We've moved beyond that the focus is on the post-millennial generation the people who are between the ages of 15 and 25 what's to be done for them if we look at the unemployment statistics by a region South Africa as a reflection of Southern Africa has an unemployment rate that's close on to 29 percent and If you look at the unofficial statistics, they tell you it's 40 percent Nigeria Currently has an unemployment rate of somewhere between 23 percent and 25 percent and it's believed that by next year It's going to be 30 percent on the dot in East Africa The largest economy Kenya has an unemployment rate of just over 11 percent. So that as large figures it is is the most Encouraging figure there is on the African continent at the moment in that it's the lowest Collectively the countries of North Africa have unemployment at 25 percent So if you just look at the averages in almost every major economy a quarter of the population Are people who cannot find a job? And so what we are going to do this afternoon is move beyond the statistics and ask How do we remedy the situation because the time for talking is over? It is now time to find solutions. So let me introduce you to our panel We have seated next to me his Excellency the president of Botswana president Masisi Seated next to her next to him is her Excellency the president of Ethiopia president Zude Seated next to her is the chairman and founder of Nigeria's largest bank Zenith Bank Jim Ovia Seated next to him is a civil society activist a former VP for Africa at the World Bank Mrs. Obi is a queseli and Seated next to her is the Vice president for global policy at Google Karan Batia. So let's get talking president Masisi Let's start with you Botswana so many positive indicators Democracy development growth and yet here is a country. That's it to have unemployment at 18 percent That's a staggering figure For a country with just two million people Do you agree that for you? It's a ticking time bomb absolutely And thanks anyway for your introductory remarks particularly about What we see outside and what you as South Africans represent? because This could be in any of our countries Given the situation but yes 18 percent for a country like Botswana is is a scary figure and When you unpack it even the more that Out of that 18 percent the majority are young people Fairly well educated given what we do in Botswana with a lot of expectations for the future and yet the burden of Frustration of not being able to find jobs. It could easily be offset and cause such people to Venture into other things that may not be as desirable. So yes, it is a ticking time bomb Prisons you to from Ethiopia It's projected that by next year unemployment in Ethiopia will be 19.4 19.4 percent however Ethiopia has one of the highest and fastest growth rates on the African continent You've started opening your markets and you've definitely dented poverty So I'm trying to figure out everything else seems to be working But why can you not get a grip on the employment issue? Thank you very much. Let me start by really commanding what you said at the beginning the South Africa we know is not the one we see and and I would like also Really people to understand that you know foreigners who live Far away from their homeland Contribute to those countries. They are not only burdens and Really we sympathize for those who have been suffering under that and of course we have all of us Condemned gender-based violence that we also saw Definitely, this is not Africa. We want as the slogan says for 2063 We'll have to work all of us together. I agree if this unemployment situation for youth and Not having a prospect for a better future can be a ticking bomb. That's for sure I must say that Ethiopia has embarked into a very transformative and inclusive process for only 12 months now a little bit more than that and many things have been being done in order to address this is a very important issue and And I think it's a it's a conversation Which is very pertinent at the continental level We are trying to address for instance the Prime Minister has embarked into a plan To have three million new jobs for the next year. We're starting a new year next week and That is in order to make sure that those who benefit from the policies and commitments made by the government Could also contribute in in hiring young people. So I think it's a transition We believe we are in the right path. But this is a very pertinent issue ready to address Jim Ovia, let's get a perspective from you As a representative of the private sector, so you founded Nigeria's largest bank by market capitalization and assets And you're employing a lot of people but you're employing the high-skilled girls and Boys the people who come with tech with finance with MBAs What do you make of the ones at the bottom of the pyramid? The people who are desperate for jobs, but would never be able to work in your bank Thank you the bottom of the pyramid the youths the unemployed and those who have Great energy those who have the potential to be trained and also Those who embrace digital technology the beauty of having a young African population Which by your statistics to 50 million I just finished a session Where we're discussing the Africa? growth plan and the focus was principally how do we empower the youths How do we create jobs for the youth? That was a focus as chairperson of world economic forum African regional conference since last year 2008 That's exactly what been focusing on The figure we had was slightly over 400 million youths That will be looking for job that needed to be empowered and interestingly who found out that they are all Very willing very capable very able to embrace digital technology because in many years That's the direction of growth. That's the room for growth They are not necessarily interested in break a mortal transactions as it used to be several years ago and right here I'm very proud to say that a number of African youths particularly Nigeria, South Africa and to some extent Kenya They have gone beyond the shores of Africa Chill places like Silicon Valley in California to raise funding from venture capital to raise funding from funds managers for their startup businesses and the most impressive thing here why I'm so proud is These are very young entrepreneurs under the age of 30 Really the target Numbers that you are making reference to that they are unemployed. They don't have skills But let's look at it the other way around. Let's reverse the rule They are now going outside the shores of Africa and they are being well received by the venture capitalists and front managers in Silicon Valley To raise sizable amount of money. We're talking about millions of dollars The most impressive thing are issue of corporate governance and they've been able to achieve that Issue of rule of law. They also have been able to respect and recognize contract Contractual obligation they able to honor them and these are starting happening just less than five six years ago We have such names. I will mention them here. They've gone global flutter wave a payment system Paystack a payment system an apt technology a payment system and You'll be very impressed The recognitions that these youth these young entrepreneurs can and our focus for Africa plan platform opportunity for growth growth platform is that we should be targeting about 400 million new startup Companies in the area of SME small medium-scale enterprises in the next five years. All right if we achieve that target These are unemployment. We're talking about that. We are all scared. It's gonna be a timeboard. We should reverse that Narrative. Thank you. We'll talk about those solutions in a second Jim Ovia Always a quesely, please Can I get your perspective? I think one of the things I didn't tell the audience not that you need any introduction is that you're also The forthright foremost campaigner for the bring back our girls campaign So if there's anybody who really knows what young people are feeling on the ground, it's you Can you tell us? About the sentiment on the ground. Thank you very much Loretta I think that the first thing to do is to acknowledge what you started off with About South Africa and what we've seen on the streets. I think that there has to be a Very distinct session for us to discuss the issues of our Collaboration as Africans the reality of what we saw in South Africa is too solid for it to be a mere Conversation by the way, this is the issue. We cannot have Africa continental free trade agreement and yet we have a situation where there's black on black violence in this country So I do hope that we're