Accra has hosted a conference to present the outcomes of the British Council's Innovation for Africa initiative, which aims to enhance the knowledge and innovation of young entrepreneurs.
Pilot programs for the initiative are being run in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria.
The conference, which Ghana was hosting, brought together key participants in the sector—investors, innovators, universities, and high-level strategic partners—to examine the program's early results and determine how to scale them up into profitable enterprises.
Also, the platform gave participants the chance to concentrate on the major problems, obstacles, and possibilities that the higher education sector faces in the areas of employment and entrepreneurship, as well as to create fresh concepts and approaches to the problem of young unemployment.
Its goal was to bridge the employment gap for African youth between job seekers and job producers.
Relevant
Also, it was done to honor African youth's tenacity in their ongoing battle to stay relevant in a macroeconomic environment that is always shifting.
Solomon Domayen Antumwini, the British Council's programs officer, stated that the IAU was established by the Council in 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic in order to examine the curricula and encourage the teaching of innovation among higher education institutions in the area.
"The IAU program's objective is to build the environment for entrepreneurship and innovation and improve student employability outcomes at sub-Saharan African institutions via the promotion and capping of mutually beneficial partnerships," he added.
Inputs and contributions from the pilot program, according to Mr. Antumwini, would project procedures for the next stage, which was to be efficiently scaled across other nations in order to reach more graduating students and provide them more opportunity to celebrate generational enterprises.
He asserted that several colleges have decided to develop instructional strategies that encourage students to think creatively and independently.
Leapfrog
In an effort to accelerate the development of generational businesses across the continent, Mr. Antumwini claimed that the IAU would catalyze the development of entrepreneurship curriculums tailored to each country's particular situation and economic needs by partnering with universities in Africa and the UK.
This would therefore address the issue of the rapidly expanding youth population, where a large number of young people are struggling with high rates of unemployment and underemployment.
In addition to serving as a hub for education, research, and knowledge production, Mr. Antumwini said that universities had a duty to act as agents of change and generators of economic growth in their diverse communities.
"Universities can give graduates the knowledge and skills to contribute to the growth of new and current enterprises through their academic programs and international connections," he continued.
Degrees
The world is in the era of entrepreneurship, according to Dr. Abu Sakara, Executive Chairman of Sakfos Holdings, and degrees no longer guarantee employment.
Dr. Sakara exhorted the youth, claiming that jobs in the public sector were no longer accessible.
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