The need for new age entrepreneurs
The need for new age entrepreneurs
By Ebilehitah Samuel Idemudia
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One of the characteristics of a third world country is the rate of unemployment. Even though Nigeria has been classified as a third world nation, it is still regarded as a “developing” nation. One cannot deny that Nigeria, a country classified as a third world country has been heavily influenced by technology. Throughout history, technological advancements have always found their way into the Nigerian society and economy. From cell phones to desktop computers, laptops and smart phones. The last decades in Nigeria have seen the rise of many innovative technological companies and the production of so many technology inclined Nigerian experts like software developers and tech entrepreneurs, so much so that the young billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has paid a visit to Nigeria. According to Business Insider, Zuckerberg visited the Lagos office of Andela where he invested $24 million through his personal Chan Zuckerberg initiative”.
However, in 2018 according to the National Bureau of Statistics, “As of Q3 2018, the calculated unemployment rate was 23.1 percent, the underemployment rate was 20.1 percent, and the combined unemployment and underemployment rate was 43.3 percent”. According to Trading Economics, an online platform that provides historical data, economic forecasts and trading recommendations, “Unemployment Rate in Nigeria increased to 23.10 percent in the third quarter of 2018 from 22.70 percent in the second quarter of 2018. Unemployment Rate in Nigeria averaged 12.31 percent from 2006 until 2018, reaching an all-time high of 23.10 percent in the third quarter of 2018 and a record low of 5.10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010”. Will there be any need to ask for the 2019 data? The real question should be, “Why are there so many unemployed Nigerians?
An old time English poet, Lord Byron said “the past, is the best prophet for the future”. For us to know how we arrived at this situation, it will do us good if each individual go back in time to know where we missed it as a nation. This should be an individual endeavor for every Nigerian, even though most Nigerians hardly ever try to read a book or watch a documentary on Nigerian history, despite the facts that most of these information resources are readily available on the internet. Movies, foreign sports fixtures, sporting bets and who or who doesn’t have body odor on a television show that clearly creates no room for morality and decency, has become the norm for a large majority of the youth. Meanwhile, unemployment rate which used to be 10.4% from January 2016 increased to 23.1% in July 2018. Earlier this year, 2019, the NGF has already warned that there will be another recession by mid-2020, till 2021. So what is the common Nigerian man doing to prepare for this prediction?
When we go back in time, we can see that the changes have been gradual and today majority of the population are experiencing the compound effect which could be much more compounding within the next decade as from year 2020. A good study of history tells us that there a few concrete reasons why most of the population will remain unemployed and why those who are currently unemployed will lose their jobs. (This article will not focus on why Nigerian pensioners will not get their pay). One of the major focus reason today is “Time and Season”. A seasoned understanding of the concept of “Time and Season”, can be a first step towards individual progress and when there is individual progress, over time, the compounding effect will be national growth. A very simple example of the concept of season and time is this: in the 90’s, VHS cassettes where a common trend and since there was a high demand for these cassettes, people opened shops to sell and rent them. Today, anyone who goes into the business of selling or renting these cassettes will be purposely falling into a ditch.
This is the time and season for the explosion of technological advancement all over the world and only a small percent of the Nigerian population see this opportunity. Technology has influenced every industry and sector of any national economy, from household to business, local to international organization and governmental to non-governmental organizations, education and even religion has been influenced by technology and it’s becoming a norm. If you still don’t believe it, look at your church’s bank account number and imagine how that account gets funded.
Now, let’s all see together how technology has influenced some of the major industries and sectors we have today.
Banking
In the early days of banking in Nigeria, banks used to be filled with crowds of people standing on a long queue so much so that some of these bank customers had to queue outside the banking halls so that the customers within could be attended to. Cash withdrawals were performed by employees but today, the ATM has replaced the workers who are required to perform the routine cash withdrawals. In 2018, Union Bank, an old generation bank launched robotics technology to automate banking processes. There used to be a lot of banking employees at the counter, but today how many bank employees do you see at the counter? Some of these banks today have “e-branches”, electronic branches, where all transactions, recording and approximately 95 percent of the services are offered by machines. Banking is a systems and technology provides avenues to enforce systems and automate systems.
