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Upskilling Young People to be Entrepreneurial in the age of Technology is Critical
Africa’s young people are undoubtedly one of the continent’s greatest resources. As other regions battle with ageing populations and declining birth rates, Sub-Saharan Africa can lay claim to a median age of 19.7 with around 70% of the population under the age of 30. Those young people are increasingly well-educated and connected.
Didi Onwu, Managing Editor at The Anzisha Prize
But all that potential means nothing if they aren’t getting the opportunities needed to fulfil it. And in many countries, it’s clear that they aren’t. In South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy, the unemployment rate sits at 63.9% for those aged 15-24 and 42.1% for those aged 25-34 years. In Nigeria, meanwhile, the rate among people aged 15-34 is around 42.5%. And in Kenya, lobby group The Youth Congress claims that seven out of every 10 unemployed people are aged 35 and under.
While there are a number of interventions that could, and should, be made to help reverse those figures, perhaps the most important is to ensure that young people have the skills they need to be entrepreneurial. Indeed, research has shown that innovators can create significant wealth and have considerable developmental influences on society.
It’s even more critical at a time when technology is accelerating so fast that jobs can quickly become redundant.
“Fostering entrepreneurship among young people not only enables them to create their own opportunities and employment for other young people,” says Didi Onwu, Managing Editor at The Anzisha Prize, an organisation born out of a partnership between African Leadership Academy and Mastercard Foundation that seeks to increase the number of job generative entrepreneurs fundamentally and significantly in Africa. “It can also help them recognise and pursue employment opportunities that they might not have been able to otherwise.”
Yes, entrepreneurship really is a skill
Before digging into exactly what kind of skills can help foster entrepreneurship among a whole continent’s worth of young people, it’s worth pointing out that there’s a pervasive myth that needs to be busted. Over the years, glowing profiles of entrepreneurs (particularly in the tech space) have convinced many that entrepreneurs are born rather than made.
But, as Onwu points out, that’s simply not true.
“The idea of the brilliant innovator turned billionaire makes for a good story,” she says. “But dig a bit further and you’ll see that most successful entrepreneurs were given the tools they needed to succeed from a very young age.”
Microsoft founder Bill Gates, for example, was given extensive time with his high school’s computer at a time when having one was still a rarity. His mother also sat on the board of a non-profit with then IBM chairman John Opel, and helped the then fledgling company score a contract with the computing giant which ultimately proved crucial to its future success.
“While we can’t give every prospective young African entrepreneur a family connection, we can help them develop critical entrepreneurial skills that will serve them well in the future,” says Onwu.
The right skills matter most
While there are obviously a number of hard skills, such as those that concern technological proficiency, which are important to being an entrepreneur, the really valuable ones are a little more intangible. And equipping young people with those skills requires more than a straightforward curriculum.
Take network building, for example. While you could teach the basics in a course, establishing real networks takes time and consistent effort. The same is true for pitching to investors for funding. Other skills, such as mastering the fear of failure, can only be learned through practice.
“It’s something that we thought hard about when we redesigned the fellowship programme from the ground up a few years ago,” says Onwu. “We wanted to ensure that our fellows were holistically building a broad range of entrepreneurial skills throughout their fellowships and beyond.”
Fellows are, for example, given access to communities of fellow entrepreneurs, introduced to a wide network of stakeholders and business experts, and provided with the opportunity to shadow successful entrepreneurs in their sector. It’s an approach which makes a great deal of sense when you consider that research has shown that exposure to innovation has a significant positive impact not just on the kind of innovation that young people produce, but also on their overall ability to be innovators.
Upskilling, now and forever
It should be absolutely clear that Africa needs its young people to be equipped with entrepreneurial skills if they are to meet their full potential in an age of accelerated technology. And, as Onwu points out, efforts to ensure that this is the case need to be made at every level of society.
