Telecom
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.”
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has announced the formation of Airbel Ventures, a new humanitarian impact investing fund aimed at accelerating the introduction and scaling of breakthrough technologies in crisis-affected communities.
The fund will invest in companies whose ideas have the potential to change humanitarian response, including digital infrastructure for frontline health systems and climate-resilient agriculture.
The launch of Airbel Ventures follows a period of rapid innovation at the IRC, despite the humanitarian sector facing record funding cuts.
In the past year, the IRC’s Airbel Impact Lab has advanced more than twenty Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology initiatives—from anticipatory action tools powered by climate and vulnerability data, to frontline service delivery using safe, orchestrated AI systems, to breakthrough diagnostic tools for emerging diseases.
Airbel Ventures’ first impact investment is in Signalytic, a company delivering solar-powered computing devices that ensure reliable electricity and connectivity for remote health facilities.
Following the investment, the IRC will pilot Signalytic’s technology with its Nigeria Health team, demonstrating the viability of next-generation digital infrastructure in humanitarian settings.
“We know breakthrough solutions already exist—what’s missing is the path to scale in humanitarian contexts,” said Dr. Jeannie Annan, Senior Vice President for Research & Innovation at the IRC and head of the Airbel Impact Lab.
MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telecommunications operator, recorded a historic surge in network disruptions in 2025, suffering 9,218 fibre cuts as of December 31, alongside 211 base station sites affected by theft and vandalism, incidents that disrupted mobile and data services relied upon daily by millions of Nigerians.
The data was revealed by Dr Karl Toriola, chief executive officer/managing director, MTN Nigeria via a social media post titled ‘MTN Nigeria 2025 Wrapped’.
The scale of the damage highlights the growing vulnerability of Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure, which has come under increasing pressure from road construction activities, cable theft and deliberate acts of vandalism.
MTN said 5,478 fibre cuts occurred within just the first seven months of 2025, with 760 incidents recorded in July alone, underscoring the intensity of the challenge.
Some of the incidents had wide-ranging consequences, knocking out connectivity across multiple states simultaneously and affecting voice calls, data services, digital payments and enterprise operations.
The company described the situation as a national infrastructure problem, rather than an isolated corporate issue, given the economy’s deep dependence on mobile networks.
“These gaps were shaped by real operational challenges such as fibre cuts, theft, and vandalism. Their impact is felt directly by customers and reflected in what they tell us,” Toriola,
The disruptions were reflected in customer feedback volumes, as MTN handled an unprecedented number of complaints during the year. The operator said it resolved 1,624,263 customer complaints in 2025, spanning call centres, social media platforms, emails and physical service centres nationwide.
Despite the setbacks, MTN pointed to signs of operational resilience. The company retained its ranking as Nigeria’s best network by Ookla, returned to profitability after a challenging period, declared an interim dividend, and expanded its subscriber base to over 85 million users by September 2025.
The figures show that while Nigeria’s telecom operators continue to invest heavily in network expansion and customer service, infrastructure sabotage remains a major drag on service quality and operating costs.
MTN acknowledged that performance improvements remain a work in progress. “We are not where we want to be yet. We see you. We hear you. We exist because of you. And we will get better,” Toriola said.
As the company enters its 25th year of operations in Nigeria, Toriola said MTN is doubling down on customer-centricity, treating every piece of feedback as a guide for improvement, while also stepping up engagement with government agencies.
The CEO renewed calls for stronger regulatory and legal protections for telecommunications infrastructure, urging policymakers to classify fibre cables, base stations and other critical assets as national infrastructure and criminalise vandalism to deter repeat attacks.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted operating licences to six new Internet Service Providers (ISPs), effective January 1, 2026, raising the total number of authorised ISPs in the country to 231 from 225 recorded in December 2025.
NCC
The newly licensed firms are Intellvision Technologies Limited, Granet Technologies Limited, Fiber Sonic Limited, Dasol Solution Services Ltd, Boost ISP Limited, and Amazon Kuiper Nigeria Limited.
Five of these companies are headquartered in Lagos, while Granet Technologies Limited operates from Owerri in Imo State, highlighting the persistent concentration of broadband infrastructure in major commercial hubs like Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.
This development intensifies competition in Nigeria’s broadband market, which faces pressure from dominant mobile network operators such as MTN and Airtel, alongside rapid expansion by satellite providers like Starlink.
Traditional ISPs continue to grapple with shrinking customer bases, aggressive data pricing from telcos, and satellite disruptions, even as NCC data from Q2 2025 showed Spectranet, Starlink, and FibreOne controlling about 65 per cent of the 313,713 active ISP subscribers.
The inclusion of Amazon Kuiper Nigeria Limited marks a significant entry of global satellite broadband competition, building on Nigeria’s recent approvals for other low Earth orbit providers to enhance connectivity in underserved areas.
Industry analysts view the licences as a strategic push to improve internet quality amid rising demand for digital services, though geographic clustering underscores ongoing infrastructure challenges outside urban centres.
NCC’s move aligns with broader efforts to foster a competitive telecoms sector critical to Nigeria’s digital economy ambitions.
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