going to go beyond the marginal conversations of it and get to the heart of the matter of What kind of integrated Africa we want to drive forward? So that's number one number two is To the issue that we've come to discuss about promising the future What does the future look like as we see it going forward? The future is the thought industrial revolution and that which will come immediately after it So we're talking of an Africa and young people who are going to be thrown and in fact already thrown Into a future that's made up of the AI's of this world artificial intelligence the robotics internet of things they are in the world and Ecosystem where it is about blockchain technologies and all the machine learning and the algorithms and things that are totally Way off the kind of education that we are offering them So we are talking about a pool of people You said 12 million do enter the labor market every year I need you to know that only 10 percent of the 12 million would find anything that is defined as Descent jobs according to ILO now if only 10 percent would find those jobs and we've got this 90 percent That are on the margins of society That is the issue of governance for us we must look at the the failure of governance to actually in Have the right kinds of policies that lead to growth the growth that is diversified The growth that is inclusive and at the heart of this is what kind of education system What kind of skills are we emphasizing? What kind of economic? opportunities, you know the great issue for us is that We have seen that if a sector actually gets the right kinds of policies Telecommunication it changes slightly the structure of the African economy. We have understood that So what is it about our wacky politics on this continent that's making us have people who are Comfortable enough to watch the growth of the number of people that are on the margins of Economic possibilities That's the conversation and I think that at the heart of it is that politics Trump's economy on our continent and that's a dangerous thing So I'd like you to just spell it out very briefly Are you saying that our politicians are counterproductive? our politicians Need to be put in a room and told that they have produced a miserable Situation that is not worthy of the young people that hold them Responsible for their fate. It is not a good thing and I believe that the conversation about our politics Has to be a conversation Around the quality of politics that we play on our continent. Thank you very much Mr. Bartier Over to you Obi Brought us now into the fourth industrial revolution. It is here The economies are digitizing it is happening But the pool of skills doesn't match what's happening in industry and in commerce How can you help Google? So first of all, I think to the question of is it a ticking time bomb? The answer is yes, possibly, but it could also be an unbelievable source of of growth In the continent the youthful population here It is sort of your glass half full glass half empty occasion when I look at the continent We see enormous opportunities if the right set of policies ultimately is adopted But before I come to that, let me just say I think technology It won't surprise you that I'm going to be an evangelist for technology as being the solution to this challenge And in many ways when you think about what it provides that is unique from almost any other sector It is a leveling it is an equality The poor rural youth here has to the extent they can actually gain access to the internet And we'll come back to that but that individual has access to the exact same search engine When he goes to google.com the exact same gmail the exact same Android phone system as does a rich person halfway around the world So at its very essence, the technology is leveling now. How do we enable that poor rural youth to get there? I would suggest four things we should be thinking about one is access The reality is that Africa today is Trailing badly in terms of internet accessibility 35% as opposed to well above 50 in in the Asia Pacific region And not to mention much higher numbers elsewhere So that's one now the responsibility for that falls on the private sector and the government working together We can do a better job building the kinds of products that are enabling that kind of access But we need government to work by correcting market investing in the right things and so forth The second is a digital culture We need to build into the mindset of everything of every actor in government of every actor in the private sector How do we build digital into the solutions? The third is skilling we talked about that I think obi and Jim and others it's an area where we feel passionately about I was last yesterday with a group of 10 11 12 year olds here in a township the talent the passion the skill It's there we just need to be able to create the mechanisms and then lastly I would say regulation is important Regulation and policy. I just want to stay with you Karen very briefly I remember speaking to a CEO of an African multinational in the telecommunications space And they said the reality on the ground in Africa right now 30% of the population is Living in the 4g world Everybody else is in the 2g world. They know what's available to them They can't afford it exactly access it and so actually technology is not a leveler and not only are they living in the 2g world They're living in a 2g world at prices that are many times what one would be paying in the developed markets It's not fair and it is an enormous Disabler of growth, but it is fixable with the right set of investments and the right set of policies How can it be fixed? I mean I know that you've looked at things like free internet But when you're speaking to policymakers on the African continent How do you say to them technology is the lever that changes the economy and this is how to roll it out? So I just purely on the access side I think it is a combination between investing in the fundamental infrastructure the network infrastructure that still trails The and but at the same stage marrying that with market reform the reality is that the African markets in many cases is fragmented It's still it's terrific to see the free trade agreement coming about but hopefully that will lead to the kinds of integration that we need And it all it frankly also requires greater competition in some of these markets, okay? President must see prisons you day I want to bring the comment that was made there our politicians counterproductive Actually creating misery does that apply to you? Not to me, but perhaps some others No, on a serious note, I think we do need to have a conversation about the kind of politics that we have a lot of it doesn't seem to serve a purpose and much as I do believe technology may have a well would have a very big role to play in terms of promoting access and Turning around this negative Outlook into a promise The precondition for that to be would be the right policies being in place and these policies are to correct and otherwise In balanced world, but you know, we're talking about Africa We also are part of a global community and we subscribe to the sustainable development goals There is a major responsibility of those who have much more than what Africa has and Most of it are crude from Africa They have a moral obligation and the responsibility to make sure that we fix the prices because if we don't migration will not stop and The development will not stop Inequality will not stop human rights abuses will not stop and whether you call it xenophobia black-and-black crime Will not stop so it's a much bigger problem than we we see and I think yes, the political leaders will have to get together and sort this out But a compact needs to be gotten into place What is the primary? Objective of leadership. There's a leadership test. I think at this time. I want to stay with you present. My sister so We spoke about the unemployment issue in Botswana problem Talk to me about the solutions. What are you doing? Well to a large extent, you know, we in Botswana attempt to resolve our problems by Putting together Those interventions necessary to migrate as many people as possible to the next level of development Take ICT in this case. We want to accelerate that for everybody and Actually subsidize For those who can't afford as you commonly do we run a social democratic model of government And so that is doable for us. And that's why we've achieved the levels we have one of our biggest problems is that we are essentially a single Product commodity economy. We're landlocked and we're fairly small in number But