“While we’re incredibly proud of the work we do at the Anzisha Prize, along with our partners, no single organisation can provide all of Africa’s young people with the skills they need to thrive as entrepreneurs,” she says. “It needs buy-in from governments, NGOs, the private sector, and a variety of other stakeholders.”
Moreover, these efforts cannot simply be short-term and instead need to be sustained over a prolonged period.
“The factors that make upskilling Africa’s young people to be entrepreneurial so important now aren’t going away anytime soon,” she concludes. “It’s therefore critical that all efforts are made to ensure that any initiatives aimed at building entrepreneurship are sustainable and capable of adapting to a constantly shifting business and technology environment.”
Paradigm Initiative (PIN), a pan-African digital rights and inclusion organisation, says it has engaged more than 1,300 stakeholders across 11 African countries through a series of forums, training sessions and policy dialogues aimed at strengthening digital rights, inclusion and online civic participation.
The organisation disclosed this in a statement, saying the engagements were carried out during the second quarter of the year through 26 programmes focused on election monitoring, judicial capacity building, digital literacy and policy development.
According to PIN, the initiative brought together policymakers, judges, lawyers, journalists, civil society organisations and community groups to promote a safer, more inclusive digital ecosystem across the continent.
The organisation said the programmes focused on safeguarding electoral integrity in Zambia, The Gambia and Ethiopia, while also strengthening the capacity of Nigeria’s judiciary on issues relating to Artificial Intelligence (AI), data privacy and digital evidence.
In partnership with Meta, PIN trained 35 judges in Lagos across two cohorts on privacy, data protection, AI and digital evidence.
It described the initiative as a significant step towards equipping Nigeria’s judicial officers to effectively handle legal disputes arising from an increasingly digital society.
The organisation also expanded its Digital Rights and Elections in Africa Meetings (DREAM) to Ethiopia, The Gambia and Zambia.
According to the statement, the programme equipped 110 civil society organisations, media professionals and election management bodies with skills to monitor digital rights violations and protect online civic spaces during election periods.
PIN further said its Digital Rights Academy (DRA) trained more than 100 lawyers, law students and digital rights advocates from Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
The academy focused on strengthening participants’ capacity in strategic litigation and promoting accountability for digital rights violations.
The organisation also hosted a Digital Policy Engagement Roundtable, bringing together 34 stakeholders, including organisations representing persons with disabilities, to discuss accessibility and inclusion in digital policy development.
It said Afrocities roundtables held in Nigeria and Tanzania attracted 80 participants who explored ways of improving informal workers’ access to digital social protection and financial services.
According to the statement, a ministerial roundtable in Zambia also aligned the country’s digital priorities with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) review process.
PIN said it also implemented the Digital Rights and Inclusion Board Learning Experience (DRIBLE) Ambassadors Training in Cameroon, Nigeria and Senegal.
The programme reached 315 participants and strengthened their capacity to deliver digital rights education through experiential learning approaches.
The organisation said the training improved participants’ understanding of digital rights and increased interest in practical digital rights education across communities.
PIN also highlighted the successful hosting of the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum 2026 (DRIF26) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
The forum, themed “Building Inclusive and Resilient Digital Futures”, attracted 415 participants from more than 39 countries.
According to the organisation, the event brought together policymakers, civil society organisations, media professionals, academics, legal experts, technologists, human rights defenders and development partners to promote dialogue, partnerships and knowledge sharing on Africa’s digital future.
PIN said the engagements underscored the growing importance of collaborative efforts in advancing digital rights, promoting inclusion and strengthening digital governance across the continent
Federal Government has suspended the implementation and enforcement of newly introduced regulations affecting internet platforms, online intermediaries and other cross-cutting issues in the digital economy pending the development of a harmonised national policy framework.
Bosun Tijani
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, issued the directive following a strategic meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Communications Commission, National Information Technology Development Agency and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.
According to a statement issued on Tuesday, the three agencies have been directed to maintain the existing regulatory framework while efforts to harmonise policies are underway.
