On December 17, 2019, Rise Networks, a Social Enterprise, held its first private sector collaborative platform tagged, “The Workplan.”
The event was themed "The Future of Work and the fourth Industrial Revolution Powered by Local Content."
It featured various plenary sessions and keynotes from notable speakers like President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina and Google Nigeria Country Manager, Juliet Ehimuan.
Here are three highlights from the event:
During his speech delivered via a video recording, Adesina emphasised the need for more young people to learn to code - the programming language used to develop apps, websites and software.
By learning coding which he describes as "the currency of the future," he noted that youths from Nigeria and the rest of the continent can develop apps that replace popular ones like Whatsapp and Facebook.
ALSO READ: 7 things we learned at Business Insider by Pulse's session at the Social Media Week Lagos 2019
According to Keynote Speaker Juliet Ehimuan, the world is currently undergoing the fourth Industrial Revolution which is characterised by the following:
In her words, "Africa's biggest problems cannot be solved by deploying traditional methods; more reason we must not fail in the fourth industrial revolution."
During her presentation, Ehimuan showed a few examples to prove her point, which is that artificial intelligence and machine learning is what we need to solve our problems.
During her speech, Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji, the founder and chief executive officer of Rise Networks, spoke about the importance of changing Nigeria's curriculum arguing that no one can solve today’s problem with dated methods.
To keep up with the times, she said, "Data science, machine learning, Artificial intelligence must be part of our curriculum going forward."
She added, "We need to focus on artificial intelligence and invest in the youth."
Eyewitness? Submit your stories now via social or:
Email: news@pulselive.co.ke