the bigger challenge is we're in a neighborhood where in there is very uneven Distribution of opportunity resources and development and a lot of it pulls in one direction and We have to make assumptions about how we're going to be relating with those. I just think for me It's really a an ABC kind of question Hear these young people. They're looking for jobs. What are the incentives to business to get those people into the workplace? well, sure we provide we want to provide as many of those incentives as possible and We've also got to help them Deal with the natural Challenges they face such as being landlocked. So what do you do? You open up the skies you open up the You know telecommunication opportunities and and you provide more incentives for them to so do but more than anything else You enhance their skill proficiency so that they become much more efficient than anybody else and therefore competitive President Zure. What is the case for? Ethiopia large population Market opening up. What is that promise that's going to be delivered for Ethiopia's young people? Well, I think that Future would be promising for Ethiopia as I have said We we came out from this business as usual Kind of Development practice that we had in order to have a real transformation Which would definitely include the youth and youth unemployment So policies and the environment for that are is being crafted now Ethiopia is a late comer in this Demographic transition and and and so on we have a huge young population So I think we have reached the time as the scientists say on on on this Dividend where we have reached the stage where opportunities would be you know Way outweigh the the challenges. So this is what we're the second It's the focus that we are giving to the rural areas of it 82 percent of our population Leaves in the rural area. There is a huge influx into the cities where you know We don't have enough services enough schools and so on for all of them and we go into that Frustration and it fuels into any kind of other challenges. So this is what we are doing if I have the floor Let me also say that I think Globally since it is a global Problem we need to go from this kind of conversation in board rooms To the grass roots. We have a huge problem and I said forcefully because I've been Being an international civil servant national civil servant and so on you have many Beautiful productions beautiful papers on all issues, but we have problems going to the ground So there is a huge mismatch between policies Commitments and actions on the ground and I agree with what Obi has said we have an issue of leadership governance and of course this kind of serious issue can be can't be used for Political expediency and I also believe that education has a big role to play It's high time globally to reexamine and rethink what Education is for the future of of mankind. Thank you. Presidents. You don't want to stay with you there. You say we have a future of policy and governance So we don't get to sit in a euphora We don't get to sit in those exclusive meetings with fellow heads of state, but you guys do Do you look your peers in the eye and tell them?  You could do better I'm a newcomer I Have been a backbencher for so long and I have seen what is being done I can tell you very honestly we have to change the way we do business this we have to accept I Think we have What it takes to change situation within our countries and beyond within our continent But we definitely have to change the way we are addressing serious issues Especially like this one. Mr. Jim over you've been silent, but let's bring you into the conversation so I was in Lagos a few weeks ago and I was speaking with a leading manufacturer in the country and one of the things that was said was you know, the market is slowly opening up, but actually It's the banking sector. That's absorbing the very best talent in Nigeria So somebody will come out of university a mechanical engineer But we'll end up working in a bank Somebody will come out of university with ICT skills and we'll end up working in the bank So basically the banks are mopping up everyone who has talent and that's because the rest of the economy just doesn't have the capacity to absorb the skills and To churn the skills when you speak as the business community in Nigeria How do you think you're gonna go about sorting out these problems? First of all, I think it's a good thing that will have great talents the bank industry to be able to keep your money for you So now actually opportunities are everywhere it depends on the structure of the economy and Not just the structure of the economy is a specific Industries if the banking industry decide to structure itself in such a way that the talents Put out there to manage a huge amount of resources and responsibilities We can't afford to lose depositors money We can't afford to lose money that belong to stakeholders So you must Structure your industry in such a way that the best are nothing but the best are there Can you do the same for other industry like telecommunication? The answer is yes Like power sector the answer is yes like agriculture the answer is yes. Why is he not done? Government policies that's exactly what our excellency and its excellency We're just alluded to very recently the government policies Anywhere in Africa is exactly what has to be changed The government have to come up with policies that enable other sectors to do well and blow some If got various government come up with good policy in the area of agriculture and in my husband race everyone will want to be In agriculture want to be a farmer because it's gonna be very profitable the policy did favor ICT in Many countries like me Nigeria, South Africa quite a few other countries and you will see that I Ct the one of the highest listed Market capitalized Companies you have in Africa. It's ICT So they are doing extremely very well and that's because the government policy also favors that too Then what about the area of power sector? Not much had been done in that regard Many countries the government also need to come up with enabling policies For power so that there's power everywhere if you look at this darkness in many African countries darkness Total darkness Why can't we come up with the right policy right incentive? Everyone will go into the power sector Brighten up Africa. Just briefly Nigeria is obviously the largest economy in Africa at the moment Nigeria has to work just as South Africa is the most advanced economy in Africa. It has to work So in two of the best players are a little bit dysfunctional or underperforming It's a problem for everybody else So what pressure are you putting on authorities on the government in Nigeria indeed even on the South Africans to get it right Now the issue of xenophobia is truly for the politicians The various heads of state at the AU African Union. They all have to sit on a round table Either they come punch themselves and Decide to find a solution or they see to talk about it and they will come up with a solution of the issue of Xenophobia, this is not for the private sector. This is not for the entrepreneurs. This is not about xenophobia and I'll be just by way of a heads up. I'm coming to you with that one You're gonna take it But this is just the pressure you're going to put on the Buhari administration the Ramaphosa administration You're an investor to say you want more of my money. These are the changes. I want to see Actually, it's unusual for private sector to insist on such demand on any government entity It is never done that way policy issues the issue of government Regulatory issues is for the politicians the private sector will never Actually, let me put it this way the tail. She never work the dog is the dog that should work the tail In your next life Diplomat Obi is a quacilli. Let's talk about it Do you think the South Africans? Not the leadership the people have Really calibrated the extent of this problem because I'm ashamed to say this is not the first world economic forum to come to South Africa With xenophobia in the backdrop, you know, there are two economies in this country and It was never going to be sustainable That's what we're saying. There are two economies traveling on their respective tracks and somehow never meeting and the real challenge is that Political experiences keeping your politicians from taking the right kinds of measures That are necessary to make this economy as productive and competitive as it should be The opportunities are incredible. There's so much to leverage on What is it that we know grows economies and expands opportunities? We know that if