This is not to devalue these professions. But rather to explore the vast new possibilities offered by the Internet. This, after evoking the stakes involved in modernizing Africa, a continent in the midst of a digital revolution.
The first challenge is the job market. The web is a tremendous vector for job and business creation. Particularly on the African continent, which is in the midst of a digital revolution to catch up with the West and Asia. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), only three million jobs are created each year in Africa, while 12 million young people are entering the job market. This, against a backdrop where demographers estimate that the continent's population is set to double by 2050.
Beyond the "classic" professions, the digital and Internet sectors are proving to have great potential for recruiting these future jobseekers. That's why Africans, especially young people, need to develop digital and Internet skills to seize these opportunities.
Training in digital skills and professions is a new challenge. According to experts at the Boston Consulting Group, "of the 20 countries in the world with the weakest digital skills, 12 are in Africa". So there's still a long way to go, despite the fact that the African Union has made the continent's digital transformation one of the issues on its Agenda 2063. For the time being, one of the main obstacles to Africa's digital and web revolution remains its lack of infrastructure.
Entrepreneurs, particularly those in the vocational training sector, could make the most of this opportunity. Why not, by forging partnerships with the web, internet and digital majors (Google, Facebook...) who are investing more and more on the continent. The continent's vocational training offerings need to reinvent themselves if they are to jump on the digital bandwagon. But for which web professions?
The web professions, which are currently booming worldwide, will have an even stronger resonance in Africa, where their growth is expected to be significant over the next few years.
Based on companies' needs in data analysis, infrastructure and software development or cyber security, here are a few of the trendy professions that caught our attention:
The list is, of course, non-exhaustive. The vastness of the web makes it impossible to list them all, and some are probably still unknown today.
In the final analysis, the main challenge for Africa is to modernize and develop its economy, where the effects of the web are already being felt, with the development of online sales, mobile banking, e-banking, e-agriculture, e-commerce and so on. These are just some of the business sectors waiting to be tapped.
Contributor : Regis B.
