Innovation Hub Empowers 2,000 Youths with Digital Skills

Digital skills is believed to be one of the transformational skills that individuals need to acquire as the work culture continues to shift towards a situation where interactions with algorithms and machines will increasingly become mainstream.

To this end, between 2018 and 2020 IGHUB in partnership with The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) through the Niger Delta Youths Employment pathway (NDYEP), have trained and equipped over 2,000 out-of-school and unemployed young people with digital skills, which will enable them compete in a highly globalised world.

The project tagged IGHUB Netpreneurship and Developers fellowship, is focused on addressing the issue of high unemployment amongst the youths which speaks clearly to SDG Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth.

The skills acquired cut across UI/UX design, mobile development, digital marketing, graphics design, front end and back end web development. These skills were strategically selected because of their high employability status in today’s world.

The high point of the initiative was the first of its kind Digital opportunity fair for recruiters and digital/ICT skills and talents, which held recently at the IGHUB headquarters in Aba, Abia State.
The fair afforded recruiters of these much needed skills a chance to meet with these newly equipped youths and look at the possibility of an internship that will hopefully evolve into full-time employment, especially for those not interested in entrepreneurship.

Speaking at the event, CEO, IGHUB Africa, Mr. Daniel Chinagozi, expressed confidence in the ability of the young trainees to provide high-quality services to clients.

“We are invested in building an ecosystem that will enable young people aspire to be exceptional and start to earn a living with these newly-acquired 21st century skills,” he said.

According to him, “Our hope is to deepen our partnership with PIND and other forward-looking organisations who see the need to channel development to other parts of the countries, thereby giving people, who do not reside in the key cities a chance to aspire. Imagine how big our impact would have been, if state governments at all levels supported hubs such as IGHUB Africa.”