you have the sound policies, you're good We know that if you have strong institutions and regulatory systems, you're good We know that if you invest effectively and efficiently in the public goods that Represent basic services delivery to citizens and to business. You're good. We know these three things We know that economies that are enviable today which used to be Lower in GDP per capita compared to South Africa Take a China a China Went from where it was less than a trillion dollar of GDP to 14 trillion dollars of GDP For goodness sake, we know that just embracing the basic principles of The markets and allowing the markets to set the incentive for the Business and by the way my dear you should get it right now The business elite and the political elite will be in trouble in this continent If you want to say it's not a business to talk to the governments, huh? That's a bit of a Jim you you gotta modify, you know Because what the continent is in need of is an a sense of urgency this feeling that We have comfort and we have relative comfort and we can manage to navigate it It's not going to last for long. I'm staying with we all must use our voice We need good governance on this continent We need good politics on this continent because frankly speaking Loretta I came to this place not to be in a normal world economic forum, but to sound a Stridentcy that what we are seeing in our respective countries It's not going to be wished away. I want to stay with you because it's not just South Africa That's in trouble right now look at my country exactly and in fact there's a UN report But it's a bit of an old report, but nonetheless still valid it found that 40% of young people Who had joined rebel movements militant groups or criminal gangs? 40% of those young recruits said they did it because they had no jobs when you are idle when you're unemployed You get swayed Yes, so how much more of a problem are We going to experience we're going to experience Much more of it until we fix it problems are not Problems are not what you call it. They're not rocket science The good thing for Africa is that we actually find examples of countries and continents that have been down our path But what did it take to solve it? We now understand some critical factors that go together to create growth in all our conversation I want us to take one thing away We're not going to find band aids as solutions because they don't last we need real structural change structural change of our economy structural change of a political landscape and so what it means is We have to be more deliberate and intentional about what we're seeing on asteroids and we're not being that you know what we're being we're having good normal situation conversations and that's very unhealthy because that's like playing the ostrich the young people that are out there are very angry Extremely angry and they do not in any way differentiate between you Loretta me and the below near Jim Ovia The fact that you have any opportunity at all on the continent means that you are in trouble So what we therefore must avatar minds to is how do we? Expand the opportunities if you looked at all the sectors of comparative advantage for Africa Why is it that we have failed to take the very tough measures of the kinds of policies that would jump start those sectors? That's where the opportunities we come from but what gets in the way bad politics our politicians live for themselves Let's call is paid is paid not an agricultural Implement we have a problem of politics on our continent. We have a problem of bad leadership on our continent We should not in any way hide it any further. We must solve this problem ourselves And then Karen just a very brief contribution from you, and then I'm going to start taking questions from the floor, which is I Cannot tell you how many times I've heard the term fourth industrial revolution Every day every week and sometimes you wonder the politicians using the terminology do they understand it They know it's a sexy phrase, but do they get it? Do you get a sense that they get it? Look, I think there are politicians who do understand that I mean the the phrase I would use is the answer isn't rocket science. It's computer science and a lot of these things I think the dedication by that exists in many pockets in in government in Africa that we have seen You know at a at a routine level to trying to do things to develop that skill set is is laudable And we for instance at Google have recently entered into an agreement with the government of Nigeria where we're going to be supplying Curriculum to the Nigerian Ministry of Education 56 million Nigerian students are going to get a module Google train module around computer science. It's not going to equip them to be you know Elite coders, but it's going to develop that that fluency that frequency. So I do think there are some that get it Look at the end of the day This is going to require a partnership. I really do believe that I think government has a significant role to play And I think OB is right I think if the if bad policies are adopted you're not necessarily going to see the business complain You're gonna see business leave you're gonna see business take their dollars elsewhere take their their euros elsewhere But I do think that there is right now this opportunity There's a sense of of if we could just figure out that right path that the combination of investment in the private sector Government engagement could yield some spectacular things for Africa. Okay in the interest of time. I'm going to take Five comments, but here are the rules ladies and gentlemen We'd only like to hear From men and women in the room who have a solution to offer and what do I mean by that? From your role in your organization in your country. What have you done to dent? Poverty, what are you doing right now that we can actually track? Scientifically to say since this was done. This is how many jobs were created We want to hear about those experiences. So if you think that's you please put up your hand We want to hear from you. Yes, sir front row. Please stand up to the microphone comes your way anybody else Yes, ma'am. Please stand up the microphone will get to you anybody who's got a story to tell us About how you have created jobs and addressed this issue of youth despair caused by unemployment. I Know there's many of you in the room. Yes, sir and yes, sir and Madam here in the middle. Please stand up so that the microphones can get to you just stand keep standing stand so that we know Yes, let's go sir. My name is Kumar K. S. Kumar and I come from a company called Sutherland Over the last 16 years. We have made about 45,000 jobs in 15 countries in the IT enabled services base The fundamental building block of how we've done it always has been One of stakeholder alignment between country community client and company We've gone to countries where we meet heads of states to understand what are their priorities? and of course the world economic forum has been a great opportunity where they've gone and done that and We have worked with heads of states with this they prioritize to say this is important for us I can say for example, but I don't take too much time and Then we worked with communities in those countries with the alignment of the stakeholders the heads of state and the communities local Governors or mayors to build infrastructure build technology build You know build the bandwidth Connectivity build the buildings train people over a couple of years time and then we made jobs In many countries like that. How many jobs what 40,000 jobs? And I have been struggling to find a way to do something in Africa. I've been coming for three four years I've been to many countries to get that alignment with the stakeholders I have not been able to find the solution yet including your country madam I was promised to make 10,000 jobs, but we couldn't get into doing that in the country like Ethiopia or in South Africa Or of course, you know, thank you. Thank you for sharing and hopefully the Ethiopian delegation will get in touch with you And you can talk. Yes ma'am Hi, everyone. My name is Gwenda Marwaja, and I represent SAP Africa SAP I run a program called SAP Next Gen Which is all about building the next generation of talent for the technology ecosystem across Well, I manage the program for Africa But this is a global initiative that we run all over the world So I just wanted to share an example from an SAP perspective how we've tried to tackle this this matter of This disparity between youth skills and what is needed in the market What we've done is to try and take