By Morkporkpor Anku
Accra, Feb. 23, GNA – Madam Adwoa Owusu Ofori, the Founder and Executive Director, Women’s Heaven Africa, says organizations seeking to maximize digital job opportunities for young people must look to ensure they are well-positioned to participate in the digital marketplace.
She said these organisations and stakeholders must also invest in growing the digital market to create more jobs.
Madam Ofori was speaking at the third Tech Job Fair 2023 on the theme: “Leveraging Technology to create inclusive and Sustainable Jobs” in Accra.
The Fair organised by the Institute of ICT Professional, Ghana (IIPGH) in collaboration with AFOS Foundation brought together companies looking for new talents, on one hand, and job seeking graduates on the other, to exhibit and fill up job openings through an innovative rapid recruitment process.
She said the African digital economy was still expanding, with significant pockets of untapped growth potential offering exciting investment opportunities and, ultimately, job creation.
The Executive Director said Ghana had a relatively strong ICT infrastructure and high mobile and Internet penetration rates in comparison to the rest of the region.
“Because of its relatively favorable business environment and strong ICT infrastructure, the country is widely regarded as a strong Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) destination for English-speaking countries, however, this potential has not been realized,” she said.
Madam Ofori said the potential, however, had not been fully realized because operating costs were still high due to Internet unreliability and high real estate costs.
She said while Ghana was yet to realize its BPO potential, there were some encouraging signs that, with additional investment, the country could gain traction and scale.
She said the telecommunications and BPO industries, which were expected to generate 28,000 entry-level digital jobs by 2020, were driving the digital market in the private sector.
Of these, 23,000 will be customer service jobs in telecommunications or banking Ghana’s opportunities and challenges for inclusive digital jobs.
Madam Ofori said, “I see digital jobs, a pathway out of poverty for high potential disadvantaged youth, because the digital economy has enormous potential for creating formal jobs for historically marginalized youth.”
These ‘digital jobs,’ which are short-term or permanent positions that use information technology to deliver a product or service, are in the formal sector and thus provide higher wages and long-term job stability, both of which are critical mechanisms for people to work their way out of poverty.
Professor Fred McBagonluri, Board Chair, IIPGH, encouraged the young people to take advantage of the Fair to network and build the right relationship to enhance their career in the tech space.
He said well-paying tech jobs require candidates to be prepared with the right skill sets ready to work with people to achieve the set targets.
He urged the young people, who were unemployed, to start the process of volunteering, while they continue looking for jobs and developing and acquiring new soft skills.
Mr Daniel Gowu, Executive Director, IIPGH, said the focus of the Institute was to train , certify I.T. Professionals, while providing opportunities for the youth to develop themselves.
He said, “we always want to focus our attention on young people, especially those in deprived communities.”
He said they have formed some partnerships with Vodafone Ghana to train 1000 young people in coding.
He said over 2000 potential jobseekers with 50 institutions representing industry in the 2023 edition of the Fair and “we have encouraged them to take up remote jobs to improve their lives and contribute to the development of the country.”
“We need to use tech to better the lives of the people,” he added.
Madam Hanna Schlingmann, Project Manager AFOS Foundation /DigiCAP.gh, said: the DigiCAP programme has now been opened to professionals to also build their capacity.
She said initially, it was for only students in the tertiary institutions, and up until now, 500 students have benefited from the programme.
The Project Manager said they were promoting the industry-academia concept, while also promoting their training programmes for professionals to upscale their skills.
She said with the digiCAP Junior Consultant Programme, the Foundation encouraged young talents to develop an entrepreneurial spirit, so they could become not only well-paid employees, but even well-paying employers.
GNA