What does this means? It simply means people are being replaced by improved systems and hence, they’re losing their jobs, technology will do most of the routine jobs. Today in the banking industry, you don’t need to have studied banking before you can get a job in a bank. This isn’t news for our graduates who spend at least 4 years in school, not including the multiple strikes each year.
Computer Science
Did you know that a computer science degree is outdated after three years? Programming languages like COBOL, FORTRAN are hardly used by major tech industries, rather new generation languages like Python and Java are in high demand by companies today. The skillset of an engineer who could develop the Nokia phone used to have during the time of Nokia cell phones are not the same skills as that of an IPhone or android engineer. With advancement in technology and the demand for individuals with the latest technological skills, there is need for a constant update of tech skills. But how will individual computer scientists keep up with the fast pace of technological advancement? That’s the question every computer science graduate has to answer for his or herself. On the 10th day of April 2019, Business Insider, posted an article titled “Apple, Google and Netflix don’t require employees to have 4-year degrees, and this could soon become an industry norm”.
Transportation
Game changing and ride sharing companies like Uber, Taxify and Opay have improved the transportation services all over the world with their revolutionary approach. The Opay ride-sharing app has definitely removed the problem of ridiculous bike pricing and the stress of standing under the hot sun in order to wait for a bike man, who when he eventually arrives, can be rude to his customers. Today, you can sit in the comfort of your home and these apps can “connect” a “demand” for transportation services to a “supply” for transportation services, all the while, making both customer and transportation service providers happy. Customers have commented that these new set of app-sharing riders are courteous.
However, in 2016, a self-driving car, was seen on the rugged streets of Lagos, driving itself through the Lagos traffic on its own. Demand will always be available, but what future does this hold for drivers? Let’s ponder on that.
Medicine
Mobile apps such as “Doctor on Demand” “connect” patients to doctors all from the comfort of their houses. Another example of technological advancement that can replace routine work in the medical field is the Medical Tricoder. According to Wikipedia, “a Medical Tricoder is a handheld portable scanning device to be used by consumers to self-diagnose medical conditions within seconds and take basic vital measurements”. Technology like this gives room for self-health care.
Law & Accounting
The IBM Watson is a very good example of technological improvement that has already penetrated the law profession. Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language. It was developed in IBM’S DeepQA project. Research and testing has proven that Watson provides within seconds, 90% accuracy compared to 70% when done be a group of expert lawyers combined. When a machine like this is perfected, how many lawyers would be needed? Will the number of years it takes to become a lawyer increase, or would it reduce? Also in the field of accounting, the IBM Watson also has cognitive computing model that is based on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, supporting task automation in the accounting industry.
We can go on and on about how technology influences the workflow of organizations. The major idea behind this writing is that there is need for our youths to ask the right question: “What changes will they make in their industry that will bring about improvement in their chosen profession or industry”. Most parents are not aware of these changes that are happening in the environment their children and children’s children will live in in the next decade and beyond.
While there is a problem and there will be more problems for job owners and job seekers in the future, we can’t say the same for risk takers and the entrepreneurs.
Research has shown that there are much more millionaires in the world today than there where 20 years ago. 98.87% of these new millionaires who continue to be millionaires are people who have provided products or valuable services to the populace of their countries or the world, meaning they’re entrepreneurs. The remaining 1.13 percent got theirs through some lottery, inheritance or any other means that didn’t require them to engage their minds and provide solutions to the problems in their environment. New multibillion dollar companies have sprang up to influence the world all over – Amazon, Facebook, Jumia, Opay etc.
The fact remains that our children need to be taught leadership habits from home. Schools can also create curriculums for leadership for our young children in their nursery and primary stages. They should be encouraged to pursue their inner vision and passion, rather than being forced to do what the old society expects of them because there is a new society emerging and they will be part of it.
Samuel, a youth corps member serving with The Hope Newspaper