an approach where we look at the entire value chain of a young person That's building a skill set or building a career. So we create programs that focus on Learners youngsters, and then we also have a program that focuses on youth Post-18, and then we also have a program that looks at people that are unemployed graduates For example in the 20s that need to support families around them. The first program that we run with youth is a very broad Sort of I would say maybe a low impact high volume program Where we introduce awareness around coding skills and that's via our Africa Code Week program Well, it was actually yesterday Celebrated five years of that program and have over the last five years trained about five million youth across the African continent and we do that primarily by working very closely with grassroots level organizations because we realize that as SAP we Cannot be anywhere everywhere all the time So we leverage the networks that are already working within communities and use them to drive the solution and to upskill the Youth and then with the with the youngsters university students We run a rigorous program across the continent, but we train fewer numbers, but it's more high touch We work with universities and we empower them to teach students Right So I think the message is that what we do is we work through others at the grassroots level and that allows us to have broader Reach just before you sit down many young people are watching via livestream if they wanted to get onto your program Where would they go so they can follow at SAP next gen they can find information there on Twitter So we're on all the social platforms at Africa code week is a good platform as well as at SAP Africa. Thank you very much. Yes, sir Thank you, my name is Chinay do as a door and I'm the chief growth officer at a company called max Ocata out of Lagos, Nigeria We have about 1600 direct employees That we've been able to roll out what we do is build out the technology and finance infrastructure to enable mobility for two and three Willers in Nigeria today West African region over the next 12 months we've raised about eight million dollars in funding and have Taking the average motorcycle tax taxi income in Lagos from about 83 dollars a Month when we first started to between six and eight hundred dollars a month right now What we do is we we've looked at the the value chain and figured out what the issues with motorcycle taxis I'm most of these drivers never get to own their motorcycle taxis because the cost of purchasing them is Exoppency and exorbitantly high initially So what we've done is to build out a very detailed background check process where we randomly bring in these drivers Do run psychometric tests on them figure out who has the right psychometric profile to actually work in this kind of business in Nigeria? Do a lot of work for them around streamlining on what they do Provide a lot of training for them. So in a space of about two weeks This guys go through a rigorous training program on our platform and after that day we essentially Give them motorcycles part of what we've done is to essentially bring is to also bring in funders So we work with a couple micro finance banks in Nigeria We work with a couple and we have crowd funders who have put money in on the platform And we take money from these people lend it to these drivers at about 40 percent per annum the average driver is able to purchase motorcycles with the lease of Outside max in Nigeria is about a hundred to a hundred and fifty percent per annum in interest rates So they don't actually get any access at all depending on where they go So what we've been able to do is to crash significantly what those prices the drivers are paying is and then provide the technology for them To be able to essentially run ride healing So to the average consumer where motor taxi healing business but for these drivers where an entire educational system built around The success of these drivers so we track them from before they joined the platform Walk with them throughout provide an education in terms of how to read and write properly right how to ride and essentially how to make My money. Thank you very much. You see mr. Ovia. Yes, you should come and talk with him. Also. That's the plan Well, I have financing for him as you see me after our double digits is done Yes, ma'am Yes, my name is Megan Fallone and I'm the director of the Barefoot College International an organization that works to bring into the formal economy young people as well as women Primarily in rural areas where they have not had access to a formal education and I think this conversation is Not complete because we continue to discuss the pathways to work as a silver bullet for people who can read and write Instead of really talking about the investment that must be made in our rural populations in Africa in order to enable them to be both entrepreneurial full of confidence competence and self-belief able to create self-sustaining and vibrant rural communities and I think that this definition the same way the definition of education needs to begin to widen to include many different pathways to To joining a formal economy this conversation about work also needs to widen I see thousands of young people who feel they are not able to join Simply because they haven't had access to learning. Thank you. Yes, sir My name is KK Fumba. I am from Refinitiv the director of Africa accounts Refinitiv is formally known as Thompson Raiders So talking to policy The one thing that we're taking advantage of particularly in the South African context is Triple B Right where we are taking advantage of that because for the nature of the business that we do we don't necessarily have to conform To be in South Africa. I mean we see it with our competitors and that kind of thing But we have insisted in South Africa that we have to comply to Be codes because we want to do business and of course do well Of course the numbers that we're talking about they are not as enormous as the 40,000 jobs I want to be great that that that the other firms are creating we're talking about 2030 graduates that we take from previously disadvantaged Communities but it's a small little ways because I think the other part of the problem is that for youth particularly is that we are always looking at Big-scale impact and so on and forgetting that even the one or two Graduates or just any youth that you take in that small numbers will have a bigger impact in the long run So yeah, I mean that's the only small way that we are doing in between the context of South Africa It's never small one job created is a good job created. Thank you very much All right, so let's rip up our panel. We've got slightly less than five minutes your excellency One of the things we really didn't delve into is Education and how we are preparing the youth for the promise of the future. So from your perspective What are the immediate interventions needed? well, you know, we need to get into a very intense holistic review of curricula and We need to do that with a full understanding that The very curricula we're reviewing is going to be is probably going to be irrelevant in a few years time And therefore you need to have it designed in such a manner that it can continuously change and Allow for newer skill sets newer Knowledge basis to be absorbed and finally I think it's important that we understand From the very word go that we need to invest differently. We need to put our money where it matters the most Prisons you did Yes, I think this is what we should be doing in Ethiopia. We are reviewing the curriculum We have a new roadmap on education, which is under discussion. We have challenges around it But nevertheless, this is what we should be doing and as I have said The the the education we gave should be really matching the need of Of the country. I don't think we need many PhDs and so on We have amazing young Ethiopians and I refer to a woman who is involved in this artificial intelligence But she started at the age of nine. I don't know why she should be going until PhD What she so we have to review the whole thing and it has to match the need of Of the country. This is what we are doing Jim Ovia the skills that you think would benefit young people going forward. I Think vocational skill many of the young people Have education. They already educated already What they do like is the skill to perform certain specific task They needed to have those skills. How do they acquire the skills by creating additional vocational schools? either in the area of ICT or in the area of agriculture or in the area of manufacturing or in area of Petrochemical but they don't know these things These are the various areas that will create jobs for the youth and they themselves will be creators of jobs innovators makers builders and Also employers they needed to be employers as opposed to Looking for jobs. Well, we need to prepare them to be able to Create jobs themselves as the Chinese saying if you give one fish to eat You feed him for one day, but if you teach him how to fish He is going to be for life An employer and he will feed himself for life That's what we need to do. Oh busy Kaseeli.  