The statement said the implementation or enforcement of recently introduced regulations, guidelines, codes, directives and administrative requirements relating to internet platforms and other digital economy issues would be deferred where they are part of the ongoing review.
It, however, clarified that the directive does not affect the statutory responsibilities of the agencies.
According to the ministry, existing regulations that fall within the legal mandates of the respective agencies will remain in force, provided they are consistent with the ministry’s policy direction.
Tijani said the rapid convergence of telecommunications, digital platforms, artificial intelligence, online safety and data governance had created overlapping regulatory responsibilities, making closer collaboration among regulators imperative.
He said a harmonised regulatory framework would provide greater legal certainty for businesses, encourage investment, promote innovation, strengthen consumer confidence and enhance Nigeria’s competitiveness as Africa’s leading digital economy.
“As part of the harmonisation process, a joint technical coordination committee comprising representatives of the NCC, NITDA and NDPC has been established.
“The committee will coordinate stakeholder consultations and develop recommendations for a unified national policy and governance framework,” the statement said.
It added that the proposed framework would seek to clearly define the responsibilities of each regulator, reduce compliance uncertainty for businesses and improve regulatory coordination across the digital ecosystem.
The ministry stressed that the harmonisation exercise was aimed at improving collaboration among the agencies and was not intended to diminish their statutory powers.
The development comes less than 24 hours after President Bola Tinubu directed the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to investigate major technology companies and generative artificial intelligence platforms over allegations of anti-competitive practices and the exploitation of Nigerian media content.
Airtel Africa, a telecommunications and mobile money services provider across 14 African countries, saved 9.1 million litres of diesel during its just ended 2025/2026 financial year, as part of efforts to drive responsible growth by minimising the environmental impact of its operations.
This was achieved by reducing reliance on diesel and increasing use of lower-carbon energy sources, including the conversion of 390 infrastructure sites to on-grid power during the year, thus improving efficiency and reducing emissions.
Airtel Africa CEO, Sunil Taldar highlighted this achievement during a media roundtable held in Lusaka, Zambia, where he presented the Group’s Sustainability Scorecard and progress towards building a more sustainable, inclusive and connected Africa.
Other initiatives to reduce Airtel Africa’s environmental impact during the year included promoting the circular economy, recycling 94% of total waste generated. These form part of Airtel Africa’s broader sustainability strategy, which seeks to create long-term value by balancing business growth with environmental stewardship, digital inclusion and socio-economic development.
Mr. Taldar emphasized that responsible growth remains central to Airtel Africa’s business strategy and is reflected in the company’s ability to extend services and opportunities to millions of people across the continent while advancing sustainability goals. Airtel Africa’s network now reaches 81.9% of the population across its markets, enabling greater access to connectivity, information, education and economic opportunities for individuals and communities.
The company recorded progress in its efforts to advance financial inclusion. Airtel Money now serves 54.1 million customers through a network of 2.4 million agents, making it one of Africa’s largest digital financial services ecosystems. Notably, 44.1% of Airtel Money customers are female, demonstrating the platform’s growing role in empowering women through access to secure, affordable and convenient financial services.
Beyond connectivity and financial inclusion, Airtel Africa, through its philanthropic arm, Airtel Africa Foundation continued to drive meaningful change across communities in the continent, investing US$6.2 million in priority programmes in four strategic areas namely Financial Inclusion, Education, Environmental Sustainability and Digital Inclusion.
Through its partnership with UNICEF, 3,296 schools have been connected to the free internet access, helping to bridge the digital divide and expand access to quality education reaching over 2 million learners and 38,868 teachers, while 64 zero-rated digital learning platforms enabled more than 11 million learners to access free digital educational content.
Also, during the year, more than 30,000 young people received digital skills training, while over 250 full undergraduate STEM scholarships were awarded through the Airtel Africa Tech Fellowship programme, helping to prepare the next generation of African innovators and technology leaders.
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