Tech Job Fair: An Opportunity to Connect the Youth to Decent Jobs

 

Unemployment is a Big Issue

It is now clear that unemployment is a national security issue and must be given the needed attention, just like any other security threat. The World Bank report released on 29th September 2020 titled “Youth Employment Programs in Ghana: Options for Effective Policy Making and Implementation” identified key areas such as agribusiness, entrepreneurship, apprenticeship, construction, tourism, and sports that can create employment opportunities for the youth. The report also highlighted a growing trend of youth unemployment, at the time of the report which dates to September 2020, Ghana’s youth unemployment rate stood at 12%, and with those employed, the report classified over 50% in the category of underemployment. These figures, the World Bank noted, were both higher than overall unemployment rates in Sub-Saharan African countries. Despite major investments by both government and private sector, this challenge will intensify if job opportunities remain limited. To tackle youth unemployment, the report stated the importance of having disaggregated data on youth job seekers by location, gender, skills, and capabilities to inform policy and funding decisions and respond to appropriate and tailored employment programs.

Stakeholders and development partners of Ghana are very concerned about the increasing trend of the high unemployment rate, particularly youth unemployment. To tackle this issue, the Government of Ghana (GoG) and several other organizations are making efforts to create employment opportunities for the teeming youth of Ghana. Lack of data on job availability and lack of a common platform to track the number of jobs being created and roles are, however, hampering this effort of reducing youth unemployment. To build a digital economy that will create decent and sustainable jobs, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) should be considered as an enabler to improve efficiency and growth. In the early 1990s, Ghana took an early step to become one of the first countries on the African continent to liberalize and deregulate its ICT sector. Investment by the private sector created competition and growth of the ICT industry, particularly the telecom sector. This rapid growth positively impacted socio-economic activities. The sector’s expansion influenced all aspects of the national economy and a lot of innovations have been developed. These innovative high-tech products and services, such as Mobile Money, attracted investments with its associated job opportunities. The ICT sector, especially the deployment of advanced telecommunication technologies such as 4G and smartphones, expanded internet connectivity and its associated applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a host of other social media platforms. Ghana with a high mobile phone penetration rate with a very youthful population is now set to develop faster, but unemployment is a big issue that needs to be addressed to ensure the gains made can be sustained.

Why Tech Job Fair?

The Ghanaian youth over the past two decades have been exposed to these new and exciting advanced technologies that complement life. However, most of the youths to benefit from the huge tech infrastructure are now just consumers or users of ICT and are not able to get employment from these advanced digital platforms. There are skills gaps that need to be addressed to enable young graduates to be part of the global workforce producing these technologies. To expose the young Ghanaian to some of these emerging technologies, an event such as the Tech Job Fair has been instituted.

Tech Job Fair (TJF) is an annual event that brings together industry players, educators, students, government, and job seekers to understand the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) job roles. The job fair is used to exhibit current ICT-related job openings in various industries and to help other stakeholders to understand the ICT skills needs of employers. This is part of the broader agenda to ensure an enabling environment is created for young people to access decent jobs, so they benefit from the digital transformation agenda of Ghana.

DigiCAP.gh Project is supporting its industry partner, the Institute of ICT Professionals Ghana (IIPGH) to organize this year’s Tech Job Fair (TJF2022). IIPGH is a professional association of professionals, students, and businesses in the ICT industry in Ghana. The institute promotes ICT-related capacity-building programs with a strong focus on Digital Skills Development that prepares the youth to access technology jobs and to deploy ICT for innovation and entrepreneurship. The DigiCAP.gh project is supported by the Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through Sequa gGmbH. AFOS Foundation is responsible for the implementation of this ICT Skills for Business Development Project “DigiCAP.gh”.

AFOS Foundation is a business-oriented value-based foundation for international development cooperation. Represented in four countries, since 2003 it promotes economic, social, and environmental development based on catholic social values. The ICT Skills for Business Development Project (DigiCAP.gh) supports skills development, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with international and local partners in Ghana to create quality skills and employment opportunities for underprivileged individuals. The Project is currently in its first phase, which runs from October 2020 until December 2023.

Date: Thursday, 24th February 2022

Time: 9am – 4pm

Venue: Accra International Conference Centre

REGISTRATION, EXHIBITION & ATTENDANCE IS FREE. Visit: https://techjobfairghana.com/

Objectives of the Tech Job Fair

TJF2022 is a One-Day job fair designed to attract 2,000 participants constituting: exhibitors, development partners, government officials, ICT professionals, job seekers, educators, students, and the public. Employment agencies will exhibit their available roles, while professionals from the industry will provide more insight into the job market. Topics to be discussed include emerging technologies and digital skills required to access jobs in domains such as Ecommerce, Cybersecurity, Digital Privacy, Software Development, Telecommunications, Data Protection, ICT Infrastructure, etc.

The Job Fair will also be used as a platform to promote local ICT businesses as 50 exhibitors are expected to showcase their products and services while hiring new employees to join their teams. Jobs and other vacancies from over 100 organizations will be displaced on wide screens for participants to select and discuss details with companies that posted the jobs. Livestreaming on social media will be available to online participants.

As part of the program, there will be seminars and workshops on CV preparation, entrepreneurship, business development, and emerging technologies that are in high demand.

To promote greater collaborations between industry and academia, the industry-Academia Tech Dialogue (INDAC-TED) which is a quarterly symposium of the project, shall feature in the Tech Job Fair as an afternoon program. Industry players shall use the platform to discuss available jobs.