So Policy-wise what needs to change one needs to change is we need to render the Very anachronistic ministries of education redundant A lot of what's going on is showing us that once you give a child basic literacy Education is now totally differently defined for the 21st century and we need to upgrade our mindset to that so change Entirely overhaul the education ministries across the continent Take away these people who are still tied to the old ideas of the British Education system which they believe they are guardian angels for we must overhaul that number two is we need to Actually look at each of the sectors from where our opportunities Can come and look at what it is that would make those sectors productive and competitive and and then invest our policies and our institutions and our Investment into them and then number three we need to Get this conversation around the social contract between the leaders the political leadership of this continent and the citizens because we are operating a broken Social contract and that's why instead of there being a conversation We have conflict and friction and it's time to change that and finally Karen Batia we're told in the future driverless cars Will be putting our monies in ledgers called blockchain Our cities will be run through artificial intelligence our farming will be done in the same way So what do we all need to be able to do to function? I think we first of all need to be excited about the future because there's tremendous opportunity out there including through the continent The second thing just on the education point Look, we're gonna continue to need a diversity of subject matter experts in Africa as elsewhere around the world But the one thing I will say is all of those sectors are gonna be digitally enabled So there has to be some level of digital literacy and the last thing I would say is we need to emphasize Girls and women's education as much as as men's and one of the things I'm very proud about at Google we announced a a Objective to educate 10 million Children kids on in Africa digital education with a 50% target being women and girls So I think that needs to be something we're all focused on. Thank you very much Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking Karen Batia or basic with silly Jim Ovia prison Zude and prison was CC What's one hour and Ethiopia? Thank you for your time


Welcome back to Lone Fox DIY Home Channel. Today I am going to be doing a Target Hacks video and I actually hadn't even planned this. I actually was going to do a full on like drift upcycle video. I brought my vlog camera, I was going to go to the thrift store and buy some things and just like DIY and upcycle them. But I went to two thrift stores and could not find anything. I don't know what it was. I filmed the whole process. It was like just an epic fail. But I was already out and about and I saw this huge target right here and I just did an Ikea hacks video that you guys seemed to love. So I thought I would do a Target Hacks video and since I have my vlog camera I might as well vlog a little bit of the process of me shopping for some of the items. Never been to the target that I'm currently in. So I don't even know where the home section is. I've walked around the whole thing. Maybe they don't even have one. Electronics section? No, we're looking for the home aisle. I think I found it. Don't know how much luck I'm having in here either. I think I found one potential like project I can do but only one. I need like eight. So far I've gotten one set of napkins and you're probably wondering what I'm gonna do with napkins but I will show you. So my vlogging was an epic fail. I actually forgot halfway through that I was even vlogging and then I got a little frazzled cause I couldn't find anything for so long and all of the people in there were like, do you need help finding anything? And I was like, no, I'm just trying to do hacks with your already pre-made items. Also was able to get like this new removable wallpaper they have and this one has like panthers on it. I don't know if you can see it, but you can. And I wanna put this in my new bathroom cause I think it'd be so cool. And then I bought a couple other items but if you are not already make sure to subscribe to my channel. I post, I'm trying to post every single week and sometimes even two times a week but since I am moving right now it's kind of like a weird process. So if I'm lacking videos lately, so sorry about that but I am gonna pick them right back up very shortly. So definitely subscribe, give this video a thumbs up and you can subscribe to my personal Instagram account or sorry not subscribe but follow it at I'm Drew Scott. I post on there all the time. So definitely check that out if you're not already and I will start the DIY process when I get home. So let's get into it. For this first project I'm creating this hanging basket planter situation and I used three of these baskets from the shower aisle, scissors, some string and spray paint. So I took three of these baskets. These were 4.99 each and I found them in the bath section. There are shower, bin, caddy sort of things and I put them inside of a cardboard box which is the best tip if you're spray painting anything like this. Put it in a cardboard box and I sprayed it with a good coat of 24 karat gold spray paint I found at Michaels and I think it just totally changed the appearance of these baskets. So it's incredible afterwards.  This is like macrame cord I found at Michaels Craft Store and I cut four equal sections of the cording just so I had enough to work with and I just cut a random amount and I strung it through the bottom mesh of the actual basket which is going to then tie onto the basket right underneath it. And as you can see here I'm going through the next basket tying it around it and then looping it and I just took it and kind of tied a couple of knots on there just so that it was nice and secure. So when you put stuff in it you can just like make sure that it's going to stay there of course. And I did the same thing on the opposite side sliding the strings through the wire mesh and then just tying it really tightly towards the actual base of the next basket.  These pillows are called napkin pillowcases for a reason. It's because we use napkins, fabric glue, clips and a pillow stuffer. So these napkins are from Target's Carth and Hand Collection. They were on sale for $3.50. And the great thing about these fabric napkins is that they are 20 by 20 inches which is your typical throw pillow size. So when I saw this on the little napkin container I thought it was perfect to create throw pillows with. Keep in mind only one of these throw pillowcases cost $3.50 to create. And all you need to do is glue all four sides together using a fabric glue or like a really strong adhesive such as E6000, that's what I had on hand. You can use little wood clips like this just to clip it up.  And that is exactly how you create these pillowcases. If you want to reuse them just rip open one of the sides, store it away and then glue it again when you want to put it back on a pillow. And it's super affordable and easy.  So I started off by giving my terracotta pot a base of just white paint and I did two full coats and I got inspired by this from one of the Opal House pieces but it was like a $24 vase and I realized that this terracotta pot was $5 and I can probably create it for a total of around $7 with a very similar look. So I really wanted to sort of like create that hack for you guys and show you how to do this. So I first started by of course, coating it with the white paint then used a plastic cup, a little bit of water and some other colored paint. Black would have been amazing but I only had like a couple of neutral tones like the sage color and I dipped my old toothbrush in it and just splattered on a couple little spritzes of the color and that creates a speckled effect and that's how you create this really cool speckled pottery. And last but not least this project is literally a bonus project. I just wanted to throw it in because I thought the idea was really cool but you can find these paper mache sculptures in the kids section and spray paint them brass and you have an instant brass sculpture. They have T-Rex's unicorns, like little lambs, whatever you want to do but I thought it was like such a cool way to create like a little brass sculpture for a couple of dollars. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel for more DIY and home projects and definitely leave a comment below if you have any ideas for me and I will catch you on the next one. Bye guys.


