AS part of its mission to transform Africa through innovation and commitment to building talents, Quanta Africa, an initiative of Pertinence Group and pioneer of “Project T3” recently hosted its first conversation on Twitter space, on Thursday, February 24, 2022, themed “Talents for Innovating Africa’s Future”.
The space conversation was hosted by Mr. Emmanual Osubu, the Chief Operating Officer of Quanta Africa and keynote speakers present to do justice to the topic were Uyoyo Edosio, an analyst at African Development Bank; Olusola Amusan, an AI specialist; and Dr Stephen Oluwatobi, Group CEO Pertinence Group.
The speakers discussed key issues such as talent acquisition in the workforce, innovation in Africa, skill acquisition, brain drain narrative, quality education, excellence, government policies and roles, and the impact of Tech Innovation Hubs.
Dr Stephen Oluwatobi, CEO of Pertinence Group, noted that talent in Africa is gradually advancing, and there seems to be a dimension of growth. He pointed out also that many developers are leveraging learning platforms to add value to the continent, however, finding a large number of these developers has become a major challenge.
Edosio on her part enlightened the audience about the recent research conducted by the African Development Bank (ADB) on the different levels of skills ranging from basic to expert skills. She also said that the result from ADB's research shows that many African countries have failed to optimize their skill set yet, and are regressed to “basic skills”, leaving the continent with more people with basic skills.
She reiterated that more defined skills will sustain the ecosystem. Edosio also raised concerns over what the skills will look like in Africa in five years.
The Space host, Emmanuel Osubu, talked about the quality of solutions built in Africa over time and how it differs from those in other countries. He added that quality is entrenched in cultures of other continents except in Africa. “Nigerians are concerned about crude oil and refining oil. Problem-solving isn’t our thing,” Osubu said.
Another speaker, Olusola Amusan agreed with the other speakers on the issue of skill mismatch. He asserted that talent deficit is currently a big problem as there are no matches for jobs.
In Amusan's words: “ Africa has no right to complain about brain drain since the citizens are not rewarded accordingly. Brain drain is what will propel African and the government to raise funds to skill people and be exporters of talents”.
Dr Stephen, taking the floor again, also pointed out that institutions are cultivating talents that do not fit the Workforce and that there is an underlying structural problem. He questions why people pay so much for education but do not find themselves valuable in society.
