For some of you, a new decade has begun already, for others like me a new decade isn’t starting until 2021.
Whichever category you fall under, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is how prepared you are for the next decade.
I have just one goal this year “preparing for the next decade”. I am focusing the entire year on building and nurturing myself for the next decade and helping others do same.
Thinking about this recently, I realized that unconsciously, I had begun the process of helping others prepare for the next decade.
Last year, I made a commitment to being part of closing Africa’s digital gap. To attain this, I had to reposition myself to be able to access the partnerships and connections I need to achieve this. I joined 2 of my favourite tech companies (WooCommerce & Elementor) and started their local communities to help people learn to use their technologies at no cost via free meetups. These meetups were held on a monthly basis.
I believe local technology communities is the key to closing Africa’s digital gap.
Let’s focus on being prepared for the next decade.
The world has been transformed by technology and digitized systems. We’re in a digital world, a digitally-driven economy. You have to become a digital citizen, digitally fluent, digitally literate and digitally skilled to thrive in this new economy.
Sadly, Africa is struggling to close the digital divide and the continent’s economies are being left behind in the digital economy, which now accounts for up to 15.5% of global GDP. The continent’s share of this is less than 1%.
These digital gaps hinder many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which require strong information and communications technology systems to become a reality.
That’s not all!
It’s is projected that by the next decade the number of youths in Africa would have grown by 42% and doubled by 2055.
“In Africa, the number of youths is growing rapidly. In 2015, 226 million youths aged 15-24 lived in Africa, accounting for 19 per cent of the global youth population. According to the United Nations, by 2030, it is projected that the number of youths in Africa will have increased by 42 per cent and is expected to continue to grow throughout the remainder of the 21st century, more than doubling from current levels by 2055.” -UN
This can be either a blessing or a ticking time bomb, one we can’t fold our hands and wait to explode, as it’ll definitely affect us all.
The truth is, If something isn’t done about the rate of unskilled youth/unemployment, our crime rate is guaranteed to explode.
In preparation for the next decade, I am committing to empowering the youth with digital skills for self-reliance. This will not only close the digital gap but will also close the skills, unemployment and poverty gap, talk about killing 2 birds with one stone!
This year, I’ll personally mentor and train 1,000 youths on digital skills (physically in batches of about 30 per session). They’ll also be engaged in real-life projects to help them hone their skills.
My focus will be on Web Design/Development as well as Digital Marketing. Here’s a little breakdown and why.
WordPress Web Design/Development.
WordPress is the most used content management system (CMS) worldwide and powers the world’s top websites, including websites of fortune’s 500 companies. Making it a very important CMS and skill to learn.
Thankfully, I am a WordPress professional serving as a meetup organizer at WordPress.
E-Commerce
E-commerce in Africa was valued at $16.5 billion in 2017 and this value could cross the $75 billion mark by 2025.
I serve as a community lead for WooCommerce, the world’s no.1 e-commerce platform, powering over 28% of online stores. With Africa’s e-commerce on the rise, you can’t go broke if you know how to build online stores and help businesses take their brick & mortar stores online.
Blogging
I have always been of the school of thought that “blogging is a lucrative business when done right”. I’ll be helping some set of people start, build and grow a profitable blog. For me, this is also a means to tackle the spread of fake information on the continent by some bloggers, as I’ll be training people to blog the right way.
Digital Marketing
The first time I ran a Google ad was in 2013 for a private secondary school in Lagos. That’s over 5 years ago, last I checked 5 years is all you needed to master a profession. I have been trained by the Google and Facebook team, 2 of the major players in the internet advertising scene. Skills I’ll be bringing to the table in this area include: Search engine optimization (SEO), Search engine marketing (SEM – Google ads, etc.), Social Media Marketing (Facebook & Instagram primarily), Email Marketing, etc.
To be part of this training simply follow this link and fill the form and I’ll group you into a batch and forward you the details for your batch (Date, time and venue). It’s completely free and you won’t have to pay a dime.
Unfortunately, I can only accommodate people in Lagos and Uyo for now. However, if you can bring together people who are willing to learn and provide a venue, I’ll be happy to partner with you to extend this training to your location.
Aside from the above 1,000 whom I’ll be training physically, I’ll also actively train people virtually (online) via my Facebook group and YouTube channel.
If you run an NGO or a small business, watch out for my next post as I plan to be involved in building 100 websites for free for NGOs and small businesses. I already have a team of 15 people whom I am mentoring who will be responsible for this while I supervise and ensure quality and timely delivery.
I wish you the best of luck as you prepare for the next decade.
Please ensure this year is not business as usual, try as much to give back in your own little way, it’s the little things that make all the difference!
Happy new year and see you at the top!