Hi, this is your host Abil Bhartia, and my next guest is Joe Bostien, Chair of Ambitose and Open Mainframe Project and Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM. Joe, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. And today we are going to talk about security, of course, from the lens of open source. In general, I mean, when we started an open source journey, one of the things was that, hey, open source is, it's not that open source is ultimately secure, it's more secure than, you know, proprietary technologies, but the fact is that we've also seen a lot of, you know, breaches there because no matter what, bugs are part of software development process, so bugs will be there, bugs can be security vulnerability, misconfiguration also there, access is also there. So let's look at, you know, when we talk about security and the use of open source in enterprise, what kind of challenges that you see where companies still face that, hey, just because open source doesn't mean it's fully secure? So there's really two ways to look at open source in terms of security. One is quality of the code base, right? A lot of times you can get into deep philosophical discussions about what's inherently more secure, open source or closed source. And there are a lot of long discussions you can have about that, but equally important to the quality of the code base is how you deploy and manage that software. And that doesn't really matter whether it's proprietary or open source. It's your best practices when you deploy and manage the software that's part of your environment. And in that sense, there is still sort of a big cultural divide between open source community and proprietary houses where the code oftentimes tends to be kept in an as needed type of an environment. If you don't have a need to access this code, you don't have access to it. And there are strengths to that method of deployment in the sense that you keep tight control over the uses of your system. However, it can give you a false sense of security in that if I come up with a configuration that's secured today, then next year it'll be just as secure when in fact that's not the case, right? People have to understand that when it comes to, when it comes to the security of an environment, that is something that is a point in time measurement and you can say, okay, I feel good about where I am today. It doesn't mean that next year it's going to be just as secure because your bad actors out there in the world can find ways around the different security measures that you take and you have to be able to adjust accordingly. That's really where the open source community is strong because that community is constantly evolving and sharing information. So what we really want to try to do is bring together the best of both worlds, right? And bring some of that common sense knowledge that people from the enterprise community and perhaps closed source proprietary environments may consider to be sort of best practices and marry that up with the technology base and all of the different types of solutions that are available in the open source community. And you tell them on some great points. First of all, the software, it's not a static. It gives you all a new pack, new updates keep coming in and those updates can also bring in, you know. What happens is that open source communities are great. Even when we hear about any vulnerability, the communities, the Russian, there are some exceptions always, which can be challenging but Russian, the patch is there. The challenge is that the patch has to be deployed also in production. I mean, I don't want to name any company but we have seen so many cases that patch was out applied, that was the big compromise were there, which also kind of brings as you talked about the cultural problem, how it's deployed, how it's running there. And it's not that, you know, it's the same thing is with the proprietary also the only difference is that you don't have to rely on a single vendor here, open source community. Anybody can come up with a patch but talk a bit about when you look at, you know, the patch is ready, but it's not being deployed. That's when we talk of personal or cultural problem. Whose problem is security? That's why you talk about DevSecOps or SREs. So what do you think from that point of view? Yeah, definitely the speed at which patches are deployed is absolutely critical to the security of your environment. I mean, how many times have you read a story about a breach at a, you know, at some particular firm even security related firms where you find out that the patch was available a year and a half ago, but just hadn't been applied. Now understanding that there are some complex dependencies between different sets of open source out in the environment that have to be managed, right? A lot of times an upgrade to one package creates a conflict with another one higher up in the stack and it takes some time to manage those so that they can be coordinated properly. Even when you account for that there are still plenty of places where a particular system administrator has been slow to upgrade for non-technical reasons that eventually results in, you know, an exposure of sensitive information that was unintended. And so I think everyone, whether they're, you know whether they have a deep open source background or they come from a proprietary enterprise background has to exercise those muscles to keep as current as is feasible from a technical standpoint because that's the only way you're gonna defeat, you know threat actors who are coming after you. Can you talk about the cultural aspect as well? Of course, we do talk about, you know the whole shift left boom when DevSecOps is there. We are also trying to break the old silos. Hey, they're not like totally different isolated security teams, you know which can sometimes slow things. We talk about, hey, security is everybody's problem. It's not a specific person's problem. How much do you see in real reality happening when we specifically look at the organizations who are embracing open source? Do they really have these, you know DevSecOps or shift left or zero trust practices in place to ensure that whatever they're deploying is secure? Yeah, well, working for a, you know a large company myself that has a lot of, you know exposure to some very complex software environments. I can tell you it's a work in progress especially with the advent of Log4J that was, you know, a problem in 2021 that really seemed to be a catalyst that got a lot of people's attention and said, hey, we know we've been sort of moving in this direction for some time now. I think that woke a lot of people up and said, hey, we really have to make this a big priority, right? We cannot stand to have the kind of exposures that are becoming more and more common all the time. We can't just sit there and say, well I'll get to it along with all of my other priorities. We really have to bump this to the top of the list. So I would say that there is a lot of work that is going on in this space. We see it through the open mainframe project, the open source security foundation and we see it in the efforts of that particular group. And I know as the head of the Ambitus project, right that kind of assessment of my own project takes place all the time where the security groups are trying to go off and assess and score rate all of the different projects that are out there and available today and say, this is a healthy community. This is one that's got a strong user base, a strong set of maintainers and they put out quality code on a regular basis or perhaps this particular group is a little bit understaffed and they can't quite keep up with what all of the evolving threat base that's moving faster than they can keep up and you maybe should watch out for what they do. So we at the Ambitus project are always looking for ways to enhance and enable users with their DevOps and with their particular pipelines to help them stay current and ahead of the threat actors that are sort of chasing