook pages website that someone can go look into so that they can click on the opportunities? Very well. Today I'm more engaged at Corporate Career Academy as my main business now, mentoring young people and providing opportunities. So if you're looking for such, we are working with university students. We are working with out-of-school youth. Go onto our Facebook pages for, I mean, Corporate Career Academy on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Twitter. You'll find opportunities shared. Other than the Corporate Career Academy, I've mentioned the Forgotten Bottom Millions, which is a key platform, bigger than many other organizations now in sharing out verified opportunities. Go to their social media handles. You could also find opportunities in the closest hub around you. There are youth innovation hubs in nearly all counties now. But again, as a young person with a smartphone, you are not short of opportunities. There are limited opportunities online. Just search anything that you're looking for. Search for scholarships. You'll find numerous. Find search opportunities on online jobs. Look for freelancing platforms like, you know, they are many now. You look at the Google workspace. You'll find jobs. You look at FIVA. You'll find jobs. You look at Ajira digital platform. You'll find jobs and many others. So both from government side and in the development space, they are just unlimited opportunities. And of course, one thing that we're also trying to fight is young people's resentment on applying for jobs and hiring. There is a belief in this country that most of those jobs that are advertised out there are already filled. Maybe, maybe not. But when it's your time, nothing stops you. Keep applying. Keep sending out your CV on anything that comes or pops up on your screen that you think is suitable. If you qualify at least 70%, that's an opportunity that could come your way. Always keep up shooting so that when it's your day, when it's your time, sometimes luck pays than any other thing. It could be your lucky day. Your interest in grassroots youth organization, how can you describe your unique leadership towards that? Well, I think we are focused primarily on grassroots because there are quite a lot of opportunities in the capital, Nairobi. There are quite a lot of opportunities in major towns. But if you go to the villages, if you are not in the farm tilling your garden, if you're not involved in break-making, if you're not involved in all the jobs, really, then you have no opportunities. So our target has always been to go to where the action is limited and where there are less opportunities and where information asymmetry has ensured that young people are not wired or conditioned to accessing opportunities or being more aggressive. If you live in the informal settlement, for example, if you live in the Assam counties, there are no TVs there. There are some of the spaces without even internet access and people living in those spaces have hardships even buying smartphones. So perhaps the only opportunity they get is when a mentor fills their role and goes into an interactive session with them and exposes them to an opportunity. And so that's why we're also encouraging for shared spaces and safe spaces for young people. So that if I don't have a computer, if I don't have a smartphone, but I can walk into a community hub, I could walk into an innovation hub that is in my neighborhood, use a computer, collaborate with other colleagues and help in setting goals that then we keep on accounting to and being able to just ensure that everybody is taken care of. This is quite a responsibility you've taken on. What challenges have you had on this journey and how did you manoeuvre them? Well, when you fill the roles such as ours, everybody thinks that you could employ them, you could link them to an opportunity. But you tell them, OK, let's go through this process. Let me share what's available next week so you could look at. Let me share random opportunities and people do not want to follow that process. They want instant solutions like I want a job and I want you to identify what fits me so that you give it to me. So when we share opportunities or when we invite you to participate in a workshop or in a mentoring event, then show up. Because when you show up, you link up with other people. You listen to stories that you've not heard before and you realize that you need to trust the process. And where do you see yourself in the future doing this career? I'm looking forward to an opportunity to be able to ensure that young people in this country and persons living with disability are just as included as women. In the last decade, we've seen a lot of transformation in the gender space constitutionally and in terms of legal frameworks. I'm looking forward to a day when the Senate of this country, for example, can say that in the county government's operations, particularly in the county government's act, we are able to ensure that young people are part and parcel of cabinets, are part and parcel of decision making roles so that it starts from ground up. And I'm looking forward to a day when the national government through the National Assembly will be able to legislate and install legal frameworks where young people do not have to make a lot of noise to be heard, that our voices should be just as important as any other person in the space. As a leader yourself, what advice would you give a young person wanting to be a leader in the future and they're shy to get into that space? So if you want to make an impact as a young person, firstly, dedicate yourself to voluntary opportunities and paid labor and be able to be counted in terms of making a difference. The other thing is look for mentorship. You can't do it alone and you are probably navigating a space where you have less skills. You need to find a mentor that then helps you to set goals and targets and helps you to account. So you must also be thick skinned to ensure that when your peers, for example, not buying in, sometimes they say that to support the youth ecosystem, you need to use one hand to hold the critics and those who are going to be weighing you down and the other arm to do exactly what you're supposed to do. So that is part and parcel of the youth space. There is quite unlimited space for anyone that wants to venture in. This is amazing what you're doing. You have so much. And if a young person could listen and then I'm sure they'll be going so far. Dedicate yourself to opportunities, show up, find that mentor who will help you, who will lead you and who will guide you in the right path. This has been Youth in Action. See you next time. I am Nyongwese Grenis.