{"id":28121,"date":"2019-08-12T12:04:43","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T11:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=28121"},"modified":"2019-08-16T10:44:37","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T09:44:37","slug":"celebrating-africas-digital-potential-on-un-youth-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/08\/12\/celebrating-africas-digital-potential-on-un-youth-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Africa’s digital potential on UN Youth Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many things have been said about the future of Africa and its potential, with it being called \u2018the Opportunity Continent\u2019, \u2018the Next Frontier\u2019 and \u2018Africa Rising\u2019. Ime Archibong, Vice President, Product Partnerships at Facebook, says the excitement comes with how Africa can, and will, one day lead in the digital economy. <\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa\u2019s young population could be its greatest asset in an age where many other regions in the world are aging as a result of declining birth rates. As the world\u2019s human population grows from 7.4 billion people to 8.2 billion people between now and 2025, 40% of that growth will come from Africa, and with more than 628 million people aged below 24, this young, dynamic and innovative population will become one of the most powerful engines of growth the world has ever seen.

Personally, I\u2019ve always been so inspired by the creativity and talent across my home continent – whether it\u2019s creating mobile phone apps which makes motorcycle taxis safer and more convenient, like in the case of Safe Motos in Rwanda and now DRC, or building technological solutions to solve agricultural challenges, like Plantheus, a recent graduate of Facebook\u2019s NG_Hub Accelerator Program. We see people, especially the youth, building solutions daily to local problems and needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As eager and early adopters of technology, we\u2019ll likely see the next wave of global digital innovations and apps coming from the continent and taken to the rest of the world.

Adoption of social media, mobile phones and mobile money are enabling Africa and its youth to leapfrog to the next wave of digital technology. This infrastructure is the foundation upon which so much innovation in Africa is built and will be built over the next five years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ime Archibong, Vice President, Product Partnerships at Facebook<\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At\nFacebook, we\u2019re committed to empowering young people to build their digital\nskills and harness them for the future – whether they are digital builders,\ndevelopers or product innovators. In the month of UN Youth Day, I\u2019m delighted\nthat we will be recognising just some of these talents from across the region.\nBringing together over 40 Facebook Community Leaders, SMBs, entrepreneurs, developers\nand content creators from across Sub-Saharan Africa, under the banner of\n\u2018Celebrating Icons of Change and the Future of the Continent\u2019 \u2013 we are celebrating\nthe positive impact they are having in their community, something which is\nimportant to us here at Facebook.
\n
\nOur commitment across the region remains strong, and Africa continues to be\nimportant for us, with this building on many partnerships, programs and\ninitiatives already in place to help develop digital and entrepreneurial skills\namong young people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether\nit\u2019s training SMBs through digital boot camps, helping interested youth to\nacquire digital marketing skills and placing them in employment, training women\nin leveraging digital solutions to grow their business, or bringing together\n52,000 developers from across 17 countries through our Developer Circles programme,\nwe are excited to play a part in supporting the next generation of start-up\nfounders, investors, developers and change makers.
\n
\nAs one of my favourite African proverbs says \u201cFor tomorrow belongs to the\npeople who prepare for it today\u201d<\/em>, and we look forward to that tomorrow in\nthe years to come.
\n  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many things have been said about the future of Africa and its potential, with it being called \u2018the Opportunity Continent\u2019, \u2018the Next Frontier\u2019 and \u2018Africa Rising\u2019. Ime Archibong, Vice President, Product Partnerships at Facebook, says the excitement comes with how Africa can, and will, one day lead in the digital economy. Africa\u2019s young population could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":28126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,134,328,6,298,19,13,262],"tags":[385,10595,8400,3565,10596,10594,10599,10593,10598,680,10597],"class_list":["post-28121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-blog","category-features","category-insights","category-main-story-newsletter","category-regional-news","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-africa","tag-africa-rising","tag-drc","tag-facebook","tag-ime-archibong","tag-next-frontier","tag-ng_hub-accelerator","tag-opportunity-continent","tag-plantheus","tag-rwanda","tag-safe-motos"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28121"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28292,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28121\/revisions\/28292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}