Today, 18% of the world’s population is at a crossroads- in a world where leaders continue to engage in Cold war like rhetoric, where a few powerful countries have turned the rest of the world into a battleground and where extremist tendencies have gained currency, should the youth also go up in arms or should they be the force of change the world needs today? Faced with war, poverty, unemployment, displacement and a perpetual insecurity of life, 1.1 billion youngsters today can be the next Bin Ladens, Steve Jobs or quietly live a life of oblivion without touching a single soul. But do they have the power to make that choice? Not really. The civil society and the private sector should collaborate with the government to empower the youth to make the right choices.
This is how the private sector can play its part:
- Bridge the technology gap
If we are asked to list basic essentials we cannot do without, most of us would place internet right next to the food. Yet, according to a United Nations report, over half of the world’s population does not have access to the internet. Asia and Africa, with lowest rates of access, lag far behind the rest of the world. This sobering statistic is accompanied by the fact that only 42% of the females can go online. Hence, this stubbornly persistent and pervasive technological divide continues to force minorities to accept a life on the periphery.
In a quest to address this disturbing reality, Hewlett-Packard, the technological juggernaut, launched “World on Wheels” mobile labs in India two years ago. It arranged seven container-based “Future Classrooms” in villages. Each lab, with a capacity for 20 students, was equipped with HP computers, printers, software kits and e-learning tools including HP Video Book. In this way, HP enabled the students to benefit from IT literacy programs that were organised by it and the local government.
- Reconcile employee expectations to workplace reality
Being under-qualified for a job is something you understand, but how is being over qualified a problem? It may be the case that you acquired a highly accredited degree abroad and then came back to the tottering economy of your country with unreasonable expectations or that structural changes in the economy have rendered your experience useless. According to an ILO report, over-education impacts 23.5% of young workers while under-education impacts 23.8%.
In order to reduce the dissonance between employee’s expectations and the realities of the workplace, Cognizant Business Consulting, a multinational Information Technology company hosts regular “Insight Days”. Young students take part in games like a Dragons’ Den-style challenge that involves hi-tech products to understand what a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) demands of you.
- Challenge the students
If you have been sloganeering against the traditional schooling system, if you feel in hindsight that the four walls of the classroom stifled your creativity, you would appreciate Peter Thiel’s $100,000 scholarship for talented drop outs. But you can be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg even if you go through with your formal education. Unchallenged and inspired students resort to a life of delinquency; educational institutions should partner with corporations to design challenging internships and projects for students.
In that vein, AISEC, world’s largest non-profit youth led organization, partnered up with Martin Dow Ltd to sponsor the National Planning Summit 2018 in Pakistan. The “Embracing the Uniqueness” theme fittingly addressed one of the biggest hurdles to tapping the youth’s potential. It highlighted the ways in which Pakistan can harness the individuality of youth to inch closer to United Nation's 2030 sustainable development goals.
- Provide mentorship
A longitudinal study sponsored by Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada found that on average, youngsters display a greater confidence in their abilities and develop a stronger coping mechanism in times of adversity when they have access to a mentor. Mentorship plays an even more monumental role in the post-graduation years of students as they squander their potential to adopt tried and tested professions that they believe are lucrative.
Corporations should reach out to both students and recent graduates in a systematic manner to steer them towards a professional trajectory suitable to their aptitude. For instance, the Boston Consulting Group collaborated with Youth Venture (a global network that creates an ecosystem that values the originality of youngsters) to conduct a “Markets & Marketing” workshop. The BCG mentors helped the teams hone their business models and pitch them successfully to secure $1,000 in seed funding.
- Support entrepreneurship
Most big names today were at some point a startup; Starbucks, Apple, Google- all of them had to lure angel investors, battle defeatist mindsets and convince complacent customers that they needed these products. Apple, a small concern that originally operated from a garage and was the mastermind of a college dropout, created 300 millionaires the moment it went public. Considering the control these international chains wield over the global economy today, we should support every startup for we may miss out on the next big thing out of mere negligence.
Red Bull’s Amphiko Academy supports entrepreneurs in order to push them past the idea development stage and into the market penetration phase. Over the course of 10 days, the participants receive not only expert mentorship; they are exposed to influential entrepreneurs and trailblazing ideas that the rest of the world is not yet privy to. Over the following 18 months, they develop business, personal and strategic development plans that later turn into multi-million business models. Started in 2014, the Academy has been hosted in South Africa, Brazil and USA.
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