Ghanaian IT Expert and Chief Executive Officer of Adroit 360, a Tech company based in Accra Ghana, Jacob Kwaku Gyan has called on global leaders and market influencers across the globe to invest in IT technology among the youths in Africa and other parts of the world at the IFC’s flagship Sustainability Exchange program in Senegal since IT is the future.
The young entrepreneur was part of very prominent and high profiled people across the globe including government officials from Africa, Foreign Diplomats, C.E. O’s of multinationals and top-notch companies across the world who spoke at the forum. Some of the speakers include the Minister of Mines and Geology of the Republic of the Guinea, Abdoulaye Magassouba, Canadian ambassador to Senegal H.E Lise Filiatrault, CEO of Anglo American Mark Kutifani and a host of others.
He shared a passionate and compelling story on how he got into computing and how IT has transformed his life as a young person from a very deprived community in Accra, Ghana. He chronicled how he ignored a news story assignment he was supposed to go and cover as a reporter with a media house at the time and followed an anonymous web developer he had met for the first time who introduced him into web development.
Through personal practice, he learnt how to code and program. And now an IT expert who have been able to change the lives of other young people around him with IT. To him his life is a testimony to why market influencers should invest in a tech driven ecosystem among youths and his life is a testament as to why investment should be made digital technology among youths in Africa “I spent days and nights in internet café and thought myself how to program and how to be a digital person and today the story is different, in Ghana I have natured over 25 people and my company is doing very well. For me if you are looking at investing in young people, my life is evident of the fact investing in digital technology and impeaching the conversation on young people is very important”
Jacob also told an amazing and inspiring story on how he got his first client as a web developer after several unsuccessful attempts by him for a whole year. This he said is to inspire the youth not to give up on anything they lay their hands on in life. According to him, he had tried many things in the past as a youth such as journalism, football, shoe making and others in order to afford him a three square meal, which all proved futile before venturing into IT. “I go to hotels and places, write my number on pieces of papers tell them i can build a website for them. They will give me their numbers, I will call them and they won’t pick others to will snub me, for a whole year I didn’t get a single job. One day I went to a church in Accra and I thought the rich people will be there, I met a man, i told him i could build an app and he gave me his card and said call me. He was the Country Director of Dell at the time, and gave me my first job”.
According to him, he is of the strong conviction that technology is driving the future and countries that will pay particular attention to it and make it an inclusive in their education process will triumph, hence improving the standard of living of its people.
The Sustainability Exchange forum is an international platform initiated by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank which ensembles movers and shakers in infrastructure, natural resources, science and Technology in exploring on how to drive innovation through inclusion across the world. It affords opportunity for cross fertilization of ideas and championing courses that advances solutions to problems that confronts humanity and develop sustainable investments across Africa and the world.