Conclusion    

The Tech Job Fair is expected to connect employers to prospective job seekers with the requisite skills set that will help grow their businesses. In addition, TJF2022 will be the platform that will help job seekers to understand the job market in terms of new skills in demand and how to prepare for opportunities in 2022 and beyond.

As this fair is being organized at Accra International Conference Centre, it offers a networking opportunity for participants, including businesses that will exhibit their products and services. Live online streaming and live radio broadcast options will also be available to participants who cannot make it to the venue. In the end, TJF2022 seeks to connect job seekers and employers successfully. It also seeks to use its online platform to continue engaging employers and job seekers after the fair for opportunities throughout the year till the next Tech Job Fair.

Organizations with job roles are encouraged to register to exhibit their jobs on the portal. 50 booths are available for companies that want to advertise job vacancies in their organizations. In addition, as the fair is targeting over 2,000 participants, businesses can also use the opportunity to advertise their products and services at the fair.

Author: David Gowu— (Executive Director, Institute of ICT Professionals, Ghana)

For comments, contact david.gowu@iipgh.org or Mobile: +233242773762

Source: IIPGH.org

Digital representation matters - Fostering Internet inclusion among PWDs

In today's world, the internet has paved the way for the advancement of humanity into a new era. From Polokwane to Accra to Nairobi and across the continent of Africa, easy and meaningful access to the internet is a driver for economic growth; just as roads and railways provided the arteries for commerce in the Industrial Revolution. Today's internet infrastructure is the circulatory system on which much of modern life depends. The covid-19 pandemic has presented us with new ways of doing things where most activities are done online. Activities such as e-learning, e-commerce are at the heart of the internet. We have moved from brick-and-mortar to click and order.

People with disabilities (PWDs) are a group of people with special needs and are faced daily with myriad challenges that surpass different aspects of their lives. Situating the conversation in Ghana and Africa by extension. Evidence from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) suggests PWDs account for 3.7 percent of the population. According to Statista, the prevalence of disability in low -and - middle-income countries (LMIC) is higher than in high-income countries, and the data shows close to 400 million people live with a form of disability in Africa.

Moreover, in Ghana, internet penetration has significantly improved from 30.8 percent in 2018 to 50 percent in 2021. However, the population of PWDs in Ghana is high as anecdotal evidence suggests, these people are still underrepresented in technology jobs, active participation in the civic engagement of the internet, and internet literacy. People with disability are often faced with barriers to education and training, stereotyping— other people presume they have a lower quality of life. All these factors limit their job opportunities leading to poverty, social exclusion, and restricted access to basic social amenities. PWD's limitations to the internet are mostly shaped by the high cost of broadband internet and adoption of ICT tools due to low-income levels among PWDs and lack of digital skills to scale up, reskill and upskill.

In 2016, the United Nations identified accessibility of the internet as a basic human right. It clearly explains every individual needs information for daily decision making and the internet is one pivotal tool that promotes self-development and active participation in a democratic society. Yet misconceptions, stereotypes, and discrimination continue to be a barrier that limits PWDs from realizing their potential. With increasing technological innovations and digitization drive rolled out by the government:

• What does the digitization drive mean for people with disabilities?
• How do people with disabilities access the internet and leverage that for sustainable jobs?
• What is the state of our technological internet services, is it inclusive for easy accessibility by PWDs?

Way forward

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 seeks to promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all. In line with this, it is necessary to design educative and training programs for PWDs which are in tune or in alignment with the ever-changing aspirations, commitments, wishes, longings, exigencies, and demands of education curricula and frameworks that will enable them to acquaint themselves with modern trends of technology. Effective digital skills which consider fully equipping the individual holistically are crucial in equipping PWDs to improve on their standard of living and bring out innovation and ingenuity. In the past, training in Information Communication Technology (ICT), internet literacy, and capacity building by governments have often been without the needed spark as its sustainability has suffered hiccups due to administrative changes over successive periods. The Institute of ICT Professionals Ghana since its inception in 2017 has provided platforms for training and mentoring, which seek to fully embrace disability inclusion at every level and be part of the solution. More corporate bodies, institutions should concertedly make efforts to ensure PWDs are digitally included.

Furthermore, it is morally imperative to be more inclusive digitally, as the internet is for everyone and should not be the preserve of the privileged and selected few. Thus, software developers and content writers must design digital experiences tailored to meet the needs of people with physical disabilities, speech difficulties, hearing impairments, cognitive impairments, and blindness. Government departments and agencies must develop, design, and curate websites with a wider range of experiences that comply with international web accessibility best standards, ensuring these websites are easily accessible by PWDs.

As the pandemic continues to drag, it has revealed a consequential digital divide and online safety for PWDs. Digital platforms have become commonplace, and as such, best policies and practices must be incorporated. The policies should be inclusive and accommodative of the digital needs of PWDs in Ghana. Adjusting to a post-covid-19 world presents an opportunity for governments to reassess policies to increase the inclusion of persons with disabilities. In framing and formulation of such policies, legislations, and regulations, consulting with people with disabilities is critical, as their needs are heard.

To conclude, Ghana cannot be left behind in the comity of nations, especially as the digital economy is set to replace the traditional economy. Leveraging on the internet is a driver for economic growth and development, bridging the already inequality in our society. Internet inclusion matters. Digital representation for all is key for national development.

Author: Osei Manu Kagyah (Member, Institute for ICT Professionals Ghana)

For comments, contact Kagyahosei@gmail.com | 0247103939

Source: www.iipgh.org