She began by highlighting the rapid changes digital technology are bringing to the workspace globally. We face a future that is more knowledge-based and has the potential to drive the GDP of the country in the future; whilst natural resources will continue to matter less. Globally, work is changing and about 30% to 40% of the western workforce would have to redefine their occupations by 2030; with high consideration for machine learning, AI, digitization, cryptocurrencies amongst others. Talent and digital skills are going to be the driver of the knowledge economy.

The technology founders of Africa are building the future of Africa leveraging on talents with inspiring results despite the harsh operational environments across different sectors including biotech. All of these advancements in just about ten years! There are broadly 3 things that Nigerian Tech founders understand very well and have been able to build on; not deterred by borders, setting up continuous DNA for innovations and upscale, whilst being able to create huge opportunities and employment, shifting Nigeria from consumption to value generation.

This generation understands the power of technology to improve humanity, she claimed. They have the ability to compete effectively for capital to scale high growth businesses. They understand the high global demand for technology talents and, we need to dwell on how to improve how this is scaled up and improved.

In the first half of 2021, African tech startups have raised over a billion dollars and Nigeria is a top-three destination for that capital. She cited examples of Helium Health, Paga, Kuda and Flutterwave amongst others and the enormous clientele and customer base they command. These are young Nigerians and each of their companies is barely a decade old!

She highlighted the advantages they know this country, Nigeria, possesses as the following:

1. Nigeria is in sync with the global demand for technology talents. They know more software has to be developed.
2. They also know working remotely at scale is possible and the world at large is open to choose from.
3. The Nigerian tech founders have shown the world what is possible and made it their job to create technology accelerators. This is believing that talent is evenly distributed but not opportunities.
4. She advocated that the strategy to employ is to improve the pipeline of tech accelerators and lower the barrier to this.  She said there is high demand for technology talents. She cited Decagon and Andela as the tech start-ups who have done tis and upscaled! These Nigerian start-ups have attracted a lot of foreign venture capital and the Nigerian technology ecosystem offers the yield desired.

What is the strategy to employ to scale up here? With informal training being their forte, the Nigerian universities can be opened for more but with a concentration on developing the outcome of graduates so that they are exportable. She, therefore, advised that we must work on our policies for the jobs will come and we can then export the talents for great FDI. This can happen in just six months!