Report of The IET Nigeria Younger Members Networks’ Young Expert Forum 15 – 16 December, 2006

Theme: Youth and Technology Entrepreneurship: Catalysts for Africa’s Development

The Young Expert Forum of The IET Nigeria Younger Members Network is a quarterly program designed to improve on the quarterly General Meeting of the oragnisation. The objectives are to continue to build the capacities of members in all the fields relevant to the IET and also focus on a technical matter of national and/or international interest, discuss it and make recommendations generated from such discussions to the appropriate quarters.

While welcoming participants to the forum, ‘Gbenga Adeyemo, Chair of The IET Nigeria Younger Members’ Networks, noted that recent attention being given to youths and issues about them by governments and other international organisations, especially that of The IET UK, have lent credence to the decision to focus on the vital issues of making youths entrepreneurs with the opportunities that new and emerging technologies provide. He lamented the poor state of African economy blaming this on a non-existent technology sector that can spin off profitable inventions. This, he hope a long term training and investment in African youths can redress noting that the YEF is a perfect pedestal to do that.

The first presentation titled Entrepreneurship in ICT/ The ICT Entrepreneur was made by Mr Jide Awe, the Managing Director of Jidaw Systems. Starting from the 'what' and 'why' of entrepreneurship, Mr Awe emphasised the need for African youths to take advantage of entrepreneurship opportunities that ICT provide. In his words, “ICT is an opportunity to enable Nigeria compete more effectively in an increasingly technology and knowledge driven world. A strong economy depends on educated, competent and creative users, business people, ICT professionals, ICT solution providers and ICT entrepreneurs.” Mr Awe’s presentation was followed by a moderated interactive discussion during which the participants asked Mr Awe to enlighten on practical steps to start making money on the internet. This Mr Awe responded to by enlightening the participants on how to make money online by using Google Adsense.

A major breakthrough during the session was Mr Awe’s decision to grant any IET Nigeria Younger Member a reduction in all the training courses offered by his company. Jidaw Systems is one of the leading IT training providers in Nigeria. This was well applauded by the participants.

In line with global trend and the need to have an input into the future of the Internet, the afternoon session featured a workshop on Internet Governance. The workshop coordinated by ‘Gbenga Adeyemo had Tope Soremi of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria and 'Gbenga Sesan, Vice-Chairman of UNECA’s Africa Technical Advisory Committee, as facilitators.

Tope Soremi kicked it off with his presentation titled "An Overview of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS)". This proved a useful session to precede 'Gbenga Sesan's presentation tiled "Internet Governance Demystified". It was interesting to note that many of the participants were completely unaware of the WSIS process which concluded just about a year ago. Tope's presentation outlining the beginning of the journey in Bamako, Mali to the Rural Youth Campaigns conducted throughout Nigeria really gave the participants the foundation needed to understand what Internet Governance is all about.

'Gbenga Sesan, in his presentation, made it clear that Internet Governance is not purely a technical subject but one that we all should be concerned about because of its significance and importance to our future. At the end of the two presentations, questions from the participants revealed that they now have some basic understanding of Internet Governance and demonstrated their enthusiasm to contribute to the process.

The second day of the forum had Dr Robinson I. Ehirobo, Managing Director, Havillah Trends, Lagos, as the main speaker. Dr Robinson’s presentation titled ‘Youths' Entrepreneurship: Advantages and Disadvantages” was a combination of lifeskills and details needed to be an entrepreneur in a technical field. Drawing from his own experience of transiting from the Vice-President of ABB Nigeria, a leading electrical company in Nigeria, to establishing his own flourishing company, Dr. Robinson advised the participants to build trust and goodwill in all the people and company they come across as this will prove very helpful when starting out as an entrepreneur. The discussion that followed Dr Robinson’s presentation turned out to be a mentorship session where participants shared their business ideas and were given guidance and relevant advice.

The afternoon session witnessed the general meeting of The IET Nigeria Younger Members Networks presided over by ‘Gbenga Adeyemo and other executives of the body present at the meeting. This meeting focused on membership recruitment and branch expansion across Nigeria.

The Young Expert Forum will be organised in other zones of Nigeria in 2007. Any enquiry on the Young Expert Forum should be sent to ‘Gbenga Adeyemo at gadeyemo@theiet.org or 234 805 747 0562.