them these days. Since you talk about Ambitus project, yes, these open source projects, they do ensure that their code is safe, but let's go back to the problem that we're talking about that it's being deployed also, it being your patches are deployed. So talking about Ambitus project or we can also talk about open mainframe project in general, what are you doing to kind of educate users that, hey, keep the code base latest. Also, if you keep a gap, not only security, but also when they're jumping from one version to the third release, it becomes more challenging also. You are running a separate four coffee open source. So talk about what new folks are doing to kind of also educate the user base so they keep their code base secure. There are, especially in the mainframe environment, there are lots of opportunities for users to come in and port and bring common Linux functions, for instance, to ZOS, or to bring additional functionality to Linux on Z. And there are some best practices involved in doing that. And in the process of managing all of those kinds of activities on the system, when you bump up against a system administrator who perhaps does not have a deep open source background, a lot of times, this is where you'll get your sort of cultural clash, and we have to explain that the new stuff from the open source community really does include the facilities and the frameworks necessary to be secure in the sense that a traditional mainframe environment would consider to be acceptably safe, okay? And so from the Ambitus project, we're trying to create sets of open source software for DevOps purposes where that might be beneficial to our community. And in other cases, when we find existing open source projects that can enhance the security of the environment, we'll try to support those as well. And that might mean that we would have to take on as a community a porting effort to get a certain code base to run on ZOS. We have lots of affiliated groups that we work with who are off actively porting shells that have more current behaviors and more current versions than what we have by default in the environment. And that might be one way to close a whole class of problems that have existed from a security standpoint in the past. So we're trying to enable a lot of that and we're also trying to find a home or provide a home to those who have good ideas for DevOps that enhance security as well. Being a non X86 platform, sometimes that means that we have to do some code that's unique to our platform, but perhaps has the same look and feel as you would see on X86 or in the cloud, right? So that's kind of the environment that we're trying to provide with Ambitus is to create those things that say a dynamic main framer would look at and recognize and say, oh, I understand what you're doing there. Perhaps this is with user administration. That's one area that has a lot of focus. And the Linux environment, which has a different concept of user administration. And if we can create the proper DevOps and the utilities that go along with that, then you can get someone new from the Linux environment who goes, okay, this is different than what I've seen, but I understand what you're doing. And when we can do that, then Ambitus has served its purpose well. Thanks for explaining that. The maintainers are all doing their jobs. Users are also doing their jobs, but the fact is there's no single open source community. There are open source communities. There are so many projects. There are so many libraries, not just the libraries, a lot of, you know, you go to container work or, you know, they're, they have a lot of packages. And sometimes they're different developers they create. So there may be different, not versions, but if you go and check in there, like five different MySQLs, you know, created by different maintainers. So just because it's open source once again. So talk a bit about, you know, when we look at, you know, these repositories, you know, just because open source, that doesn't mean it's all safe because it also means who is maintaining, who is managing it. When were the last batch applied? So talk a bit about that aspect also. Whenever you look at a code base, one of the, well, actually I mentioned the open source software, the open source security foundation before, or project before, one of their key metrics is how old are the packages that you have on your system, right? And they can survey a whole set of code and say, okay, you're reasonably current or you're not. That is just sort of a high level, sort of top level view of just how current you happen to be. But you have to drill down beneath that and say, well, okay, some of these code bases are more dynamic than others, right? Some will have frequent updates and you need to stay on top of those. And if others say are a year or too old, that's because they've provided a stable function for a very long time and are still secure. So these teams have to go and assess each one of these packages individually and then score the whole group and say, you're reasonably current, you're reasonably secure, or you have some very serious holes that you need to go in and plug just by upgrading to new versions of your code. And so there's a huge effort going on right now, just trying to assess what your current posture is as a group and currency is definitely one of those kinds of things. So anything that we can see that where we could create a workflow or a technique or a best practice and explain through the Ambitus project, this is the best way to go about handling this. We realize that this is complex. Here's how we figured out how to solve this problem. We're certainly gonna publish it there and make it available to everyone. Security is not a product, it's a process, it's not just one thing, it's so many things. I also wanna talk about if you can share not necessarily a playbook, but some advice. For example, let's just think about code base that has been sitting there. You use that, it's obsolete, but it's still there. That can also create vulnerability. Zombie code, as you can say, misconfiguration is also access you may have given wrong access, you don't even manage access. And of course, keeping your software fully updated. So talk a bit about if you can share some advice that, hey, how folks can ensure that their open source code base that they are using in their services or product is safe. There are lots of scanners out there of today that there's no shortage of them that scan for various kinds of things. Known problems, CDs that have been identified. There are ones that go out and scan source code and say, well, we're not looking for known problems, but we do know of best practices and we have a set of rules that form a policy and that policy needs to be adhered to in order for your code base to be deemed of sufficient security, right? I work on a product myself where we have to work with several scanners that look for all sorts of things like best practices and source codes, viral licenses, for instance, those are also in some sense a type of security concern because somebody could write any kind of a license that they want and get that widely adopted. And it can be a threat, maybe not in the same way, but it's still a threat. So there are lots and lots of different scanners out there that perform various types of functions and probably the best practice is to apply several of them in a very organized way. Perhaps they overlap a little bit to give you better coverage overall, but what you really want out of that collection of scans is a good top level view of where you stand with everything. So perhaps you pick out one that scans for CVEs, one that scans for source code policies that need to be followed. And by the way, a lot of these scanners, not only will identify problems, but also suggest a remedy, right? So they will say, if you upgrade to the version you have plus three, then you will resolve this problem. And that's very helpful, right? So it's good to not only know what the problem is, but if there's a suggested resolution, then go ahead and follow that. And that can really help your administrators a lot. So just following those scanners and there are many, you can go a long ways towards securing your environment. Joe, thank you so much for taking time out today and talk about this topic and also share your insights, some tips, how, of course, just because open source doesn't mean it's fully secure, we have to do a lot of work also. So thanks for sharing those tips and I would love to sit down and chat with you again. Thank you. Yeah, well, thank you very much. Thank you for having me.